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Former CIA Officials Furious They Can’t Review Senate Torture Report

Scott Greer Contributor
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Several former CIA officials are outraged that the Senate withdrew its offer to allow them to read an extensive report on interrogation techniques that many of them are implicated in.

The report deals with the controversial issue of “enhanced interrogation” (labelled torture by some) and other techniques used by the CIA following 9/11. According to the Associated Press, there are about a dozen CIA officers who were supposed to see the report before it went public. On Friday, the former officers were told they would no longer be allowed to see the report until it was released to the general public.

“I am outraged,” John Rizzo — a former high ranking CIA officer and one of the officials promised the report — told the AP. “They are accusing people of misleading Congress, of misleading the Justice Department, and they never even asked to talk to us. And now they won’t let us read the report before it is made public.”

California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the intelligence committee producing the report, originally agreed to let the officials in question see the investigation results under the conditions that they could only view it in a secure facility and they would sign confidentiality agreements that they wouldn’t leak any information to the media.

Now, only former directors and deputy directors of the CIA will be able to view the investigation document before it is officially released in the coming weeks.

Many believe that the report will cast a damning light on the intelligence agency and the interrogation practices used against alleged terror suspects. Anonymous sources say the report states that agents involved in interrogating terror suspect often went over the limits set by the Justice Department and that none of the information gleaned from “enhanced interrogation” was incredibly vital.

The majority of the Republicans on the intelligence committee and CIA officials who have seen the report disagree with its findings.

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