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 Inside the Central Intelligence Agency, intelligence officials
expressed resentment over what they said was the unfairness of a
Senate Intelligence Committee report released on Tuesday that
harshly criticized the spy agency's detention and questioning of
militant suspects.
As Senate Democrats urged more information about the program be made
public and CIA officials be held accountable, CIA Director John
Brennan was scheduled to speak privately to the agency's employees
on Wednesday about the Senate report.
Brennan, who is close to U.S. President Barack Obama, on Tuesday
acknowledged the agency made mistakes, but rejected some key Senate
panel findings, including its conclusion that harsh interrogation
techniques did not produce valuable intelligence about militants
that could not be obtained by other means.
"CIA is frequently asked to do difficult, sensitive and sometimes
risky things on behalf of the country," a U.S. intelligence official
said. "Congress doesn’t do massive studies of CIA’s successful
efforts such as preventing another massive casualty attack on the
United States."
"The intellectual dishonesty of the (Senate) report will eventually
be revealed and in the end CIA’s position about the value of the
detention and interrogation program will stand as the historical
fact," the intelligence official said.
Countries that cooperated with the CIA's post-Sept. 11, 2001
detention and interrogation program expressed dismay that its
details became public.
"Who now in any form is going to want to continue cooperation in the
fight with global terrorism and with opponents of our world view,
democracy, in this domain when the system is so dramatically liable
to leak?" Polish Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Piechocinski told
Poland's TVN24 broadcaster.
Poland has acknowledged allowing the CIA to operate a secret
interrogation center on its territory.
As details of the CIA program dribbled out over the years, the
agency has faced Justice Department investigations - no prosecutions
materialized - and worried it would lose cooperation from allied
intelligence services.
But even some who are sympathetic to the CIA say the agency bears
the brunt of blame for the damage.
"It's just a self-inflicted wound of the worst kind," said former
CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz.
TUG OF WAR
In the continuing tug of war over the CIA program, retiring Sen.
Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, took to the U.S. Senate floor to
disclose findings of an earlier CIA review that he said backs up the
Senate Intelligence Committee majority report.
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The conclusions of the CIA study, known as the "Panetta Review"
after former CIA director Leon Panetta, "fly directly in the face of
claims made by senior CIA officials past and present," Udall said,
urging its declassification.
He called for new legislation banning coercive interrogation
techniques.
CIA officials have said the Panetta Review was not an investigation
that reached conclusions, but merely a factual account of the
program's history.
Significant new limits on the CIA's role and powers seem unlikely.
Obama has placed the agency at the forefront of battling Islamic
militants worldwide, including using armed drones.
Obama is known to rely heavily on the counsel of Brennan, formerly
his top White House counter-terrorism advisor. And the CIA faces a
more sympathetic Congress next year, when Republican Sen. Richard
Burr, who was critical of the 'torture" report, replaces Democratic
Sen. Dianne Feinstein as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?
Obama in 2009 issued an executive order barring the CIA from
operating detention facilities and conducting "enhanced
interrogation."
The CIA on Tuesday said it had already taken steps to address issues
raised in the report, including better management of sensitive
programs and enhanced vetting of CIA officers who participate in
them.
Philip Zelikow, who as a top State Department official in 2006 wrote
a secret memo arguing some of the CIA techniques were
unconstitutional, said the CIA's assurances were insufficient.
The Senate report "does raise some important issues regarding the
management of covert activities," he said.
The report "will have for some time, and some time can mean for
years, a chastening effect. But over time the agency does what it
does," said Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer who questioned
prisoners after 2001.
"I think generations will forget," he said. "And the institution
strives to serve the executive. And there will be mistakes again."
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and David Rohde in
Washington and Pawel Sobczak, Marcin Goettig, Anna
Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Wiktor Szary in Warsaw; Editing by James
Dalgleish)
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