DENVER – Sen. Mark Udall called on the White House again Thursday to declassify a report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program during the war on terror.
Udall sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which has a 6,300-page report that details the CIA’s “enhanced-interrogation” techniques. It is classified, and Udall wants President Barack Obama’s endorsement to release it to the public.
“I believe the report will speak for itself. It will detail a program that is brutal and ineffective,” Udall said in an interview with the Herald.
In his letter Thursday, he thanked Obama for his recent statement that he is “absolutely committed” to declassifying the report.
“I also wanted the White House to know in a respectful way that I’m going to take them at their word. The longer this sits there, the higher potential that nothing happens,” Udall said.
Udall wants to see as much of the report as possible released in the next several months, he said.
The report has opened a serious rift between the CIA and the Senate, and senators say the CIA spied on the computers the committee’s staff used to assemble the report.
CIA director John Brennan denied hacking Senate computers, saying “nothing could be further from the truth” at a March 11 interview at the Council on Foreign Relations. Brennan said he is not trying to thwart the report’s release, but he disagrees with some of its conclusions.
“We also owe it to the women and men who basically did their duty in executing this program to try to make sure that any historical record of it is a balanced and accurate one,” Brennan said.
Although Udall has been one of the most outspoken critics in Congress of the country’s spy agencies, his Republican opponents have said he didn’t do enough to raise alarms about domestic spying programs. He said Thursday his critics don’t know what they are talking about.
“I’ve been speaking to these issues many years,” Udall said. “I was actively working any way I could to inform the public and do my oversight in a proper way.”
Udall has seen the reports, but he can’t reveal their contents without violating laws on classified information.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
On the Net
Udall’s letter: http://bit.ly/1ozxi4m
