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Senator Udall: Senate Intelligence Committee Study Corrects Record, Ensures No Future President, CIA Repeats Grievous Mistakes of Detention, Interrogation Program


Udall Led Years-Long Fight to Hold CIA, White House Accountable for Brutal, Ineffective Torture Program

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–December 9, 2014.  Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado), who led efforts to hold the White House, CIA and intelligence agencies accountable to the American people, welcomed the declassification today of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s exhaustive study of the CIA’s brutal, ineffective and misguided detention and interrogation program.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released the executive summary of the report today following months of negotiations with the White House and CIA — a process Udall fought to keep moving forward. Udall also had threatened to take any step necessary to get the truth out if negotiators for the committee and executive branch could not reach an accord that kept faith with the important transparency the report represents.

“The release of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program is an historic victory for our nation, the Constitution, and our system of checks and balances. This study ensures that the truth about the CIA’s brutal torture program finally comes out and that the agency can learn from its repeated missteps and start to restore its integrity,” Udall said. “My goal from day one has been holding the CIA accountable, shedding light on this dark chapter of our history, and ensuring neither the CIA nor any future administration would make these grievous mistakes ever again. The report released today achieves those goals and affirms that we are a nation that does not hide from its past, but learns from it.

“We can protect our national security without compromising who we are as Americans. This landmark study — and the millions of pages of agency documents and testimony it is based upon — shows that torture is not effective and does not make us safer.”

Udall has been the leading proponent of swiftly declassifying the Senate Intelligence Committee’s exhaustive study on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. Following the Senate Intelligence Committee’s vote this spring to declassify the study, Udall called on the White House to speed declassification of the study and prevent the CIA from interfering with its public release.

Udall also has aggressively pushed back on intelligence officials and anonymous leaks that have sought to discredit the Senate Intelligence Committee’s study and prevent the truth about the CIA’s brutal torture program from coming out.

Source: udall.senate.gov

Related Article:

Senate Intelligence Committee Releases Report on CIA Detention, Interrogation Program


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