The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the C.I.A. for an internal study done by the agency that lawmakers believe is broadly critical of the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program, but was withheld from congressional oversight committees.
The committee’s request comes in the midst of a yearlong battle with the C.I.A. over the release of the panel’s own exhaustive report about the program, one of the most controversial policies of the post-Sept. 11 era.
The Senate report, totaling more than 6,000 pages, was completed last December but has yet to be declassified. According to people who have read the study, it is unsparing in its criticism of the now-defunct interrogation program: a chronicle of C.I.A. officials’ repeatedly misleading the White House, Congress and the public about the value of brutal questioning methods that, in the end, produced little valuable intelligence.
Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, disclosed the existence of the internal report during an Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday and said he believed it was begun several years ago, “is consistent with the Intelligence’s Committee’s report” and “conflicts with the official C.I.A. response to the committee’s report.”
“If this is true,” Mr. Udall said during a hearing on the nomination of Caroline D. Krass to be the C.I.A.'s top lawyer, “this raises fundamental questions about why a review the C.I.A. conducted internally years ago — and never provided to the committee — is so different from the C.I.A.'s formal response to the committee study.”
The C.I.A. responded to the committee report with a vigorous 122-page rebuttal that challenged both the Senate report’s specific facts and overarching conclusions. John O. Brennan, one of Mr. Obama’s closest advisers, who took over the C.I.A. this year — and who himself denounced the interrogation program during his confirmation hearing — delivered the agency’s response to the Intelligence Committee himself.
It is unclear what the C.I.A. specifically concluded in its internal review.
Mr. Udall said he would not support Ms. Krass’s nomination until the C.I.A. provided more information to the committee about the interrogation program.
Ms. Krass did not respond directly to Mr. Udall’s statements about the internal C.I.A. review.
Dean Boyd, a C.I.A. spokesman, said that the agency agreed with a number of the Senate review’s findings, but found “significant errors in the study.” “C.I.A. and committee staff have had extensive dialogue on this issue, and the agency is prepared to work with the committee to determine the best way forward on potential declassification,” he said.
据《纽约时报》12月17日报道,在当天提名卡罗琳•克拉斯为中央情报局(CIA)首席律师的听证会上,美国众议院情报委员会要求中情局提供该机构关于拘留和审讯项目的内部报告。有议员认为,该内部报告也对审讯项目持批评态度。
参议院情报委员会去年12月通过了一份针对中情局“强化审讯”手段的调查报告。据知情人士透露,这份长达6000页的报告毫不留情地批评了该机构业已停止的审讯项目,认为中情局官员多次误导白宫、国会和公众对于残酷的审讯项目价值的认知,而这些审讯产生的有用情报事实上微乎其微。对此,中情局以一份长达122页的报告进行了“还击”,不仅对情报委员会调查报告的具体事实进行了辩驳,还推翻了报告的结论。
科罗拉多州民主党参议员马克•尤德尔在当天的听证会上称,中情局几年前就开始起草一份关于审讯项目的内部报告,该报告基本内容与参议院情报委员会的调查报告一致,但与中情局的“还击”报告相冲突。他表示,不会支持克拉斯的任命,除非中情局向情报委员会提供更多有关审讯项目的信息。
中情局发言人迪安•博伊德说,中情局赞同参议院情报委员会的一些调查结果,但是发现“报告中有重大错误”。他说:“中情局和情报委员会工作人员已经就此展开广泛对话,双方将一起确定可能的解密的最佳方式。”