CIA deceived White House, public over 'brutal' interrogations: report

Baku. 9 December. REPORT.AZ/ The CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation program for terrorism suspects and its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged, a Senate report said on Tuesday.

The program, devised by two agency contractors to squeeze information from suspects after the Sept. 11 2001 attacks, was ineffective and never led to the disruption of a single plot, the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

The program ran from 2002 to 2006 and involved questioning al Qaeda and other captives in secret detention facilities in various countries, including Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Thailand.

The report, which followed a five-year investigation, found the techniques used were "far more brutal" than the CIA told the public or policymakers. Its release prompted a boost of security at U.S. facilities abroad.

"This document examines the CIA's secret overseas detention of at least 119 individuals and the use of coercive interrogation techniques - in some cases amounting to torture," committee chair Dianne Feinstein said.

The CIA dismissed the findings, saying the interrogations did result in valuable information. Man Republicans condemned the report, which was put together by the committee's Democratic majority, saying it would put Americans at risk, informs Report citing Reuters.

Specific examples of brutality cited include the November 2002 death from hypothermia of a detainee held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor at a CIA prison.

The report said the CIA had tried to justify its use of the program by giving examples of what it called "thwarted" terrorist plots and suspect captures, but the "representations were inaccurate and contradicted by the CIA's own records."