(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
It's been the subject of allegation and rumour for over a decade, but now a damning United States Senate report has detailed post-9/11 interrogation tactics used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The report outlines what it terms "brutal" and "ineffective" interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects.
The Senate Intelligence Committee also says the CIA misled the White House and Congress with inaccurate claims about the program's usefulness in thwarting attacks.
Darren Mara reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
It was the report considered so potentially damning the US boosted security at its embassies around the world ahead of its release.
The heavily redacted report nonetheless details interrogation methods widely regarded as torture.
It says they failed to lead to actionable intelligence or evidence that would prevent an imminent terror threat to the US.
It also accuses the CIA of misleading the US Congress in the running of the program known internally as Rendition, Detention and Interrogation, which took place from 2002 to 2007 during the presidency of George W. Bush.
The program included interrogation methods such as waterboarding, slapping, humiliation, exposure to cold and sleep deprivation.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein has described the revelations as brutal, and far worse than represented to authorities.
"First, the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were not an effective way to gather intelligence information. Second, the CIA provided extensive amounts of inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to the White House, the Department of Justice, Congress, the CIA Inspector General, the media and the American public. Third, the CIA's management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed. And fourth, the CIA program was far more brutal than people were led to believe."
As the 500-page declassified summary of the committee's report was released, President Barack Obama admitted that the CIA's actions had been counterproductive and contrary to American values.
US Vice President Joe Biden says the report is a watershed moment for the US.
"The most important piece is we're big enough, strong enough and consistent enough to say we made a mistake. We made a mistake. We're exposing it. That will strengthen us worldwide, it will not weaken us, and that it will make it more difficult for the mistake to be able to ever be made again."
Despite the report's revelations, Mr Biden has refuted claims the report itself is a stain on America's reputation.
"No, I think it's a badge of honour. Every country has engaged in activity somewhere along the line that it has not been proud of. But think about it. Name me another country that's prepared to stand up and say, 'this was a mistake, we should not have done what we've done, and we will not do it again."
The report's release has been highly politicised.
Senate Republicans withdrew from the investigation in protest and the CIA director had to apologise for spying on the computers of Senate staffers preparing this report.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio says the report endangers America's key alliances in the war on terror in an effort to embarrass the Bush administration.
And he says it won't help cleanse the past.
"No, I don't think so. I think we learn from it and we move forward, but there's no need to put in danger the lives of men and women who served our country, including men and women in the Central Intelligence Agency, who were operating under the legal assurances and orders that they were given at the time."
Speaking on the Senate floor, Republican John McCain indicated he supports the report's publication.
He says he knows from personal experience that torture will produce more bad intelligence than good intelligence.
Senator McCain was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in the 1960s.
He says Americans are entitled to the truth about the program, and he's blasted what he terms a campaign of misinformation seeking to prevent its release.
He's indicated the report's release is worth the risk to national security.
"Terrorists might use the report's re-identification of the practices as an excuse to attack Americans, but they hardly need an excuse for that. That has been their life's calling for a while now."
A statement from CIA director John Brennan acknowledges the CIA detention and interrogation program "had shortcomings and that the agency made mistakes".
However he says intelligence gained from the program was critical to understanding al-Qaeda, and continues to inform counter-terrorism efforts today.
That's not tempered the anger from human rights groups, which say officials who authorised the torture practices must face prosecution.
The American Civil Liberties Union says it's a shocking report and impossible to read without feeling immense outrage.
Amnesty International says the report makes clear that the CIA was acting unlawfully from day one, and its brutal interrogations were not a rogue operation.
Laura Pitter, from Human Rights Watch, says it highlights the violation of international law.
"It's illegal under international law for anyone to follow a blatantly illegal order, but really the ones to blame in this case are the senior US officials that authorised the abuse knowing that it was illegal. They are the ones at the top that need to be held accountable for these crimes."
Former Guantanamo Chief Prosecutor Colonel Moris Davis has told CNN the actions of the CIA may amount to war crimes, implicating government figures who authorised them.
He says there may be international consequences for them.
"If I was providing legal advice to Dick Chaney, Jose Rodriguez and General Hayden and some of the others that are implicated by the report, my advice would be (take your) vacation domestically. Because torture is not only a violation of our domestic law - and the President has again indicated that he's taking a primarily 'look-forward' approach, not back - so, I would be surprised to see him pursue criminal accountability here in the US and certainly with the more Republican Congress coming in in January I don't think there's any real stomach on Capitol Hill to do that."
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