The US Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday faced a new obstacle in its efforts to make public its report on the torture of prisoners once held by the CIA after last-minute warnings from US President Barack Obama’s administration that the report’s release could ignite new unrest in the Middle East and put US hostages at risk.
The warnings were delivered on Friday during a telephone call between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Intelligence Committee head Senator Dianne Feinstein. According to congressional officials, Kerry warned that US allies were concerned that the report could incite violence in the Middle East.
Feinstein had planned to make the report public next week, but it is uncertain whether the discussion with Kerry would affect that timetable.
The exchange between Kerry and Feinstein is just the latest turn in the protracted dispute over the Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the detention and interrogation of CIA prisoners during former US president George W. Bush’s administration.
The committee voted this year to declassify the 6,000 page report’s executive summary, but the release has been held up for months because of tense negotiations between the committee and the Obama administration over how much of the report would be declassified. It is unclear why Kerry waited until just before the report was scheduled to be released to sound alarms, since there has long been concern about the potential global impact of the report’s findings.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration backed making the report public next week.
“The president has long advocated the declassified release of this report, so we certainly welcome the news from the committee that they’re planning to do so next week,” Earnest said.
Some Democrat members of the Intelligence Committee said they saw no reason to delay the release of the report.
“It is hardly surprising that there is an 11th-hour objection to releasing this vital report because there have been objections at every hour for quite some time,” Senator Ron Wyden said. “My own view is that many Americans will be deeply angered when they read this report about misdeeds and mistakes and out-and-out falsehoods. It is critically important that this report not be pushed under the rug, buried before the American people have a chance to see it.”
With control of the Senate about to change hands, there has been rising concern among Democrats that the report’s Republican opponents could move to shelve it once they gain control of the Intelligence Committee in January. This has given new urgency to the push by Feinstein and other Democrats to finish negotiations with the Obama administration and make the report public.
If there are any new delays, Wyden noted there is an obscure Senate procedure that could be used to declassify the report. Senator Mark Udall, who sits on the panel, has suggested that he too would consider taking action on the Senate floor to ensure that the report is made public.
On Friday, his office issued a statement saying that, “Senator Udall remains committed to getting the truth out about the CIA’s misguided, brutal and ineffective detention and interrogation program.”
A spokeswoman for the US Departmentof State said on Friday that the department has directed all US diplomatic facilities overseas to examine security arrangements in advance of the report’s release “to ensure that our personnel, our facilities and our interests are prepared for the range of reactions that might occur.”
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