Redactions prompt release of report into CIA interrogations to be delayed
Citing redactions, leader of the intelligence committee holds back on making public the findings of a probe into CIA interrogations
The Obama administration censored significant portions of the findings of an investigation into the CIA's use of harsh interrogation methods on suspected terrorists, forcing the chairwoman of the US Senate intelligence committee to delay their release "until further notice".
The postponement added to serious frictions over the investigation between the administration and legislators, who have been pressing for the swiftest, most extensive publication of the findings on one of darkest chapters in the CIA's history.
Senator Dianne Feinstein announced the delay only hours after the White House returned the document to her after it completed its declassification review. It also came after US President Barack Obama acknowledged hours earlier that interrogators for the spy agency had tortured suspected terrorists.
But Obama also voiced "full confidence" in CIA director John Brennan a day after the agency revealed that an internal investigation found, contrary to Brennan's earlier denials, that agency personnel had broken into a protected database that was supposed to be for the exclusive use of Feinstein's staff.
It was not known what details of the 480-page executive summary, findings and conclusions of the Senate committee's five-year, US$40 million probe were censored during declassification reviews by the CIA and then the White House, which oversaw the process of excising information deemed sensitive to national security.
Reacting to Feinstein's announcement, national intelligence director James Clapper said more than 85 per cent of the report had been declassified and half of the redactions were in footnotes.
"The redactions were the result of an extensive and unprecedented inter-agency process, headed by my office, to protect sensitive classified information," Clapper said. With a political storm bearing down on both the agency and its chief spymaster, Obama rhetorically conceded that waterboarding and other brutal techniques used by the CIA under the George W. Bush administration amounted to torture, which is illegal.