In what might be his last stand as a US Senator, Mark Udall (D-Colo.) delivered a blistering floor speech, in which he revealed classified details about the CIA torture program and demanded the resignation of agency director John Brennan.
One day after the release of the Senate intelligence committee’s grisly torture report, Sen. Udall said, “the deeper more endemic problem lies in a CIA, assisted by a White House, that continues to try to cover up the truth.”
As a member of the intelligence committee, Sen. Udall has had access to classified information and documents, including a 2009 CIA internal review of its torture program, conduced by then-director Leon Panetta. The existence of that investigation was first made public in 2013 by Sen. Udall himself during a committee hearing. At the hearing, he described the paper as agreeing with many of the committee’s own conclusions.
More importantly to Sen. Udall, the investigation directly contradicted public statements and testimony by the agency’s current director, John Brennan.
“In my view the Panetta review is a smoking gun,” Sen. Udall said, “I believed then, as I do now, that it’s important to make public its existence.”
“And that’s what I’m here today. To disclose some of its key findings and conclusions on the Senate floor.”
He went on to describe some of the findings, which the CIA has tried to keep secret – even from the intelligence committee, which has retained only a small portion of it.
“The Panetta review found that the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Congress, the president, and the public on the efficacy of its coercive techniques,” Sen. Udall disclosed. He added that the Panetta review identified dozens of documents that include inaccurate information justifying torture; that it includes findings that the CIA “often tortured detainees before trying any other approach;” and used torture even when prisoners provided intelligence through less coercive means.
Senator Udall said the CIA’s refusal to release the full Panetta review leads to “one disturbing finding: Director Brennan and the CIA today are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture. The CIA is lying. This is not a problem of the past, but a problem that needs to be dealt with today.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, White House Spokesperson Josh Earnest had nothing but high praises for Director Brennan, calling him a “decorated professional and a patriot.”
“The President has relied for years now on the advice of John Brennan,” said Earnest. “The President believes he has done an exemplary job.”
But Senator Udall argued that the White House is part of the problem, and has not been a willing partner in the release of the torture report. “The White House not led in this issue,” he said.
Udall went on to recall the agency’s efforts to stonewall examinations of its criminal activity, and the administration’s indifference.
“The CIA has lied to its overseers and the public, destroyed and tried to hold back evidence, spied on the Senate, made false charges against our staff and lied about torture and the results of torture,” he said, “and no on had been held to account.”
“Far form being a disinterested observer,” he continued, referring to obstruction of the investigation, “the White House played a central role from the start.” Udall pointed to 9,400 documents that were withheld from the committee by the White House, and said the redactions in the torture report are a “case study” in the administration’s refusal to be transparent.
“This administration, like so many before it, has released information only when forced to it,” he said. “By a leak, by court order, or by an oversight committee.”
To make things right, Sen. Udall demanded the resignation of CIA Director Brennan and called on President Obama to “purge his administration of high levels officials who were instrumental to the development and running” of the torture program, many of whom have since been promoted and rewarded within the intelligence community.
Sen. Udall also referred to a CIA inspector general report that confirmed the intelligence committee’s allegations that the CIA had improperly spied on committee staffers as they prepared the torture report. He demanded that the entire IG report—and the entire torture report–be declassified and revealed to the public.
Having lost his re-election bid in November, Udall called on Americans across the country to push their elected representatives to review and push for the release of more classified documents.
“This is the only way that secret government and democracy can co-exist,” he said.
You can watch the part of Sen. Udall’s speech detailing the classified Panetta Review above.
