GOP, CIA Respond to Torture Report

The Republican Party and the Central Intelligence Agency have refuted the findings of a more than 6,000 page report compiled by the US Senate into the agency's torture program which began after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among the report's findings are instances of sexual abuse of inmates by interrogators and other criminal conduct. The report also found that some of the detainees were totally innocent. The Department of Justice has said it will not seek to prosecute those responsible.

The head of the CIA John Brennan responded to the report in a statement that read in part,  " we acknowledge that the detention and interrogation program had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes. The most serious problems occurred early on and stemmed from the fact that the Agency was unprepared and lacked the core competencies required to carry out an unprecedented, worldwide program of detaining and interrogating suspected al-Qa'ida and affiliated terrorists."

The statement also says,  "In carrying out that program, we did not always live up to the high standards that we set for ourselves and that the American people expect of us."

MSNBC reports that some members of the Republican Party took issue with the Senate report. Among those who disagreed with the report's findings were Marco Rubio, Saxby Chambliss, Richard Burr, Jim Risch, Daniel Coats, and Tom Coburn.

Although these senators did not agree with the report, John McCain praised the work of the report and its release.

In addition to confirming that torture was a part of the CIA's program, the report says that the CIA deliberately lied about and misrepresented the program to the rest of the US government and the US population. For example, President George W. Bush was not informed about the details of the program until four years after it began.