Speed Reads
Torture Report
CIA Director John Brennan defends torture program while admitting he doesn't know if it worked
CIA Director John Brennan on Thursday vigorously pushed back against the Senate's report on his agency's torture program, insisting that though the program was not without its flaws, the CIA "did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country strong."
"In many ways this was uncharted territory for the CIA, and we were not prepared," he said.
Brennan objected to many conclusions in the Senate's report, arguing that torture was an "abhorrent" lapse by some agents, but not common practice. And refuting a central conclusion in the report — that torture produced no key intelligence — Brennan said it was "unknown and unknowable" whether there was a "cause and effect" relationship between the two. --Jon Terbush