Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-ID) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement regarding the impending declassification of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence release of a partisan report on CIA interrogation and detention programs:
“The one-sided report that will be released by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence cost U.S. tax-payers over $40 million dollars to produce, and its authors never interviewed a single CIA official.
“It is unconscionable that the Committee and the White House would support releasing this report despite warnings from our allies, the U.S. State Department, and a new coordinated Intelligence Community document assessing the increased risk to the United States the release of this report poses. We are concerned that this release could endanger the lives of Americans overseas, jeopardize U.S. relations with foreign partners, potentially incite violence, create political problems for our allies, and be used as a recruitment tool for our enemies. Simply put, this release is reckless and irresponsible. We have written to the administration reminding them of these concerns.
“Congress has a legitimate and necessary role to play in conducting serious and constructive oversight of our intelligence agencies and capabilities. This report does not qualify as either serious or constructive. This was a partisan effort that divided members of the committee, and the committee against the people of the CIA. We voted against this report because it is flawed, and voted against declassifying this report because we believed that its release could put American lives at risk, be used to contribute to propaganda against the United States by our enemies, and damage U.S. foreign policy and counterterrorism efforts.
“The American civilian and uniformed personnel who worked tirelessly in the days and months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on our nation to keep us safe and prevent another mass casualty event deserve our eternal gratitude, not politically–motivated attacks. As a nation at war, we need a coherent detention and interrogation policy in order to extract valuable intelligence about terrorist networks from captured operatives. The Obama Administration has no detention policy, and it has hindered U.S. efforts to fight terrorism globally.”
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