Top GOP Lawmakers warn of violence overseas if CIA torture report is released

Top GOP Lawmakers warn of violence overseas if CIA torture report is released

U.S. Embassies and bases on high alert as Democrats plan to release explosive report on the CIA's use of torture.

On the eve of the public release of a report detailing the CIA’s practice of torturing detainees, Federal officials are bracing for possible violence overseas. Several lawmakers including the House Intelligence Chair, Republican Mike Rogers, have predicted that the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report will result in “violence and deaths.”

“Lives will be lost overseas if this document gets out,” Representative Rogers said Monday during an interview with CNN . He added, “Our foreign partners are telling us this will cause violence and deaths. Foreign leaders who have approached the government saying you do this, it will cause violence and deaths. Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths.”

Rogers questioned why the report needs to be made public, noting that the Justice Department already investigated the CIA’s use of torture. The report contains evidence that the CIA went beyond what was legally allowable, and that the agency lied to the White House, Congress and the Department of Justice about the effectiveness of the program. Top GOP Lawmakers fear that the release of this report will be used as recruiting propaganda for Islamic extremist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda.

During his daily press briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest commented that if the report is released on Tuesday  the proper security measures are in place at U.S Embassies and military bases around the globe. He also defended the release of the declassified version of the CIA use of torture report citing the need for transparency in keeping with American values. The Pentagon has reportedly put  thousands of U.S. Marines on alert at embassies overseas and has issued warnings to U.S. military personnel stationed abroad though there is no specific credible threat.

Senate Democrats are planning to release a redacted version of the still classified 6,000-page report that is expected to be highly critical of the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Al Qaeda fighters detained at secret facilities in Europe and Asia , including the use of waterboarding as a form of torture while questioning detainees.

Former President George W. Bush defended the CIA’s use of the enhanced interrogation techniques to elicit information from terror suspects in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to CNN. On Sunday former CIA director Michael Hayden rejected the accusations that the CIA was misleading  about its use of enhanced interrogation techniques adding that the agency has been “tried and convicted in absentia.”

Chair of the Intelligence panel Senator Dianne Feinstein ( D-California) reportedly received a phone call from Secretary of State John Kerry in which he voiced concerns from U.S. allies about violence erupting in the Middle East over the content of the report. Senator Feinstein has reportedly commented that the content of the CIA torture report uncovers “startling details” about the detention and interrogation program which used coercive techniques in order to obtain intelligence about future terror plots and activities of Al Qaeda.

In 2009 President Obama signed an Executive Order outlawing the use of torture when interrogating detainees. At that time Senator Feinstein initiated an investigation into the use and efficiency of enhanced interrogation by the CIA. The report was completed in 2012 at a cost of nearly $40 Million.

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