U.S. President Barack Obama remarked Friday on an impending report from the US Senate probe into the controversial CIA torture practices used to prevent terrorist attacks.

The U.S. leader banned the techniques, which were later branded as inhumane, when he took office in 2009.

An investigative committee of U.S. senators will to release a report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” after 9/11. US President Obama has cautioned the public not to judge the findings too quickly.

“We did a whole lot of things that were right [after 9/11], but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values,” Obama said, referring to policies in place under his predecessor George W. Bush.

Reminding the public of the “enormous pressure” on authorities at the time to prevent another terrorist attack, the U.S. president warned Americans “not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job these folks had.”

Obama also defended CIA director John Brennan, who recently came under fire following reports of spying on the investigative committee.

According to officials familiar with the report, the investigative panel found that the CIA did not obtain better information as a result of using its controversial torture methods, which included water boarding.

It reportedly will conclude that the CIA purposely misled US lawmakers about the benefits of its “enhanced interrogation techniques” over normal questioning methods.

The writers of the report were also said to have avoided using the term “torture,” favoring instead “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

The findings of the report prepared by the Senate committee are expected to be made public in the coming days. Earlier this year, the panel presented a voluminous draft of the investigation to the White House, which then returned a declassified and redacted version of the report.

In 2009, Obama said that “waterboarding”, one of several controversial interrogation methods used by US intelligence agencies during George W Bush’s administration, constituted torture, and that “whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake”.

Obama has been steadfastly supportive of the top echelons of the intelligence establishment, while occasionally criticising their methods. His remarks about torture conducted by the CIA were among his most candid to date.