Members of Colorado congressional delegation respond to CIA torture report

A scathing report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday shows that the Central Intelligence Agency misled both the Bush White House and Congress about enhanced interrogation measures that it used against detainees in the several years following the 9/11 attacks.

One U.S. senator from Colorado was pushing for the documents to be made public, but one congressman from the state fears that the report could compromise America’s national security.

Sen. Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believes the report provides for greater transparency between the American public and its leaders.

“By releasing the Intelligence Committee’s landmark report, we affirm that we are a nation that does not hide from its past, but learns from it,” Udall said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “We’ve always been a forward-looking nation. But to be so, we must be mindful of history. That’s what this study is all about. It’s why I have no doubt we’ll emerge from this dark episode with our democracy strengthened and our future made even brighter.”

GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn views the publishing of the report differently. In a statement to KRDO NewsChannel 13 Lamborn said:

“The partisan conclusions reached in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on CIA enhanced interrogation techniques is designed to humiliate our nation and the intelligence community. It also has the potential to endanger the lives of Americans. I believe in transparent government, but I also believe in a government that is able to use all the tools at its legal disposal to protect American citizens. There should be no doubt that harsh interrogation techniques produced actionable intelligence from a handful of terrorists that could not have been obtained any other way. There is a real danger that this report could imperil our ongoing intelligence gathering partnerships, techniques and capabilities.”