No Proof CIA Torture Program Led to bin Laden, Senate Report Says

Undated file photo shows al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Image: AP Photo/Associated Press

The CIA's torture program did not help find Osama bin Laden, according to a still-classified Senate report.

People familiar with the report told The Associated Press that the investigation concluded the "harsh interrogation techniques" the CIA used with high-level terror suspects did not provide the key evidence that led to bin Laden, contrary to what former Bush administration and CIA officials have claimed in the past.

The 6,300-page report was prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee over the course of four-plus years. It's at the center of a hot dispute between the CIA and the Senate over privacy, as the spy agency is accused of hacking into its overseer's computers. The CIA allegedly searched Senate staffers' computers to find out how they gained access to an internal CIA review of the torture program in what could be viewed as a major breach in the relationship between the spy agency and its congressional overseers.

Anonymous congressional aides and outside experts said the report concludes the CIA didn't gather key evidence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the main orchestrator of the Sept. 11 attacked who was waterboarded 183 times by the CIA, or from Abu Faraj al-Libi, a senior Al-Qaeda operative.

Both detainees provided some information on Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the courier who led the CIA to bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. But the information provided was not critical, the AP reported, since both simply confirmed previous CIA knowledge about the courier.

Although the report is still classified, officials have discussed some of its findings and leaked some of its most important conclusions. The key one: The CIA misled the Bush administration and Congress about the programs that led to the torture of many detainees at a network of overseas illegal prisons. The CIA has disputed these findings.

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is pushing for the release of a summary of the report later this week, but it might take months before parts of the actual review are published.


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