Powell Maybe Not Told Early About Cia Techniques

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate report on the CIA's interrogation and detention practices after the 9/11 attacks concludes that the agency initially kept the secretary of state and some U.S. ambassadors in the dark about harsh techniques and secret prisons, according to a document circulating among White House staff. The still-classified report also says some ambassadors who were informed about interrogations of al-Qaida detainees at so-called black sites in their countries were instructed not to tell their superiors at the State Department, the document says. A former senior CIA official said the secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell, eventually was informed about the program and sat in meetings in which harsh interrogation techniques were discussed. President Barack Obama has branded some CIA techniques torture and ordered them stopped, but he also relies heavily on the spy agency, which still employs hundreds of people who were involved in some way in the interrogation program. The Senate report, the State Department proposes to say, leaves no doubt that the methods used to extract information from some terrorist suspects caused profound pain, suffering and humiliation. The document then lists a series of questions that appear to be designed to gauge what reporters, members of Congress and others might ask about the Obama administration's response to the Senate report.