WASHINGTON -- The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee is stalling the release of its detailed investigation of the CIA's use of torture, alleging the administration has blacked out too many of the key details.
The controversial report, clocking in at more than 6,000 pages, was produced by Senate investigators over several years. Its executive summary was expected to be released this week, after a review by the intelligence community. But intelligence committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) warned last week when she got the report back that it had significant redactions that needed to be evaluated.
The redactions eliminate the proof for the report's damning conclusions, Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday.
"I have concluded the redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions," she said. "Until these redactions are addressed to the committee’s satisfaction, the report will not be made public."
The committee approved the report more than a year and a half ago and voted this past spring to have the executive summary declassified.
In the meantime, it was revealed that the CIA had spied on the investigators who were assembling the document, and CIA Director John Brennan denied it until he was forced last week to admit his agency's intrusion.
Feinstein said in her statement Tuesday that she was appealing to President Barack Obama to reveal more of the information.
"The White House and the intelligence community have committed to working through these changes in good faith," Feinstein said. "This process will take some time, and the report will not be released until I am satisfied that all redactions are appropriate.
“The bottom line is that the United States must never again make the mistakes documented in this report," she added. "I believe the best way to accomplish that is to make public our thorough documentary history of the CIA’s program."
Earlier leaks about the report suggest it will detail not only the so-called "enhanced interrogation" technique of water boarding, but also other episodes of torture, including beatings, holding a man's head under ice water, and slamming his head into a wall.
Last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asserted that 85 percent of the report is untouched, and that it will "provide the public with a full view of the Committee’s report on the detention and interrogation program."
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), another critic of the agency, praised Feinstein, and suggested Clapper's statement was disingenuous.
"It is also true that strategically placed redactions can make a narrative incomprehensible and can certainly make it more difficult to understand the basis for the findings and conclusions reached in the report," Udall said in a statement Tuesday.
"The CIA should not face its past with a redaction pen, and the White House must not allow it to do so," Udall added.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.
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