Report on the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

This is the full text of the unclassified US Senate report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. This controversial document, also referred to as the CIA Torture Report, will resonate for decades as Americans debate the after-effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the ensuing War on Terror.

On December 9, 2014, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released the unclassified executive summary of the committee’s five-year review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. The release included redacted versions of the committee’s executive summary and findings and conclusions, as well as additional and minority views authored by members of the committee.

The committee voted to initiate the review on March 5, 2009, with a bipartisan 14-1 vote. Over the following three and a half years, committee staff reviewed more than 6.3 million pages of CIA records, a painstaking process that culminated in the committee’s 9-6 bipartisan vote to approve the study on December 13, 2012.

Months of meetings with the CIA and work to update the study followed, and on April 3, 2014, the committee voted 11-3 to declassify and release the committee’s report. The committee has worked with the Executive Branch over the past eight months to prepare a redacted version designed to protection national security while allowing for the public release of this information.

Key findings

The study’s 20 findings and conclusions can be grouped into four central themes, each of which is supported extensively in the Executive Summary:

1. The CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not effective.
2. The CIA provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to policymakers and the public.
3. The CIA’s management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed.
4. The CIA program was far more brutal than the CIA represented to policymakers and the American public.