Republican Senate report: CIA 'saved lives'

File photo of the lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building in McLean, Va. (Reuters)

The CIA’s enhanced interrogation program “saved lives and played a vital role in weakening Al Qaeda,” according to a minority report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released on Tuesday.

The GOP report was a rebuttal to majority Democrats' study criticizing the controversial former CIA program as ineffective and destructive.

“We have no doubt the CIA’s detention program saved lives and played a vital role in weakening Al Qaeda while the Program was in operation,” said the report written by Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; Richard Burr, R-N.C.; James Risch, R-Idaho; Dan Coats, R-Ind.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

“When asked about the value of detainee information and whether he missed the intelligence from it, one senior CIA operator [redacted] told members: ‘I miss it every day.’ We understand why,” the senators wrote.

The report disputed the majority study’s argument that the interrogation techniques were not effective when used on Guantanamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah.

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