Feinstein backs report’s release, despite threats

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday defended the release of a controversial report on CIA enhanced interrogation techniques, saying it needed to be done before Republicans take control of the chamber. 

{mosads}In an interview on CNN, the California Democrat acknowledged that she would be aggrieved if Americans died because of violent responses to the report. 

“I would feel very badly of course, I mean what do you think, Wolf Blitzer?” Feinstein said. “But we lose control at the end of this year, the Republicans take control, and there’s some evidence that this report would never see the light of day.”

The U.S. military went on alert as a precautionary measure ahead of the release of the report, which describes methods such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and rectal feeding used by the CIA under President George W. Bush.  

“There have been beheadings, there have been attacks, without this report coming out.” Feinstein said. “This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t clean our house.”

“The world is an unstable place,” she added. “[Islamic militants] may seize upon it, they may not, but they are going to continue to behead, they are going to continue to destroy, they are going to continue to kill innocent people until they are stopped.”

Feinstein, as well as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have argued that terrorists do not need an extra excuse to attack Americans because they will try to do so anyway. 

Feinstein accused CNN of crowing about the threat of retaliatory attacks. “You’ve done a good job certainly of hyping the warnings,” she said. 

The senator has also been deeply involved in a controversy over CIA interference with Senate investigators. 

“They went into our computers illegally to take out information,” Feinstein said. “The CIA has pulled out the stops to prevent this from coming out.”