Opinion

Release the CIA torture report

A Senate panel wants to add a book-length tome to the nation's reading list: a 400-plus-page summary of this country's repugnant record of torturing terrorist suspects and lying about the program. President Obama should reject CIA entreaties to tone it down, and approve its release.

The study, four years in the making, is disturbing on every level. Insiders given an advance look say it distills the findings of a 6,200-page opus on Bush-era tactics used by the CIA to extract information from some 100 suspects it hid in secret prisons.

The report confirms earlier accounts of waterboarding and other torture tactics. It also claims the standard-issue contentions that the tactics turned up useful leads weren't true.

If those findings sound familiar, then the report has other uses. It's a stinging defeat for the CIA, which has battled with the Senate Intelligence Committee over its inquiry. The standoff led to an angry showdown with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who assailed the agency for computer snooping and alleging that Capitol Hill staffers broke the law in collecting information.

The story line marks a decided flip for Feinstein. She's normally a spy-agency booster, sticking up for the drone program and widespread electronic eavesdropping. But on this issue - the Senate's independence and its duty to document so-called "enhanced interrogation" - she's proved vigilant and tough-minded. Welcome back from the dark side, DiFi.

The report also puts the CIA and President Obama on the spot in different ways. The process gives the spy agency the right to declassify the information released to the public. It's a chance to come clean or hide critical facts. It needs to show the public that it's no longer in the torture trade.

Obama, who banned such tactics after taking office, doesn't want to pick a fight with the CIA. But he must respect the work put in by the Senate panel to clear the air on a critical topic. It's no time to play favorites and whitewash one of the nation's worst chapters.

The Senate summary won't be pleasant reading. But the findings must be made public. Obama needs to back up his past efforts to curb spy agency misconduct and release the report.