CIA chief defends agency after torture report

The head of the US spy agency CIA has defended his agency from accusations in a Senate report that it tortured terrorism suspects with no security benefits to the country.
John Brennan said on Thursday that while his agency “fell short of holding accountable some officers” who went beyond the legal limits on interrogation, he asserted that the CIA “did a lot of things right” in a time when there were “no easy answers”.
“Our reviews indicate that the detention and interrogation program produced useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives,” Brennan told a news conference at the agency’s Virginia headquarters.
On Tuesday, a US Senate report condemned the CIA for brutality and deception. The “enhanced interrogation techniques [EITs]” were authorised by the administration of George W Bush after the September 11, 2001attack on the US.
Brennan also said that it was “unknowable” if those techniques – widely condemned by American and international critics as torture – led to the capture and death of Osama bin Laden