The meticulously documented 528-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's secret rendition, detention, and interrogation program is remarkable for its candor. In blunt language it describes the horrors of the black site secret prisons and the efforts that were made to get terrorist suspects to talk. It effectively makes two overriding points, first that the interrogations were brutal, worse than anyone had been led to believe, and second, that they did not produce any information that might not have been developed otherwise.

Regarding oversight of the program, the report claims that the Agency deliberately misrepresented the value of the program and did not adequately brief congress on exactly what it was doing. Even a supportive President George W. Bush was not provided any details until 2006.