"We may look back and say we should never do this again, that is fine. But it was legal, it was directed by the [US] president and the individuals were cleared by the Justice Department," Burr said Thursday.
The senator added that the new report on CIA activities, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, does not offer the American people any new knowledge.
"…as horrific as it is and as long as it is, the American people learned nothing new," Burr said referring to the 500-page long report.
The intelligence gained from the program helped us identify and capture important al-Qa’ida terrorists and disrupt their ongoing plotting.
— Richard Burr (@SenatorBurr) December 10, 2014
The Republican Senator told Sputnik that he found the process of the Senate review of the CIA interrogation practices at US detention facilities odd because "a [US] Justice Department review had said these weren't illegal".
"They were within the boundaries of the law. The individuals were well within their authority to carry them out," Burr stressed.
The enhanced interrogation practices by the CIA, carried out between 2001 until 2006, were deemed legal by the Bush administration's Justice Department. However, in 2009, US President Barack Obama's administration banned any government agency from relying on those legal opinions.
