On Torture Report, Colorado's Udall Leaves Subtlety at Door on the Way Out

WASHINGTON - To Senator Mark Udall, the Central Intelligence Agency 's effort to mislead the public about its brutal interrogation program is not a thing of the past.

Mr. Udall, a Colorado Democrat who pressed his case against the agency even as he packed up his office after his re-election campaign defeat last month, sees the agency's strong effort to rebut the findings of the Senate's report on the torture of terrorism suspects as proof the intelligence community has not learned from its mistakes.

'We did all these things and had the opportunity over the last six years to come clean, and the C.I.A. just fought tooth and nail to prevent that from happening,' Mr. Udall said in an interview after the stinging attack he delivered on the Senate floor against the intelligence community and the White House. 'Now we are doing the same thing today that we did six or eight or 10 years ago by denying this happened.'

Mr. Udall, 64, an avid outdoorsman more often associated with environmental, energy and fiscal issues during his congressional career, has become a fierce critic of the nation's burgeoning spy and antiterror apparatus, from the mass collection of telecommunications data to the expansion of drone strikes under the Obama administration. He said he was exploring ways to continue in that role after leaving Congress - to keep public attention fixed on intelligence operations he sees as in conflict with the nation's character.

'There has to be accountability,' Mr. Udall said. 'The longer you wait to address the question of accountability, the more it festers and there is more potential that people lose interest and we repeat these very acts at some point in the future.'

After one term in the Senate and five in the House, Mr. Udall had one of his biggest moments in the final days of his tenure. He took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to not only condemn the torture documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, but to denounce the response from John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director.

Mr. Brennan, like other intelligence community leaders from 2001 to 2009, conceded that some abuses occurred but argued that useful intelligence was obtained. He and others also dispute the findings that C.I.A. officials misled both the Bush administration and the public about the interrogation program, a key element of the Senate report.

Skirting close to disclosing classified information on the floor, Mr. Udall pointed to a still-secret internal review done by the C.I.A. under the former director Leon E. Panetta that was obtained by the Senate. He said the Panetta review showed the agency had determined for itself that much of the Senate report was true.

'Director Brennan and the C.I.A. today are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture,' he said on the floor. 'In other words, the C.I.A. is lying.'

Mr. Udall didn't stop at the agency. He strongly criticized President Obama for failing to 'rein in' the agency and its leadership and for not embracing the report's findings. Instead, the White House has focused on the president's decision to end the interrogation program instead of the issues of whether it provided valuable intelligence or whether those who conducted it should be prosecuted.

Mr. Udall also faulted the administration for keeping some of those responsible for the program in leadership positions.

'The president needs to purge his administration of high-level officials who were instrumental to the development and running of this program,' he said. 'He needs to force a cultural change at the C.I.A.'

Suddenly, the idea circulating in Washington that Mr. Udall could join the administration in some capacity seemed unlikely.

Republicans carefully reviewed Mr. Udall's floor speech to see if he divulged secret information, and came to the conclusion he had not. Given earlier comments that he was willing to read the Senate report on the floor if it was not made public, Republicans said they were also prepared to thwart him on that front.

'We were ready,' said Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee. 'I was prepared to go to the floor and take him on if he started to release classified information. But I really thought at the end of the day he would not want that to be his legacy.'

While Mr. Udall incited the ire of his Republican colleagues, he earned respect from fellow Democrats.

'Nobody in this place fought harder than Mark Udall to shed light on these tactics,' said Senator Michael Bennet, his Colorado colleague. 'His goal from Day 1 has been holding the C.I.A. accountable, shedding light on this dark chapter of our history, and ensuring that neither the C.I.A. nor any other agency or future administration would make the grievous mistakes that were made here.'

As for his complaints about President Obama, Mr. Udall, who played a round of golf as a member of one the president's exclusive foursomes, said he admired the president and noted he has been a strong backer of the administration on its health care, climate and foreign policy initiatives.

'But that doesn't mean I don't take my own compass bearings on civil liberties and human rights,' Mr. Udall said.