CIA detention, interrogation set for probe

WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee will examine the CIA's detention and interrogation program, the committee's top two members said Thursday.

Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Vice Chairman Kit Bond, R-Mo., announced the review in a news release.

"The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has agreed on a strong bipartisan basis to begin a review of the CIA's detention and interrogation program," Feinstein and Bond said in a statement. "The purpose is to review the program and to shape detention and interrogation policies in the future."

The release said the examination will look into how the CIA set up and ran detention and interrogation programs, how the agency determined whether detainees possessed relevant information and whether the CIA "accurately described the detention and interrogation program to other parts of the U.S. government, including the Office of Legal Counsel and the Senate Intelligence Committee."

The review will also look at whether the program complied with "official guidance, including covert action findings, Office of Legal Counsel opinions, and CIA policy." The committee will also evaluate "intelligence information gained through the use of enhanced and standard interrogation techniques."

The intelligence committee inquiry will operate at the same time as the White House conducts a similar review at the direction of President Barack Obama. Feinstein and Bond said the committee investigation would take about one year to complete.

U.S. prosecutors have been conducting a criminal investigation since January 2008 into the destruction by CIA officers of videotape records of some detainee interrogations.