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In a rare and unprecedented action, current CIA Director John Brennan took the extraordinary step and faced the media in an effort to contain the controversy over the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report of the Central Intelligence Agency detention and interrogation of terrorists.

On Tuesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the intelligence panel released a report which sent shock waves throughout Washington on past abuses by the CIA over its harsh interrogations of terror suspects.

The Washington Post reported in rare televised remarks from the agency’s marble lobby before two dozen senior CIA leaders, Brennan said that valuable information was obtained from detainees subjected to the measures, which included waterboarding and “rectal rehydration.” But, he said, it remains “unknowable” whether conventional questioning alone could have yielded the same intelligence gains.

“Let me be clear,” he said in his first public comments since Tuesday’s release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA detention program. “The cause-and-effect relationship between the use of

[harsh tactics] and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable.”

The Post continued Brennan defended the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” as the “right” response at a time when the agency believed al-Qaeda was intent on preparing another wave of terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Senate report validated what many have already known but there is still a highly charged debate on whether actionable intelligence was gathered using these methods.

Many opponents of this report criticize it as being conducted in partisan manner as the committee never interviewed any intelligence operators involved, nor did the committee interview any of the past CIA directors or deputy directors.

The Senate committee stated the reason was the ongoing investigation by the Justice Department.  In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday past CIA Directors and Deputy Directors stated, the excuse given by majority senators is that CIA officers were under investigation by the Justice Department and therefore could not be made available. This is nonsense. The investigations referred to were completed in 2011 and 2012 and applied only to certain officers. They never applied to six former CIA directors and deputy directors, all of whom could have added firsthand truth to the study. Yet a press account indicates that the committee staff did see fit to interview at least one attorney for a terrorist at Guantanamo Bay.

The other aspect which continues to be argued is that members of Congress were never notified of the true extent of this program.

In the same opinion piece the CIA briefed Congress approximately 30 times. Initially, at presidential direction the briefings were restricted to the so-called Gang of Eight of top congressional leaders—a limitation permitted under covert-action laws. The briefings were detailed and graphic and drew reactions that ranged from approval to no objection. The briefings held nothing back.

Continuing Congress’s view in those days was very different from today. In a briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee after the capture of KSM in 2003, committee members made clear that they wanted the CIA to be extremely aggressive in learning what KSM knew about additional plots. One senator leaned forward and forcefully asked: “Do you have all the authorities you need to do what you need to do?”

A comprehensive review needs to be taken to evaluate the effectiveness of techniques and procedures of this program, but it has to be done in a bi-partisan manner without the selective amnesia of members of Congress who did one thing but now state another.

This reminds me of the run up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which everyone supported the conflicts but when the time and circumstances changed everyone only protected their political skin at the expense of the nation.

The nation needs a comprehensive vetting of our intelligence services but not in this highly charged partisan political environment.

With the release of this report, why would any allied intelligence agency want to work with the U.S. when we had Wikileaks, the Snowden affair, and now this!

Why would they work with us!