THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Despite the continuing use of torture for the pleasure and enjoyment of W, Dickwahd and the other Busheviks, the CIA has known for some time that the value of any intelligence gained by torture if grossly overblown.

The internal report, more than 1,000 pages in length, came to be known as the Panetta Review after Leon E. Panetta, who, as the C.I.A.’s director, ordered that it be done in 2009. At least one of its authors won an agency award for her work, according to a recent briefing that the agency’s inspector general gave to staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The contents of the Panetta Review, which remain classified, are now central to simmering battles over the Intelligence Committee’s conclusions about the efficacy of torture and the C.I.A.’s allegations that committee staffers improperly took the review from an agency facility. The C.I.A. has publicly distanced itself from the report’s findings, saying that it was an incomplete and cursory review of documents, and has blocked its release under the Freedom of Information Act...

The internal C.I.A. review ordered by Mr. Panetta was an attempt by the agency to better understand millions of documents that the C.I.A. was handing over to the committee as it began its investigation into the Bush-era detention program.

The result of the internal review, led by Peter Clement, who at the time was the agency’s deputy director of intelligence for analytic programs, was a series of memos on what the documents revealed about the internal workings of the program.

One of the report’s findings, according to people who have seen the document, was that the C.I.A. repeatedly claimed that important intelligence to thwart terror plots and track down Qaeda operatives had come from the interrogation sessions of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed when, in fact, the intelligence had other origins.

The C.I.A. has long maintained that the interrogation of Mr. Mohammed, a chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, was central to disrupting a number of terror plots, including Qaeda plans to attack the West Coast. Mr. Mohammed was one of the C.I.A. detainees subjected to the most brutal interrogation methods, including waterboarding.

Sadly, with the Republicans in control of Congress, we can expect a renewal of torture by the CIA. Torture having been accepted as a new Republican core value, any hint of its lack of effectiveness is to be expunged along with any mention of official criminality.