The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s "enhanced interrogation program" in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, released on Tuesday, has exposed the agency's failures and laid bare to the extent of brutality Washington's chief spying agency had enforced during the Bush-era.

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The opposition has long-criticized the CIA program as "un-American" for its torture practices, which Senate investigators said goes against the country's values.

According to the report, mid-level CIA operatives had employed gruesome torture tactics, such as sleep deprivation, "rectal hydration" and "rectal feeding," from "black sites" or secret prisons across the globe in order to draw information from detainees.

Additionally, the report asserts that contrary to the CIA's previous claims that water boarding had not been used, several apparatus typically associated with the brutal interrogation technique were found at various black sites.

Earlier, CIA officials associated with the program claimed that it held less than 100 terror suspects and had carried out controversial interrogation techniques to only about a third of them.

However, the newly-released document revealed that the agency had actually held 119 detainees, 26 of whom were unjustifiably imprisoned.

At least one detainee died from hypothermia after having been forced to hold a stress position on the cold floor for hours, and more than 15 prisoners had been tortured without the green light from agency headquarters.

Overlooking the extent of abuse suffered by the prisoners under the CIA's hands, the program appears to have failed in producing accurate and reliable information, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Diane Feinstein said.

A review of 20 detainee interrogation cases deemed "successes" by the CIA were found to have been otherwise.

Information gleaned from detainees through the use of harsh interrogation tactics had proved irrelevant in preventing terror threats. Others had been inaccurate or fabricated, and in certain cases, were found to have been acquired instead, through other means, the report detailed.

Given the program's irregularities, the CIA had routinely misled Congress and Bush administration officials that the torture tactics had led to intelligence successes.

Case in point is the highly-debated issue on the discovery of the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which the CIA claims had been acquired through the program. But intelligence committee officials refute that the information had been obtained by an FBI agent who had questioned the detainee prior to having been subjected to torture.

The 400-page summary represents the most cutting congressional indictment of the CIA in nearly 40 years and marks the culmination of a long-standing dispute between CIA and Democratic lawmakers over the scope of the report's declassification.

TagsCIA Torture report, Enhanced interrogation progam, 9/11 attacks, Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, bush administration, osama bin laden