AFP/Reuters

Washington

President Barack Obama acknowledged yesterday that US officials had “tortured some folks” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but urged that they not be judged too harshly.

The US administration is expected to release a declassified Senate report in the coming days that will detail abuses by intelligence agents targeting extremist groups in the wake of the attacks.

“Even before I came into office, I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong,” Obama told reporters. “We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”

Apparently preparing the ground for the report, which lawmakers say that they expect to be made public with days, Obama said that intelligence personnel had been under extreme pressure in 2001 and after.

“People did not know whether more attacks were imminent and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this,” he said. “It’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard and under enormous pressure, and are real patriots.”

“But having said all that, we did some things that were wrong, and that’s what that report reflects,” he added. “And my hope is that this report reminds us once again that, you know, the character of our country has to be measured in part not by what we do when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard.”

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has long faced allegations that its “enhanced interrogation techniques” used between 2002 and 2006 as it hunted Al Qaeda operatives, amounted to rights abuses.

The Senate probe has also generated a side scandal of its own, following CIA chief John Brennan’s admission this week that his officers improperly penetrated the computers of congressional investigators.

Brennan has faced calls for his resignation, but Obama said that he retained “full confidence” in him.

The US president also defended US efforts to pressure Russia to withdraw support from Ukrainian separatists, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin was defying logic by ignoring the damage Western sanctions had inflicted on Russia’s economy.

“We have done everything we can to support the Ukrainian government and to deter Russia from moving further into Ukraine,” Obama said at a news conference. “But short of going to war, there are going to be some constraints in terms of what we can do if President Putin and Russia are ignoring what should be their long-term interests.”

“Objectively speaking, President Putin should want to resolve this diplomatically, to get these sanctions lifted, get their economy growing again,” he said. “But sometimes people don’t always act rationally.”

Obama also touched on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

He said the United States will screen delegates from Ebola-hit countries travelling to Washington for an unprecedented Africa summit, and voiced confidence that appropriate measures have been taken.

“Folks that are coming from these countries that have even a marginal risk, or an infinitesimal risk of having been exposed in some fashion, we’re making sure we’re doing screening on that end as they leave the country,” Obama said.

He added there would be “additional screening” when they were in the United States for the three-day unprecedented summit gathering some 50 heads of state from around Africa.

“We feel confident the procedures we have put in place are appropriate,” Obama insisted.

The United States, working through the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies, was also planning to “surge some resources down there and organisation to these (West African) countries that are pretty poor and don’t have a strong public health infrastructure so that we can start containing the problem”.

Obama sought to reassure the public that the Ebola virus was not easily transmitted.

“The key is identifying, quarantining, isolating those who contract it and making sure that practices are in place that avoid transmission,” Obama said. “It can be done, but it’s got to be done in an organised, systematic way and that means we have ... to help these countries accomplish that.”