President Obama has repeatedly said he favors declassifying the report, which the public really ought to see. And should he release the summary in something close to the form in which it was sent to him, then his decision will likely end an unusually public standoff between top senators and the CIA, each of whom accused the other of spying illegally as the report was being compiled and written.

If, on the other hand, Obama delays the release much longer, or bows to the intelligence community and decides to black out the report's most damaging findings, then we may find ourselves on the brink of a serious escalation between the legislative and executive branches in Washington — a war over what kind of secrets the government should be allowed to keep and, more to the point, who gets to decide.

The doomsday device in this fight, which the Senate has rolled out a few times in the past but has never actually used, is an arcane, almost 40-year-old provision known as Senate Resolution 400. (Not the catchiest name ever, but you know, Hollywood thrillers have worked with less.) It's a drastic measure that's now being openly discussed as a serious option inside the Senate. But before we get to all that, let's take a step back and consider what's really going on here

Remarkably, given the nature of modern Washington, almost nothing specific from the Senate's report has actually leaked into public view. But according to insiders and some published accounts, there are two main headlines that emerge from it, both scathingly critical of the CIA. The first is that, contrary to the agency's assertions, torture as an interrogation tactic — that is, the infamous waterboarding, among other "enhanced" techniques — didn't actually work very well. The second is that intelligence officials lied outright to Congress, repeatedly, about this.

Those who have worked on or read the report sent to the White House say it contains explosive details, even given what we already know about the interrogation program. "I think the American people are going to be profoundly disturbed and genuinely shocked by the content of this," Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, an intel committee member, told me this week.

Obama, you may recall, came to office vowing to overturn Bush-era secrecy, and at the end of his first year in office he issued clear guidelines (by Washington standards, anyway) for declassifying documents. One of the more interesting provisions in that order, half-buried in Section 1.7, was that the government would not be allowed to keep information classified in order to "conceal violations of law" or "prevent embarrassment to a person, organization or agency."

It seems like a pretty good bet, considering what's in the report, that the CIA has some concerns about violations of law and potential embarrassment to a person, organization or agency. Maybe even all three.

But of course that's not what the agency's director, John Brennan, has told the president in arguing against declassification. According to people briefed on the issue, Brennan has argued that the report is deeply flawed and might lead to unrest around the world, jeopardizing agents in the field and national security. (The agency has written a detailed rebuttal, which is also likely to be made public.)

Obama could reject this argument, of course, and follow through on his repeated vows to lead the most transparent administration in history. But there's not a lot of optimism about that inside the committee or among open government groups, given Obama's past deference to intelligence officials on issues like secret wiretaps and drones. The expectation seems to be that the White House will approve some version of the report that's kind of like those maddening Eminem songs you hear on FM — faithful enough to get the basic point across, but with enough skips to be sure it doesn't shock anyone.

It's easy enough to fault Obama if that's what comes to pass, but really, we have a structural problem when it comes to trusting the executive branch with declassification. In the age of terrorism, more than at any time in the past, a president is always hearing that the risk of any disclosure is dire and immediate — that releasing painful and embarrassing truths might trigger the next attack or ruin our chance to stop it. And if there is an attack, even if it isn't at all connected to that disclosure, the president knows he will be squarely blamed. There's tremendous pressure to err on the side of secrecy.

And as you might expect, the only intelligence the president is generally urged todeclassify is that which exonerates the intelligence agencies or proves their point —and often in instances when congressional overseers know there's more to the story and aren't allowed to say so publicly. When you control the information that gets into the public domain, you also control the debate.

This is where Resolution 400 potentially comes into play. When the Senate passed that resolution in 1976, creating the Select Committee on Intelligence, it gave itself the extraordinary power to declassify information without the president's approval — albeit with considerable exertion.

Basically, in order to invoke that provision successfully, the intel committee, chaired by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, would first have to vote to bring the report before a rare closed session of the full Senate. If the president didn't object in writing within five days, the full Senate would then weigh the report in closed session and vote on whether to unilaterally declassify it.

Senators have gone through the initial process of invoking Resolution 400 in the past, the last time during George W. Bush's second term, but it's generally been considered a way of getting the president's attention rather than a realistic option. That's probably the main reason it's being trotted out now, too. No doubt some senators were willing to talk with me about it openly this week because they're trying to pressure the White House.

But there's also a growing sense among senators that, if Obama doesn't disclose the summary more or less as is, Feinstein might be exasperated enough to actually ramp up the doomsday device, with the backing of some senior members. "I am going to use whatever tools it takes, including Senate Res 400, to declassify the torture report," Wyden told me flatly, more than once.

And there's compelling reason to do that, provided, as the committee says, the report has already been redacted to protect CIA operatives. The truth is that America has never been exceptionally adept at safeguarding basic values in the face of new and unfamiliar threats. The government imprisoned more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. It terrorized intellectuals at home and sanctioned assassinations abroad in those early, ominous years of the Cold War.

What we've learned is that sooner or later you have to acknowledge those transgressions in order to transcend them. As Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, a former intel committee member, puts it, "This report gives our country the best chance to reconcile ourselves to what we've done, and then move on."

If Obama won't make the most of that chance, the Senate just might, and probably should.

By Anton Zverev

DONETSK Ukraine (Reuters) - A powerful Ukrainian rebel leader has confirmed that pro-Russian separatists had an anti-aircraft missile of the type Washington says was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and it could have originated in Russia.

In an interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, acknowledged for the first time since the airliner was brought down in eastern Ukraine on Thursday that the rebels did possess the BUK missile system and said it could have been sent back subsequently to remove proof of its presence.

Before the Malaysian plane was shot down, rebels had boasted of obtaining the BUK missiles, which can shoot down airliners at cruising height. But since the disaster the separatists' main group, the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, has repeatedly denied ever having possessed such weapons.

Since the airliner crashed with the loss of all 298 on board, the most contentious issue has been who fired the missile that brought the jet down in an area where government forces are fighting pro-Russian rebels.

Khodakovsky accused the Kiev authorities for provoking what may have been the missile strike that destroyed the doomed airliner, saying Kiev had deliberately launched air strikes in the area, knowing the missiles were in place.

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Children walk past a piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines jet downed over Ukraine, in Petrop …

"I knew that a BUK came from Luhansk. At the time I was told that a BUK from Luhansk was coming under the flag of the LNR," he said, referring to the Luhansk People’s Republic, the main rebel group operating in Luhansk, one of two rebel provinces along with Donetsk, the province where the crash took place.

"That BUK I know about. I heard about it. I think they sent it back. Because I found out about it at exactly the moment that I found out that this tragedy had taken place. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its presence," Khodakovsky told Reuters on Tuesday.

"The question is this: Ukraine received timely evidence that the volunteers have this technology, through the fault of Russia. It not only did nothing to protect security, but provoked the use of this type of weapon against a plane that was flying with peaceful civilians," he said.

"They knew that this BUK existed; that the BUK was heading for Snezhnoye," he said, referring to a village 10 km (six miles) west of the crash site. "They knew that it would be deployed there, and provoked the use of this BUK by starting an air strike on a target they didn’t need, that their planes hadn’t touched for a week."

"And that day, they were intensively flying, and exactly at the moment of the shooting, at the moment the civilian plane flew overhead, they launched air strikes. Even if there was a BUK, and even if the BUK was used, Ukraine did everything to ensure that a civilian aircraft was shot down."

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The convoy of hearses with the remains of the victims of Malaysia Airlines MH17 downed over rebel-he …

CIVILIAN FLIGHT

Eileen Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Khodakovsky's remarks confirmed what U.S. officials had long been saying, that "Russian-backed separatists have received arms, training and support from Russia."

But she dismissed the rebel leader's efforts to blame the Kiev government for the downing of the airliner, calling it "another attempt to try to muddy the water and move the focus from facts."

Washington believes that pro-Russian separatists most likely shot down the airliner "by mistake," not realising it was a civilian passenger flight, U.S. intelligence officials said.

The officials said the "most plausible explanation" for the destruction of the plane was that the separatists fired a Russian-made SA-11 - also known as a BUK - missile at it after mistaking it for another kind of aircraft.

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A Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet takes part in military exercises near Mykolayiv, on September 22, 2006 …

"While we may not yet know who actually fired the missile, we have assessed that it was an SA-11 and that it came from a Russian-backed separatist-controlled area," Lainez said. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has said it is convinced the airliner was brought down by an SA-11 ground-to-air missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Other separatist leaders have said they did not bring the Malaysian plane down. Russia has denied involvement.

Khodakovsky is a former head of the "Alpha" anti-terrorism unit of the security service in Donetsk, and one of the few major rebel commanders in Donetsk who actually hails from Ukraine rather than Russia.

There has been friction in the past between him and rebel leaders from outside the region, such as Igor Strelkov, the Muscovite who has declared himself commander of all rebel forces in Donetsk province.

Khodakovsky said his unit had never possessed BUKs, but they may have been used by rebels from other units.

Planes carrying MH17 bodies leaves UkrainePlay Video

"The fact is, this is a theatre of military activity occupied by our, let’s say, partners in the rebel movement, with which our cooperation is somewhat conditional," he said.

"What resources our partners have, we cannot be entirely certain. Was there (a BUK)? Wasn’t there? If there was proof that there was, then there can be no question."

Khodakovsky said it was widely known that rebels had obtained BUKs from Ukrainian forces in the past, including three captured at a checkpoint in April and another captured near the airport in Donetsk. He said none of the BUKs captured from Ukrainian forces were operational.

While he said he could not be certain where the BUK system operating on rebel territory at the time of the air crash had come from, he said it may have come from Russia.

"I’m not going to say Russia gave these things or didn’t give them. Russia could have offered this BUK under some entirely local initiative. I want a BUK, and if someone offered me one, I wouldn’t turn it down. But I wouldn’t use it against something that did not threaten me. I would use it only under circumstances when there was an air attack on my positions, to protect people’s lives."

He added: "I am an interested party. I am a ‘terrorist’, a ‘separatist’, a volunteer ... In any event, I am required to promote the side I represent, even if I might think otherwise, say otherwise or have an alternative view. This causes real discomfort to my soul."

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mohammad Zargham)

How the Buk Missile System Work (Video)

By Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A shooting and bombing attack on a bus near Baghdad killed 52 prisoners and nine policemen on Thursday, Ministry of Justice sources said, as politicians faced pressure to form a power-sharing government that can tackle a Sunni insurgency.

The bus was transporting prisoners from a military base in the town of Taji to Baghdad when it was hit by roadside bombs, the sources said. Gunmen then opened fire. The attack left a burned shell of the vehicle along a rural road.

Much of Iraq's recent bloodshed is linked to sectarian divisions that have deepened since Sunni militants formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized large swathes of northern Iraq last month and declared an Islamic empire.

Sunni militants have been carrying out attacks around the southern edge of Baghdad while in response, Shi'ite militias have been active in rural districts of Baghdad, abducting Sunnis they suspect of militancy. Many later turn up dead. The tit-for-tat attacks have escalated dramatically since the Sunni militant advance towards Baghdad, the most serious challenge to the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011.Mass killings of scores of victims have become a regular occurrence in Iraq for the first time since the worst days of sectarian and ethnic cleansing in 2006-2007.

The motive for Thursday's killings was not immediately clear. In June, 69 prisoners were killed while being transported from an outlying town to a jail in Baghdad. The official account, given by the governor of Hilla, was that militants had attacked the convoy, killing 10 prisoners and one policeman.

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A view of a burnt bus in Taji, north of Baghdad July 24, 2014. A shooting and bombing attack on a bu …

But a police captain, a second police officer and a senior local official told Reuters no attack took place, and that police had killed the 69 men.

Graphic depicting territorial gains of the Islamic State militants: http://link.reuters.com/xan99v

"EXISTENTIAL THREAT"

In northern Iraq, Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who have for weeks been battling Islamic State militants in Jalawla, 115 km (70 miles) northeast of Baghdad, took complete control of the town after overnight clashes. Jalawla lies in disputed territory, and is one of several towns where Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga regional guards have previously faced off against each other, asserting their competing claims over the area. In June, Kurdish forces took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk after government troops abandoned their posts in the face of the Sunni Islamist rebel march towards Baghdad. Kurds have long dreamed of taking Kirkuk and its huge oil reserves. They regard the city, just outside their autonomous region, as their historical capital.

Thursday's violence underscored the urgent need for Iraqi leaders to hold Iraq together as its future as a unified state is increasingly under threat from Sunni Islamist militants and the growing power of sectarian militias.

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This undated file image posted on a militant website on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, which has been verif …

Iraq's million-strong army, trained and equipped by the United States, has largely collapsed, especially in the north after Islamists overran the city of Mosul last month.

Iraq's politicians have been in deadlock over forming a new government since an election in April.

Washington hopes a more inclusive government in Baghdad could save Iraq by persuading moderate Sunnis to turn against the insurgency, as many did during the "surge" offensive in 2006-7 when U.S. troops paid them to switch sides.

Maliki has ruled since the election in a caretaker capacity, defying demands from the Sunnis and Kurds that he step aside for a less polarizing figure. Even some Shi'ite politicians want Maliki to go.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he was "profoundly worried" about violence engulfing Iraq and urged politicians to bury their differences and form a power-sharing government.

"Iraq is facing an existential threat but it can be overcome through the formation of a thoroughly inclusive government -- a government that can address the concerns of all communities, including security, political, social and economic matters," he told a press conference with Maliki in Baghdad.

Iraq's parliament, which had been due to elect the country's president on Wednesday, postponed the vote by a day.

Under Iraq's governing system, in place since the post-Saddam Hussein constitution was adopted in 2005, the prime minister is a member of the Shi'ite majority, the speaker a Sunni and the largely ceremonial president a Kurd.

(Additional reporting by Raheem Salman and Isra' al-Rubei'i; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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61 dead in attack on Iraqi prison convoy

A shooting and bombing attack on a bus near Baghdad kills 52 prisoners and nine policemen.
Parliament due to elect president

Iraqi jihadists order genital mutilation of all women

3 hours ago

Geneva (AFP) - Jihadists in Iraq have ordered that all women between the ages of 11 and 46 must undergo female genital mutilation, which could affect up to four million women and girls in the war-ravaged country, a UN official said Thursday.

The UN's second most senior official in Iraq, Jacqueline Badcock, said, "It is a fatwa (or religious edict) from ISIS, we learnt about it this morning. We have no precise numbers."

The Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), took over large swathes of the country last month and has begun imposing its extreme Salafist interpretation of Islam.

Badcock said that if you took UN population figures as a guide, around "four million girls and women could be affected".

Female genital mutilation is unusual in Iraq and is only practised in "certain isolated pockets of the country", she added.

She said only 20 families from the ancient Christian minority now remain in Mosul, the northern Iraq city which ISIS has taken as the capital of its Islamic state. Most have reportedly fled north into Kurdish-controlled territory.

Badcock said some Christians have converted to Islam, while others have opted to stay and pay the jiyza, the tax on non-Muslim's ISIS has imposed.

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