FP’s Situation Report, presented by the UAE Embassy: Obama is caught in the middle of the torture report fallout; CIA tortured even though it knew torture didn’t work; Torture report could benefit 9/11 suspects held by the U.S.; and much more.

By David Francis and Sabine Muscat

President Barack Obama refuses to take sides as the fallout from the torture report continues. The CIA maintained Wednesday that its post-9/11 enhanced interrogation program yielded intelligence that saved American lives and prevented attacks. The Senate report categorically denies these claims. Obama, who has been accused of abandoning the intelligence community in the past, is now walking a fine line between supporting the CIA — the White House said the president has “complete confidence” in CIA Director John Brennan — and his liberal base, which has long been appalled by the CIA’s enhanced interrogations.

The New York Times’ Peter Baker: “Mr. Obama has struggled to find balance on this issue since taking office nearly six years ago. He made one of his first acts as president signing an order that banned the use of torture by the C.I.A. But he resisted pressure from activists to hold anyone accountable for the waterboarding of suspects.… As a president who receives regular briefings on terrorist threats and is responsible for stopping them, Mr. Obama sees the situation differently than he did as a candidate denouncing the incumbent of the other party. In his statement on Tuesday, Mr. Obama not only did not condemn [former President George W.] Bush for authorizing the techniques, but he also sounded a note of empathy.” More here.

The CIA tortured prisoners even though the agency knew torture didn’t work. In November 2001, CIA officials began to investigate the effectiveness of torture as a means to obtain the truth from prisoners. The CIA had a body of work on the topic: The agency had acknowledged the shortcomings and ineffectiveness of torture in the past. However, when President George W. Bush issued a secret memo ordering the CIA to round up suspects, the agency ignored its own history.

FP’s Gopal Ratnam: “Based on past practices and lessons learned, the agency had in fact concluded that ‘inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers,’ according to the Senate report, which cited a January 1989 correspondence from the agency to William Cohen, who then was vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cohen, a Republican from Maine, later became President Clinton’s defense secretary before retiring in early 2001.” More here.

The torture report could benefit the 9/11 conspirators detained by the United States. The report could provide ammunition for the attorneys of those accused, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, to demand the release of classified documents that could benefit their clients. Military experts also said that even if the men are found guilty, the torture report could preclude the United States from pursuing the death penalty against them.

The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe: “The report provided details that are relevant in the cases of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others who are accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, as well as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi who is before a military tribunal for his role in the 2000 attack in Yemen on the USS Cole. The six men have been held at Guantanamo Bay since they were transferred there from CIA prisons overseas in September 2006.” More here.

More on the fallout from the torture report below.

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Who’s Where When Today

10:00 a.m. General John Allen, special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, speaks at the Wilson Center. Watch it live here. 1:30 p.m. DHS Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute speaks about cybersecurity at the Center for National Policy. More details here. 2:00 p.m. The U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Ebola holds a press conference at U.N. headquarters.

What’s Moving Markets

Writing for Foreign Policy, Edward Harrison on low oil prices’ double-edged sword: Low oil prices “can be a big boost to the American economy. Because the United States is a net importer of oil, the pickup in disposable income for consumers should more than offset any losses to American oil producers. But this simple math may get a lot more complicated because of the nexus between interest rates and high-cost production from deepwater, shale, and oil sands.” More here.

The Associated Press’s Ali Akbar Dareini on Iran and low energy prices: “Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that the sharp fall in global oil prices is the result of ‘treachery,’ in an apparent reference to regional rival Saudi Arabia, which opposed production cuts.” More here.

FP’s Jamila Trindle on the House renewing terrorism risk insurance: “Although lawmakers were close to a compromise last summer, the bill to renew the program became mired this week in eleventh-hour negotiations over a separate spending bill to keep the government open, which lawmakers must pass before gaveling the 113th Congress closed, which they aim to do Thursday.” More here.

Torture Report

The New York Times’ Scott Shane on the divide over the report: “The Senate report, approved by the Democratic majority of the Intelligence Committee led by Ms. Feinstein, of California, portrays them as overseeing a dark, regrettable chapter in history. [CIA] officials made it clear on Tuesday that they will not stay quiet while the report shapes their reputations or that of the agency.” More here.

The Daily Beast’s Kimberly Dozier on the man who used to be in charge of CIA’s interrogation program: “Jose Rodriguez, head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center at the time, said the newly-revealed abuses caught him off-guard.” More here.

Writing for Foreign Policy, Zak Newman reports on a chance to close Guantánamo: “On his first full day in office as president, Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nearly six years later, his administration has finally begun delivering on its promise.” More here.

The Christian Science Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi reports on international reactions to the report. “If that’s as violent as the reaction to the Senate report gets, the Obama administration will be relieved. Having prepared for the worst, the administration is hoping the world remembers the report is about past activities — and that the report’s release is evidence of a democracy strong enough to air its transgressions for the world to see.” More here.

FP’s Reid Standish on Poland’s former president coming clean about hosting a black site: “Speaking to journalists in Warsaw, Kwasniewski said the prison was part of Poland’s ‘deepened’ intelligence cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism after 9/11, and that he had no knowledge of what went on inside it. Kwasniewski, who was president from 1995 to 2005, said that the CIA prison was eventually closed under pressure from the Polish government.” More here.

China’s Global Times on the U.S. getting away with human rights violations: “In many developing countries including China, there has even been applause for US democracy after the release of these reports…. The US is able to spin such wicked acts as prisoner abuse to become a positive through mobilizing pro-US forces worldwide. It’s a result of US soft power.” More here.

The New York Times’ James Risen and Matt Apuzzo on original plans for detainees: “Just six days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush signed a secret order that gave the Central Intelligence Agency the power to capture and imprison terrorists with Al Qaeda. But the order said nothing about where they should be held or how the agency should go about the business of questioning them.” More here.

The Daily Beast’s Shane Harris and Tim Mak on what the report didn’t reveal: “None of the interrogators were interviewed. The roles of dictatorships like Syria and Libya in the CIA rendition programs were left unexplored — or least hidden behind layers of confounding redactions that make many passages of the report incomprehensible.” More here.

The New York Times’ Charlie Savage: “The Obama administration has urged a court to reject a request to disclose thousands of pages of documents from a Justice Department investigation into the torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency.” More here.

USA Today’s Kim Hjelmgaard and Jane Onyanga-Omara report more U.S. embassies are issuing warnings. More here.

Islamic State

Reuters on U.S. airstrikes: “The United States launched 20 airstrikes against Islamic State militants in recent days.… Since Monday, U.S. forces conducted seven strikes against the militant group in Syria and led 13 strikes in Iraq with its partner nations.” More here.

FP’s John Hudson on a White House official’s take on Syria: “In a grim assessment of the U.S.-backed Syrian rebels, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that the country’s armed opposition will not be able to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad now or in the foreseeable future, despite the existence of a Pentagon program to train and equip 5,000 rebels per year.” More here.

Voice of America on Islamic State attacks: “A series of attacks in and near Baghdad by the Islamic State group killed at least 15 people on Wednesday, Iraq medical and military officials said.” More here.

FP’s Justine Drennan on the Syrian refugee crisis: “On Tuesday, wealthy countries pledged to take in thousands more refugees — for a grand total of 100,000 — but aid organizations say that’s nowhere near enough.” More here.

From the Associated Press: “An al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen says it targeted a U.S.-Yemeni air base with rockets in retaliation for a U.S. raid on the group’s hideout to free an American hostage.” More here.

Afghanistan

The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov: “[A]s U.S.-led forces withdraw from Afghanistan and the virulently anti-Shiite Islamic State gains a foothold in the region, many Afghan Shiites are beginning to wonder how long before they too are targeted.” More here.

The New York Times’ Joseph Goldstein and Rick Gladstone on the Afghan reaction to the torture report: “Afghanistan’s president said Wednesday that he was astounded by the new revelations of Central Intelligence Agency torture in his country and elsewhere, adding his name to the global reaction of shock, anger and cynicism that had swelled over the past 24 hours.” More here.

FP’s Siobhan O’Grady on how corruption will be Afghanistan’s biggest problem going forward. “The combat mission in Afghanistan is officially over. But the massive reconstruction effort there — larger in size than the Marshall Plan — isn’t, nor is the era of U.S.-funded waste, fraud, and abuse, warned John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction. The United States still has $14 billion to spend on rebuilding the corrupt, war-torn country.” More here.

Writing for FP, Pakistani Daud Khattak is skeptical that the improved relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan will lead to true cooperation to rein in militant networks. More here.

The Associated Press’s Lolita C. Baldor on the United States releasing its final three detainees from the Parwan Detention Center near Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. More here.

Iran

The Hill reports Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Tex.) take on an Iran nuclear deal: Cruz “said Wednesday that President Obama’s desire to cut a nuclear ‘deal with Iran is going to be the ObamaCare of the second term.’” More here.

Russia

Bloomberg’s Olga Tanas and Ilya Arkhipov on growing concern in Russia over the decline of the ruble: “Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the government is urging large companies to even out their sales of foreign revenue as officials try to stem the ruble’s slide to a record and the central bank weighs a second straight interest-rate increase tomorrow.” More here.

Reuters’s Kylie MacLellan reports NATO is helping Britain hunt for a Russian submarine spotted off the Scottish coast in November. More here.

The Wall Street Journal’s Ian Talley on new funding for Ukraine: “U.S. lawmakers are heading toward authorizing new aid for Ukraine that could unlock at least $1 billion in new financing for the country as its economic turmoil deepens from its standoff with Russia.” More here.

The New York Times’ Michael R. Gordon: “The Pentagon has developed a range of military options to pressure Russia to correct its violation of a landmark arms control agreement, a senior Defense Department official told Congress on Wednesday.” More here.

Israel

The New York Times’ Isabel Kershner and Said Ghazali on the violent death of a prominent Palestinian Fatah official: “The episode threatened to grow into a crisis between Israel and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority amid calls for a halt in security coordination between the two sides from some Palestinian Authority officials, Hamas and other opponents of the policy, which is unpopular with many Palestinians.” More here.

FP’s Elias Groll with background and video footage of the incident. More here.

North Korea

Newsweek’s Damien Sharkov on an uptick in North Korean military activity: “The North Korean army is dramatically stepping up its military exercises, prompting fear of further provocations of its southern neighbor, sources from South Korea’s ministry of defense told local news agency Yonhap.” More here.

38 North’s Jack Liu reports that despite threats, a fourth North Korean nuclear test is unlikely: “[A]ccording to recent commercial satellite imagery of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, there are no preparations being made for a detonation in the near future.” More here.

Ebola

The Associated Press’s Michelle Faul and Clarence Roy-Macaulay on Ebola in Liberia: “Health workers sent to Sierra Leone to investigate an alarming spike in deaths from Ebola have uncovered a grim scene: piles of bodies, overwhelmed medical personnel and exhausted burial teams.” More here.

Sexual Assault

Writing for Foreign Policy, Paul Kirby and Kathleen Kuehnast on sexual assault in war zones: “Research over the last decades has shown that not all conflicts are marked by sexual violence to the same extent or in the same way, an important corrective to ideas of it as inevitable.” More here.

And finally, CNN reports on the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi. “In Satyarthi’s case, it was to end the exploitation of children for financial gain. In the case of Yousafzai — the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, at 17 — it was for girls’ right to an education, a quest that nearly cost her her life when Taliban fighters called her out and shot her in the head two years ago.” More here.