John McCain: 'Torture stained our national honor'

Republican Sen. John McCain took to the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon and wholeheartedly defended the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture, while some Republican leaders objected to its release and blasted it for being partisan.

And McCain said so many objected to its release because the report proved torture was ultimately ineffective.

In a nearly 10-minute speech, McCain said the actions taken by the CIA “stained our national honor, did much harm and little practical good.

“What might come as a surprise, not just to our enemies, but to many Americans, is how little these practices did to aid our efforts to bring 9/11 culprits to justice and to find and prevent terrorist attacks today and tomorrow,” McCain continued.

He went on to say “And I suspect the objection of those same officials to the release of this report is really focused on that disclosure – torture’s ineffectiveness – because we gave up much in the expectation that torture would make us safer. Too much.”

McCain also said that using torture makes us no better than the very terrorists we’re trying to fight.

“Our enemies act without conscience. We must not,” McCain said. “We need not risk our national honor to prevail in this or any war.”