CIA unlikely to lose power in wake of interrogation report

In part, that is because despite the deep fissures between the CIA and the Senate panel that issued the excoriating interrogation report, the two sides have largely compartmentalized their differences, giving the agency deep congressional backing on a range of covert programs.

More broadly, it is also because as much as Washington struggles to reconcile its democratic ideals with the CIA’s cloak-and-dagger mission, U.S. leaders are repeatedly drawn to the agency’s mystique and capabilities as they face new threats. And the operators say they have long grasped the imperatives of politics when things go sour.

“Folks at CIA are often asked to do risky and difficult things,” said a U.S. intelligence official. “If it were easy to do, someone else would do it. So I think that they understand that being second-guessed when something goes wrong comes with the territory.”