WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Wyden says the CIA is trying to blunt the impact of an upcoming Senate report examining the harsh treatment of al-Qaida detainees by insisting on censoring the pseudonyms used for agency officers in the document.

“The intelligence leadership is doing everything they can to bury the facts,” said Wyden, D-Ore., a Senate Intelligence Committee member and frequent critic of the spy agency.

The Senate, the CIA and the White House are negotiating over what should be blacked out for national security reasons in the 600-page summary of the report that is set for public release after the November elections.

President Obama and other senior officials have said the CIA’s use of waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation and other harsh techniques on some detainees constituted torture. Many current and former CIA officers dispute that.

The Senate report asserts that the harsh treatment didn’t work and that CIA officials misled Congress and other government agencies about it. Also to be released is a CIA response, and a separate one by Senate Republicans, which challenge the report’s conclusions.

CIA officials say they fear the publication of officer pseudonyms – often just a first name – would lead to the unmasking of undercover officers. Readers could track the same person in different jobs and places, making it easier to find their identity.

Without the pseudonyms, Wyden says, the report would be harder to understand because readers wouldn’t be able to distinguish different CIA officers.

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