WASHINGTON--President Barack Obama said a classified report on U.S. interrogation techniques after the Sept. 11 attacks, which could be made public as soon as next week, will show the U.S. used techniques on some terrorism suspects that "any fair-minded person would believe were torture."

Mr. Obama, anticipating that the declassification of the report will reignite the divisive post-Sept. 11 debate in the U.S. over so-called enhanced interrogations, said it would disclose a part of America's history that was wrong and runs "contrary to our values."

"We tortured some folks," Mr. Obama said at a news conference Friday. "We crossed a line."

Mr. Obama urged Americans who are most likely to be outraged by the findings in the report not to be "too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job" that U.S. intelligence officials had at the time.

Already, the coming Senate report has been at the center of a fight between the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, and Mr. Obama's Democratic allies in the Senate.

Mr. Obama expressed "full confidence" in Mr. Brennan on Friday after an internal CIA review found intelligence officers spied on computers used by Senate staffers who were investigating the interrogation program. Several lawmakers have since called for Mr. Brennan's resignation.

Human Rights advocates said that the report on interrogation techniques will provide an opportunity for congress to pass a law that will prevent techniques that were used by the CIA, such as waterboarding, from being used again.

Write to Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com and Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

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