A day after the nation was delivered a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that revealed details about the nation’s use of torture in an effort to glean information from suspected terrorists, Missouri’s top lawmakers fell along partisan lines in reaction.

The report offered gruesome details into the Central Intelligence Agency’s tactics, including worn out waterboards used to coax detainees into revealing information, reports of forcing prisoners to stand on broken legs, forced sleep deprivation and even “rectal feeding.”

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, described the release of the report, which was based on the CIA’s own internal, once classified reports, as a “a gut check moment for our country” in a written statement.

“The world knows that the United States engaged in torture. Engaging in such practices damaged our nation and tarnished our values. But failing to hold our government accountable would do permanent damage to those values and diminish even further our standing in the world,” said McCaskill, who said America’s “willingness to hold our government accountable” is what “separates America from most nations.”

McCaskill said the report, released on Tuesday by Senate Democrats, “would never happen in countries such as North Korea, China or Russia.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee while the report was being drafted, said he opposed its release. Blunt was not alone. In fact, he said none of the Republicans on the committee were even involved in producing the report. Blunt said he feared details in the report could incite acts of violence abroad.

“I’m concerned that it can lead to a new round or a response overseas that we wouldn’t want to see. It has the potential to needlessly danger the lives of the Americans representing our country,” Blunt said.

Chuck Hagel, the U.S. secretary of defense, told reporters in Baghdad on Monday that American troops were put on “high alert everywhere in the world,” bracing for potential backlash after lawmakers released the review.

Blunt said it was his hope that no violent acts of backlash in the Middle East actually happen, but, speaking on Wednesday, questioned whether the report’s release and heightened concern was even worth it. After all, Americans already knew that intelligence agents had tortured accused enemy combatants — the report just offered gruesome details about the tactics.

And, Blunt added, “we were in a different environment than we’re in today,” and the practice has been ceased.

“I thought the report, generally, didn’t have much purpose,” he said.

Elliott Denniston, a Webb City resident, was an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1962 to 1966, during which time he took tours of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea on the USS Intrepid. Denniston said he disagreed with the idea that the report was unhelpful and played down concerns that it could be used to incite more violence in an already troubled region.

“Most of this, the general nature of this, was known during those years. An awful lot of it was out there,” said Denniston. “This is more insulting toward the CIA and the workings of the government than it is to the radical Muslims, because they already knew this.”

Denniston, now a local Democratic activist, said the debate over the report should not fall along partisan lines. He noted the voices of people like Arizona Sen. John McCain, a former Republican presidential nominee who himself was captured and tortured when his plane crashed over Vietnam, who has been “outspoken” against American use of torture.

“He had reason to, but he stood up to his party and the more aggressive hawks,” Denniston said.

McCain on Tuesday was a lone Republican voice in support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California who chairs the Intelligence Committee, who decided to release the report despite objections from diplomats and military officials.

“The use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies: our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights,” McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Charlie Davis, a Navy veteran who is now a Republican state representative, said he was “offended” by the notion that there was any sort of hypocrisy by Americans who criticize terrorists actions while all the while supporting the use of what supporters call “interrogation techniques.”

“I’d be appalled if we were just doing random waterboarding, but these are people who were caught, it is pretty evident they were our enemy,” said Davis, a Republican. “We’re trying to get information from our enemy, not people trying to live out their lives.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.