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Interrogation broke UN pact, CIA report warned
The CIA's inspector general warned last year that interrogation procedures approved by the Bush administration could violate the UN convention against torture, it emerged yesterday.
The leaking of the inspector general's classified report represented an embarrassment for President George Bush, only a few days after he emphatically declared: "We do not torture." It also comes at a sensitive time when the vice-president, Dick Cheney, is lobbying to have the CIA exempted from legislation establishing stricter interrogation rules.
According to the New York Times, the 2004 report by the inspector general at the time, John Helgerson, expressed particular concern over an approved technique known as "waterboarding", which involves strapping a detainee to a board and submerging him until he believes he is drowning. Reports suggest the method was used on some top al-Qaida prisoners, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the masterminds of the September 11 attacks, who is being detained in a secret location outside the US.
The CIA is also reported to be using secret detention cells in east Europe, possibly Poland and Romania, to carry out interrogations beyond the reach of US law. Senior Republicans have called for a congressional inquiry into the leaks that formed the basis of those reports. The CIA took steps to launch a criminal inquiry.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1638857,00.html
According to the New York Times, the 2004 report by the inspector general at the time, John Helgerson, expressed particular concern over an approved technique known as "waterboarding", which involves strapping a detainee to a board and submerging him until he believes he is drowning. Reports suggest the method was used on some top al-Qaida prisoners, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the masterminds of the September 11 attacks, who is being detained in a secret location outside the US.
The CIA is also reported to be using secret detention cells in east Europe, possibly Poland and Romania, to carry out interrogations beyond the reach of US law. Senior Republicans have called for a congressional inquiry into the leaks that formed the basis of those reports. The CIA took steps to launch a criminal inquiry.
Read More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1638857,00.html
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Part of the answer seemed to emerge in a sensational exposé by The Washington Post of a secret global prison system operated by the CIA in at least eight countries including Afghanistan, Thailand, several democracies in Eastern Europe, and a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The Post said it was withholding the names of Eastern European countries involved in the secret program at the request of senior U.S. officials.
Rough outlines of the hidden prison system had emerged earlier in reports that some high-level terrorist suspects had been sent off to undisclosed destination for indefinite detention and interrogation in a procedure known as "rendition." Parliamentary inquiries are said to have been opened in Canada, Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands into allegations that their citizens or residents had been sent to secret CIA prisons.
The newspaper reported that the CIA interrogators at the so-called "black sites" are permitted to use approved "enhanced interrogation techniques," some of which are prohibited by U.S. military law and international agreements. It said these methods include "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, the European Union and human rights groups have said they would request information about the secret prisons from the United States and reported host governments.
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http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=123496
Bush has pledged to veto an entire defense spending bill if it contains McCain's amendment that outlaws torture and cruel, inhumane treatment of detainees.
But the Arizona senator said he believed that support for his measure was very strong in Congress and hoped the administration would back down.
He rejected the idea that terrorists should not be subject to normal treatment as they do not obey normal conventions of warfare.
"I agree they are the most evil people in the world — it is not about them, it is about us," he said.
McCain warned that exempting the CIA from a torture ban would expose U.S. forces to danger in future conflicts.
"The next time we are in a war my friends, and that country we are in a war with captures an American pilot, and they believe an American pilot knows when the next bombing raid is coming, they will turn him over to the secret police."
Bush Monday said "we do not torture," but failed to quiet critics.
The issue, one of the most fiercely contested of his presidency, grabbed more attention with a Washington Post report that the CIA was interrogating captured al-Qaida operatives at secret prisons in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Thailand and elsewhere.
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http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=355036