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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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April 13th,
2005 - Interrogator Says U.S. Approved Handling of Detainee Who Died |
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Interrogator Says U.S.
Approved Handling of Detainee Who Died By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Wednesday, April 13, 2005 The dispute over the Bush
administration's treatment of military detainees is playing out in a North
Carolina courtroom, where a CIA contractor has asserted that his rough
interrogation in 2003 of an Afghan who subsequently died was indirectly
authorized by deliberations in Washington at the highest ranks of the Bush
administration. A lawyer for David A.
Passaro, the sole CIA worker to be indicted publicly as the result of a
detainee's death in the war on terrorism, stated in court documents unsealed
yesterday that he wishes to call the legal counsel to Vice President Cheney,
two former senior Justice Department officials, former CIA director George J.
Tenet and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales as witnesses in his defense. The aim of the CIA
contractor is evidently to undermine the promised testimony of Army personnel
about the brutality of the Afghan's interrogation session by convincing the
court that he was acting in concert with detainee treatment policies set out
by a range of administration officials, including President Bush. Passaro has
pleaded not guilty to four assault charges. His argument runs contrary
to the statement last June of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft at a
televised news conference announcing Passaro's indictment. Ashcroft, speaking
amid the furor over revelations of prisoner abuse at the U.S. military's Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq, called Passaro part of "a small group of
individuals" who had betrayed U.S. policy and its most basic values. Passaro, through his public
defender, Thomas P. McNamara, has alleged in court documents that he used
"necessary and appropriate force" during the interrogation to
extract information from Abdul Wali. The government, in its court pleadings,
has argued that no official contemplated or approved of acts with a
"nature and scope" similar to those that Passaro is accused of
committing. In similar cases involving
detainee abuse in Iraq, military personnel have sought to call senior defense
officials as witnesses, but military judges have turned them down. Passaro's
case is the first such attempt in a civilian court. No government response
has been placed on the public record in Passaro's case, which remains months
away from a trial. The events at issue unfolded
after Passaro arrived in May 2003 at the Army's firebase in Asadabad,
Afghanistan, a few miles from the Pakistani border. The base came under
frequent assault from rockets and mortars through the late spring, and on
June 17 a Special Forces patrol from the base was disabled in a land-mine
attack. The next day, Wali - who
apparently heard that military personnel were looking for him - surrendered
at the front gate. Passaro, who was assigned to interrogate suspected
terrorists detained by CIA and special operations forces, met with Wali on
June 19 and 20. McNamara has said that at the time, Passaro believed Wali
"knew the locations of more rockets and land mines" and wanted to
extract information that he thought would save lives. On June 21, Wali was
pronounced dead in his cell at the base. The U.S. attorney in North
Carolina did not accuse Passaro of murder, but of assault with his hands,
feet and a dangerous weapon - a flashlight. He also promised to produce
witnesses to the interrogation from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. In a document placed on the
court record last December, McNamara first announced his intention to mount a
"public authority" defense. He cited a statement by Gonzales, who
was then White House counsel, at a news conference last June 22 that
"all interrogation techniques authorized for use by the Agency and
against the Taliban and al Qaeda . . . are lawful and do not constitute
torture." McNamara also said Wali's
interrogation had fulfilled "the strategic objectives" articulated
by Bush in calling for bringing terrorists to justice. He cited an August
2002 Justice Department memo that concluded "a defendant who had acted
pursuant to an exercise of the President's constitutional powers" in
conducting an interrogation could not be criminally prosecuted. That document was withdrawn,
altered and reissued by the Bush administration in December, shortly before
Gonzales was questioned by a Senate committee reviewing his nomination to
become attorney general. But the government, in a
pleading first unsealed yesterday, said the memo dealt with torture and
"expressed no opinion" about federal statutes prohibiting murder or
assault. It further said that another memo cited by Passaro's lawyer as authorizing
rough interrogations - signed in November 2002 by Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld - did not apply to Iraq and did not "license [Passaro] to
commit the acts of which he stands charged." The new documents were
unsealed by U.S. District Judge Terence W. Boyle, acting on a court motion
filed by The Washington Post, the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and
the Associated Press. Researcher Julie Tate
contributed to this report. © 2005 The Washington Post
Company External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48239-2005Apr12.html |