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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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September 8th,
2007 - CIA Chief Defends Detention of Prisoners |
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CIA Chief Defends Detention
of Prisoners By Adam Goldman Associated Press September 8, 2007 New York - The director of
the CIA praised the government's much-criticized program of detaining and
interrogating prisoners yesterday, crediting it for most of the information
in a July intelligence report on the terrorist threat to America. General Michael Hayden said
the CIA has detained fewer than 100 people at secret facilities abroad since
the capture of Abu Zubaydah, the Al Qaeda operative, in 2002, and even fewer
prisoners have been secretly transferred to or from foreign governments. In a speech to the Council
on Foreign Relations in New York, Hayden defended the government's policy of
extraordinary rendition, criticized the media for publishing stories about
the government's intelligence activities, and warned that Al Qaeda is trying
to plant operatives in the United States. Extraordinary rendition
refers to the interrogation policy involving the secret transfer of prisoners
from US control into the hands of foreign governments, some of which have a
history of torture. The US government says it
does so only after it is assured that transferred prisoners will not be subjected
to torture. The use of extraordinary
rendition for terrorism suspects - some of whom were later released,
apparently because they were innocent - was revealed by news media in 2005. The renditions have been
"conducted lawfully, responsibly, and with a clear and simple purpose:
to get terrorists off the streets and gain intelligence on those still at
large," Hayden said. The CIA director said 70
percent of the information contained in the National Intelligence Estimate on
the terrorist threat, which was released in July, came from the interrogation
of detainees. He said reports in the media
"cost us several promising counterterrorism and counterproliferation
assets" because CIA sources stopped cooperating with the agency out of
fear they would be exposed. External link: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/08/cia_chief_defends_detention_of_prisoners/ |