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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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June 19th,
2009 - Report to Detail Interrogations, Secret Detention |
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Report to Detail Interrogations,
Secret Detention By Pamela Hess Associated Press June 19, 2009 Washington - The government
is preparing to release a long-delayed internal report on the CIA's secret
detention and interrogation program. How much of the document will be
declassified for public view isn't yet known. The roughly 150-page report
was expected to be released Friday, but a CIA spokesman said Thursday that
government officials were still poring through the documents. "The CIA is reviewing
the report to determine how much more of it can be declassified in accordance
with the Freedom of Information Act," said George Little, the spokesman. Responding to reports that
CIA officials were pressing to redact large portions of the documents, Little
said, "This is not about fighting for or against redactions - it's about
applying the law." The review by the inspector
general for the CIA was completed in May 2004. John L. Helgerson, the
now-retired CIA inspector who spearheaded the investigation, said Thursday
that the report is "a comprehensive look at everything the agency had
been doing related to detention and interrogation." Helgerson said the review
covered "activities within the formal approved program, and it also
included a reference to activities that went on outside the formal
program." "We found a great deal
running very well. We also found things to be concerned about,"
Helgerson said. The investigation was conducted in response to concerns
expressed by agency employees about the program, he added. The government released a
heavily redacted version of Helgerson's report last year to the American
Civil Liberties Union as a result of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit on the program. All but a few paragraphs and individual words were
blacked out. Helgerson said a large
portion of the report addresses CIA activities, sources and methods that
should remain classified. The ACLU is pressing for the
full release of the report. "The public has a right
to know what took place in the CIA's secret prisons, and on whose
authority," Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security
Project, said in a statement issued this week. Some of the details that
were blacked out last year have since been released in other documents. The
Obama administration this spring declassified a slew of Bush-era Justice
Department memos on the CIA's interrogation program that outlined the methods
and legal rationales for the program. The interrogation methods
included waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that President Barack
Obama recently pronounced a form of torture. The IG review cast doubt on
the effectiveness of the harsh interrogation methods employed by CIA
interrogators, according to references to the report contained in the Justice
Department memos. The IG review also quoted
medical personnel who questioned the safety and effectiveness of the
waterboarding, as applied by the psychologist/interrogators who conducted the
sessions. It described the technique
as producing the "sensation of drowning and suffocation," according
to a footnote in another legal memo, and noted that it was carried out
differently than was approved by the Justice Department in a 2002 legal
opinion. It said that the subject's
mouth and nose are supposed to be covered with a damp cloth and a small
amount of water poured over. "By contrast, the
agency interrogator ... applied large volumes of water to a cloth that
covered the detainee's mouth and nose," the IG review said. Helgerson said news reports
that his review referred several criminal cases to the Justice Department for
prosecution are inaccurate. The IG separately referred cases to the Justice
Department for its review, and those cases are referenced in the report. One of them is the only CIA
prisoner abuse case to be prosecuted so far. Former CIA contractor David
Passaro was convicted in 2007 of felony assault for the death of an Afghan
prisoner in 2003. Helgerson's office conducted the criminal investigation
that led to the trial, he said. Helgerson's report drew on
38,000 documents and interviews with more than 100 CIA officials. Helgerson, who retired from
the CIA on May 31, declined to discuss details of the review until its
release to avoid disclosing classified information. Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iOTk5mUIVTPTRGU5hoR5JJrr38BAD98TKI0O0 |