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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 9th,
2009 - AG Eric Holder Appears Poised to Open Investigation of Harsh Tactics |
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CIA Interrogations:
AG Eric Holder Appears Poised to Open Investigation of Harsh Tactics Sources say waterboarding abuses may hold promise for prosecution By Greg Miller & Josh Meyer Chicago Tribune August 9, 2009 Washington - U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder appears poised to appoint a special prosecutor to
investigate CIA interrogation abuses, a step that would bring unprecedented
scrutiny to cases that ended in the alleged torture and death of detainees,
current and former U.S. government officials said. But a probe of even the most
egregious abuses is unlikely to lead to criminal convictions because of an
array of evidentiary and legal obstacles, according to current and former CIA
and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the details
of the interrogation files. A senior Justice Department
official said the probe Holder envisions would be "narrow" in
scope, focusing on "whether people went beyond the techniques that were
authorized" in Bush administration memos known for their extreme interpretations
of anti-torture laws. Some cases have not
previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative
allegedly brought a gun into the interrogation booth to force a detainee to
talk. Other potentially criminal
abuses have already come to light, including the waterboarding of prisoners
far in excess of Justice Department guidelines and the deaths of detainees in
CIA custody in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Opening a criminal probe is
something Holder "has come reluctantly to consider," the Justice
Department official said. "But as attorney general, he has the
obligation to follow the law." Others familiar with
Holder's thinking say that such an investigation seems all but certain and
that a prosecutor will likely be selected from a short list Holder asked
subordinates to assemble. Such a prosecutor would be
tasked with examining cases that are generally at least five years old and
were previously reviewed by career prosecutors who concluded that they could
not be pursued. "I don't blame them for
wanting to look into it," said a former high-ranking Justice Department
official familiar with the details of the program. "But if they appoint
a special prosecutor, it would ultimately be unsuccessful, and it would go on
forever and cause enormous collateral damage on the way to getting that
unsuccessful result." Current and former U.S.
officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity
because of the secrecy that still surrounds Holder's deliberations and the
details of the interrogation files. President Barack Obama and
Holder have both said they believe waterboarding constituted torture. But an
investigation would pose thorny political problems for the administration and
likely draw criticism over questions of fairness. "An investigation that
focuses only on low-ranking operators would be, I think, worse than doing
nothing at all," said Tom Malinowski, advocacy director for Human Rights
Watch. Punishing those who violated
Justice Department guidelines, he said, "would send the message that
waterboarding 19 times a day is torture, but 18 times is just fine. It would
also absolve the senior civilian officials who conceived this program." A probe also would likely
drive a new wedge between the CIA and the Justice Department, agencies with a
fractious history that have struggled to work more closely together since the
Sept. 11 attacks. Bracing for the worst, a
small number of CIA officials have put off plans to retire or leave the
agency so they can maintain their access to classified files and be in better
positions to fend off a Justice probe. "Once you're out it gets a lot
harder," said a retired CIA official who said he had spoken recently with
former colleagues. The expected release this
month of a classified 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general is putting
pressure on Holder to open a probe or explain why the Justice Department has
failed to prosecute any violations the report describes, including extensive
problems and abuses in the agency's interrogation program. Former CIA officials said
the most disturbing section deals with waterboarding, a technique in which
prisoners are made to feel they are drowning. The Justice Department authorized
waterboarding in an August 2002 memo that contained a caveat that could prove
critical to any criminal probe. While allowing the approved methods to be
"used more than once," the memo stipulated that "repetition
will not be substantial because the techniques generally lose their
effectiveness after several repetitions." Two years later, the inspector
general's report documented how the waterboard was actually being employed. One passage declassified
this year said the method had been used "at least 83 times during August
2002" on Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al-Qaida figure captured by the
agency. The waterboard was then employed "183 times during March
2002" on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11
attacks. The inspector general also
voiced alarm over how much water was being used. Rather than dripping liquid
from a canteen, as the 2002 memo envisioned, CIA interrogators "applied
large volumes of water," raising questions about whether the method "was
either efficacious or medically safe." Because of such documented
discrepancies, Justice Department officials and legal experts regard the
waterboarding abuses as cases that hold the most promise for prosecution. Even so, the cases are
hampered by legal and logistical complications. The U.S. anti-torture
statute requires proving that a person "specifically intended to inflict
severe physical or mental pain or suffering," a daunting legal
threshold. Beyond that, officials said
it's not clear that any CIA interrogators were ever informed of the limits
laid out in the Justice Department memo. "A number of people
could say honestly, correctly, 'I didn't know what was in it,'" said a
former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the inner workings of
the interrogation program. While the inspector
general's report is focused on the agency's use of waterboarding, sleep
deprivation and other approved methods, the document also cites cases in
which interrogators engaged in potentially illegal improvisations. Agency spokesman Paul
Gimigliano said the CIA cooperated extensively in "referring actions for
potential prosecution and in dealing with career prosecutors who decided if
and when specific cases would be pursued in court." To date, only one case has
been. In 2007, a CIA paramilitary contractor, David Passaro, was sentenced to
eight years in prison after being convicted of using a flashlight to beat an
Afghan detainee who later died. Attorney General Eric Holder
could assign a U.S. attorney to the investigation, but he is said to be
leaning toward a special prosecutor. Holder's interest in doing so reportedly
surged after he recently read a still-classified 2004 report by the CIA's
inspector general citing extensive problems and abuses in the agency's interrogation
program. Copyright © 2009, Chicago
Tribune External link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-tc-nw-cia-prosecutions-0808-aug09,0,7250559.story |