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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 25th,
2009 - CIA Terror Tactics Spur Changes, New Probe |
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CIA Terror Tactics Spur Changes,
New Probe By Devlin Barrett & Pamela Hess Associated Press August 25, 2009 Washington - The Obama
administration is setting strict new standards for treatment of terror
suspects, as the Justice Department launches a criminal probe of past
interrogation tactics during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism. A newly declassified version
of a CIA report revealed Monday that CIA interrogators once threatened to
kill a Sept. 11 suspect's children and suggested another would be forced to
watch his mother sexually assaulted. The fresh crop of damaging
revelations only intensified the long-running political fight about the
secret interrogation program - whether it protected the United States then,
and whether spilling its secrets now will weaken the nation's future
security. Top Republican senators said
they were troubled by Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to begin a new
criminal probe, which they said could hamper U.S. intelligence efforts. And former Vice President
Dick Cheney asserted that the CIA's interrogation of terror suspects
"saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks." In a statement,
Cheney said those who carried out the interrogations "deserve our
gratitude" and do not deserve "to be the targets of political
investigations or prosecutions." He said that Monday's Obama
administration decisions serve as a reminder "if any were needed, of why
so many Americans have doubts about this administration's ability to be
responsible for our nation's security." Investigators credited the
detention-and-interrogation program for developing intelligence that
prevented multiple attacks against Americans. But the inspector general
said it was unclear whether so-called enhanced interrogation tactics
contributed to that success. Those tactics included waterboarding, a
simulated drowning technique that the Obama administration says was torture.
Measuring the success of such interrogation is "a more subjective
process and not without some concern," the report said. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the
Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the revelations
showed the Bush administration went down a "dark road of excusing
torture." Holder said Monday he had
chosen a veteran prosecutor, John Durham, to open a preliminary investigation
to determine whether any CIA officers or contractors should face criminal
charges for crossing the line on rough but permissible tactics. Durham
already is investigating the destruction of CIA interrogation videos. At the same time, President
Barack Obama ordered changes in future interrogations, bringing in other
agencies besides the CIA under the direction of the FBI and to be supervised
by his own national security adviser. The administration pledged that
questioning would be controlled by the Army Field Manual, with strict rules,
and said the White House would keep its hands off the professional
investigators doing the work. Despite the announcement of
the criminal probe, White House aides declared anew that Obama "wants to
look forward, not back" at Bush-era tactics. White House officials said
they plan to continue the controversial practice of rendition of suspects to
foreign countries, though they said that in future cases there would be
greater safeguards to ensure such suspects are not tortured. Monday's five-year-old
report by the CIA's inspector general, newly declassified and released under
a federal court's orders, described severe tactics used by interrogators on
terror suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Seeking information about
possible further attacks, interrogators threatened one detainee with a gun
and a power drill, choked another and tried to frighten still another with a
mock execution of another prisoner. And other once-secret
documents released late Monday show that parts of the CIA's tough treatment
program continued even after Bush's September 2006 transfer of agency
prisoners to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Former CIA Director Michael
Hayden, appointed by Bush in 2006, expressed dismay at the prospect of
prosecutions for CIA officers. He noted that career prosecutors already had
reviewed and declined to prosecute the alleged abuses. Obama has said interrogators
would not face charges if they followed legal guidelines, but the report by
the CIA's inspector general said they went too far - even beyond what was
authorized under Bush era Justice Department legal memos that have since been
withdrawn and discredited. The report also suggested some questioners knew
they were crossing a line. "Ten years from now
we're going to be sorry we're doing this (but) it has to be done," one
unidentified CIA officer was quoted as saying, predicting the questioners
would someday have to appear in court to answer for such tactics. Associated Press writers
Matt Apuzzo and Jennifer Loven in Washington and Philip Elliott in Oak
Bluffs, Mass., contributed to this report. Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iOTk5mUIVTPTRGU5hoR5JJrr38BAD9A9UR3O1 |