FBI warned Justice, Pentagon about interrogation tactics used against terror suspects

April 23, 2008
FBI warned Justice, Pentagon about interrogation tactics used against terror suspects

WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday recalled warning the Justice Department and the Pentagon that some U.S. interrogation methods used against terrorists might be inappropriate, if not illegal.

Mueller's comments came under pointed questioning by House Democrats demanding to know if the FBI tried to stop interrogations in 2002 that critics define as torture.

Bush Aides Approved Torture

April 9, 2008
Bush Aides Approved Torture

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush's most senior advisers approved "enhanced interrogation techniques" of top al Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, ABC News reported on Wednesday, citing sources it did not name.

ABC reported that the so-called "principals" discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.

Mukasey Denied Law School Honors Because of Stance on Torture

March 5, 2008
Mukasey Denied Law School Honors Because of Stance on Torture

Boston College Law School will not award its highest honor to US Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey when he speaks at its May commencement, amid sharp criticism from students, faculty, and alumni over his invitation.

John Garvey, law school dean, announced the decision yesterday at a forum with graduating students held to discuss Mukasey's selection after weeks of intense debate on campus. Some alumni and students at the Jesuit school saw the move as a compromise to appease critics of Mukasey's controversial refusal to declare that an interrogation technique known as waterboarding constitutes torture.

U.S. says sorry to UK on rendition flights

February 21, 2008
U.S. says sorry to UK on rendition flights

Miliband told Britain's parliament earlier on Thursday that contrary to earlier U.S. assurances, two planes used for "rendition flights" in 2002 had refueled at a U.S. base on the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

The British government had previously insisted it was not aware of any British territory being used to transfer terrorism suspects outside normal extradition procedures since U.S. President George W. Bush took office in 2001.

U.S. charges 6 for roles in 9/11 attacks

February 8, 2008
U.S. charges 6 for roles in 9/11 attacks

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has charged six detainees at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials said Monday they'll seek the death penalty in what would be the first capital trials under the terrorism-era military tribunal system.

Hartmann said the six include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attacks in which hijackers flew planes into buildings in New York and Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed in the fields of western Pennsylvania.

The other five men being charged are: Mohammed al-Qahtani, the man officials have labeled the 20th hijacker; Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of al-Qaida; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been identified as Mohammed's lieutenant for the operation; al-Baluchi's assistant, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi; and Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who investigators say selected and trained some of the 19 hijackers.

Intelligence Chief: Waterboarding as Torture

January 13, 2008
Intelligence Chief: Waterboarding as Torture

The nation's intelligence chief says that waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him, or if someone under interrogation was taking water into his lungs.

But Mike McConnell declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.

Mukasey Won't Comment on Waterboarding

January 29, 2008
Mukasey Won't Comment on Waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday he will refuse to publicly say whether the interrogation tactic known as waterboarding is illegal, digging in against critics who want the Bush administration to define it as torture.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Mukasey said he has finished a review of Justice Department memos about the CIA's current methods of interrogating terror suspects and finds them to be lawful. He said waterboarding currently is not used by the spy agency.

Tom Ridge: Waterboarding Is Torture

January 18, 2008
Tom Ridge: Waterboarding Is Torture

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says
waterboarding is torture.

"There's just no doubt in my mind — under any set of rules — waterboarding is
torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press. Ridge had offered the
same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security
conference.

John Negroponte: U.S. used waterboarding

January 28, 2008
John Negroponte: U.S. used waterboarding

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States used waterboarding in terrorism interrogations but no longer does, a former U.S. spy chief said in the Bush administration's clearest confirmation of the technique's use.

U.S. officials have been reluctant to acknowledge the CIA's use of the simulated drowning technique, which human rights groups call an illegal form of torture.

The remarks by former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte in an interview with National Journal magazine come as senators are expected on Wednesday to grill Attorney General Michael Mukasey on a promised review of the legality of interrogation methods.

CIA Official May Have Destroyed Tapes

January 22, 2008
CIA Official May Have Destroyed Tapes

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- A CIA official may have acted on his own in ordering the destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations of two al-Qaeda operatives, contrary to directions that the tapes be preserved, a Republican lawmaker said.

The House Intelligence Committee has evidence that Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's clandestine service, didn't seek authority to order the tapes' destruction in 2005, Michigan Representative Pete Hoekstra, the panel's top Republican, told reporters today in Washington.

CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

December 23, 2007
CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: "If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?"

Congress subpoenas ex-CIA official

December 20, 2007
Congress subpoenas ex-CIA official

WASHINGTON - The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena Thursday for Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who directed that secret interrogation videotapes of two suspected terrorists be destroyed.

The panel ordered Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, to appear for a hearing on Jan. 16. Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Rodriguez "would like to tell his story but his counsel has advised us that a subpoena would be necessary."

The CIA cracked open its files to congressional investigators Thursday, inviting them to the agency's Virginia headquarters to begin reviewing documents and records related to the videotapes.

Did Torture Work?

December 11, 2007
Did Torture Work?

In interviews yesterday and this morning, a former CIA agent called waterboarding what it is. Not "enhanced interrogation" or "harsh tactics." Simply: torture.

It's a notable achievement in the battle against the Orwellian doubletalk infesting the national discourse and the news coverage about this important issue.

John Kiriakou, who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded, also made clear that every decision leading to the torture of CIA detainees was documented and approved in cables to and from Washington. That's a step forward for accountability after two gigantic steps back last week, when it emerged that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of two of its torture sessions.

C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations

December 7, 2007
C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.

Waterboarding Ok'd at the Top

December 11, 2007
Waterboarding Ok'd at the Top

Kiriakou did not explain how he knew who approved the interrogation technique but said such approval comes from top officials.

"This isn't something done willy nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner," he said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department."

Judgment Day for the CIA?

October 26, 2007
Judgment Day for the CIA?

The de jure trial has now been postponed until next week. It may be postponed again, or it might never happen, but for 25 alleged CIA officers and paramilitaries charged in an Italian court with kidnapping an imam from a Milan street in 2003, the de facto trial is pretty much over. Their identities have been exposed in hundreds of pages of warrants and indictments and then picked up by the Italian press and various bloggers worldwide. A couple of them have even made it into Wikipedia. Not only has the court revealed sacrosanct "sources and methods," it offers full names, passport details, home addresses, credit card numbers—even the frequent flier numbers they are said to have used while they traveled on missions to abduct suspected terrorists and deliver them in secret to interrogation centers beyond the reach of the U.S. Constitution or, for that matter, common humanity.

In the past the American Congress, American prosecutors and an aggressive American press carried out these kinds of investigations. Now it seems we're so intimidated by the words "national security" that we have to count on foreign cops and courts to tell us when our own spies run amok.

From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity

October 27, 2007
From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity

Since 2004, for example, the CIA has handed five Libyan fighters to authorities in Tripoli. Two had been covertly nabbed by the CIA in China and Thailand, while the others were caught in Pakistan and held in CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and other locations, according to Libyan sources.

The Libyan government has kept silent about the cases. But Libyan political exiles said the men are kept in isolation with no prospect of an open trial.

Other ghost prisoners are believed to remain in U.S. custody after passing into and out of the CIA's hands, according to human rights groups.

At least one former CIA prisoner has been quietly freed. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence agent captured after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was detained at a secret location until he was released last year.

Ani gained notoriety before the Iraq war when Bush administration officials said he had met in Prague with Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohamed Atta. Some officials, including Vice President Cheney, cited the rendezvous as evidence of an alliance between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The theory was later debunked by U.S. intelligence agencies and the Sept. 11 commission, which revealed in 2004 that Ani was in U.S. custody.

The Iraqi spy resurfaced two months ago when Czech officials revealed that he had filed a multimillion-dollar compensation claim. His complaint: that unfounded Czech intelligence reports had prompted his imprisonment by the CIA.

The CIA has resumed its detention program. Since March, five new terrorism suspects have been transferred to Guantanamo. Although the Pentagon has not disclosed details about how or precisely when they were captured, officials have said one of the prisoners, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, had spent months in CIA custody overseas.

The 'Good Germans' Among Us

October 14, 2007
The 'Good Germans' Among Us

Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: "This government does not torture people." Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of "torture" is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.

By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America's "enhanced interrogation" techniques have a grotesque provenance: "Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.' It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation."

Is torture ever justified?

September 20, 2007
Is torture ever justified?

The answer in international law is categorical: no. As laid down in treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ban on torture or any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is absolute, even in times of war. Along with genocide, torture is the only crime that every state must punish, no matter who commits it or where. Defenders of this blanket prohibition offer arguments that range from the moral (torture degrades and corrupts the society that allows it) to the practical (people will say anything under torture so the information they provide is unreliable anyway).

Tortured logic, tortured result

October 8, 2007
Tortured logic, tortured result

Critics cheered when the Bush administration did an about-face and disavowed torture as a government-sanctioned policy. In 2004, the Justice Department repudiated the infamous torture memos written after 9/11, and the president earnestly declared: "The United States does not torture." Mr. Bush even signed a bill whose authors believed would outlaw torture. It turns out, however, that there was nothing to cheer about.

Clever semantics

Reports now indicate that while the administration was paying lip service to the idea of abiding by anti-torture statutes, it was doing something else behind the scenes. First, it jettisoned officials in the Department of Justice who didn't agree with it. Then the administration welcomed a new lawyer to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven G. Bradbury, who was happy to comply with the wishes of his superiors. Under the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bradbury wrote two new secret memos that gave superiors what they wanted -- a way around the law.