Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
From the New York Times
Excerpt: When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on "combined effects" over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of it. More

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, CIA, secrecy, torture

House rejects cuts to notorious school
From AP via the Miami Herald
Excerpt: Congress has turned back the latest attempt to cut funding for an Army school that trains military officers from Latin America and has a tainted past.

Just before midnight Thursday, the House voted 214-203 against a bid to eliminate the money used for foreign military officers to attend the controversial Army facility at Fort Benning, formerly called the School of the Americas.

The amendment, sponsored by Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., is similar to one that the school's critics have tried to pass for years. It failed 218-188 in a House vote last year.

The school is best known for training Latin American soldiers who fought communist insurgencies in the 1980s and 1990s. Critics have long charged that the Defense Department teaches abusive and illegal tactics there, citing allegations that many graduates later became involved in corruption, murder and human rights violations. Large protests are held annually outside the school near Columbus, Ga.

In the mid-1990s, the Pentagon acknowledged that training manuals previously used at the school recommended bribery, blackmail, threats and torture. In 2001, the Army changed the school's name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and officials say its curriculum now includes a renewed emphasis on human rights. The school also offers classes for civilians and police officers.
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Labels: congress, military, torture

Judge dismisses Masri torture case
From ABC News
Excerpt: A U.S. judge dismissed on Thursday a lawsuit against former CIA Director George Tenet and several CIA employees by a German of Lebanese origin who says he was abducted and tortured by the American spy agency.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis agreed with government arguments that moving forward with Khaled el-Masri's case would risk national security by exposing state secrets about CIA activities vital to the U.S. war on terrorism. ...

...Ellis said the government provided documents to him that showed "damage to the national security could result if the defendants in this case were required to admit or deny el-Masri's allegations."...

...Masri said Macedonian authorities abducted him on December 31, 2003, and he was held prisoner in a Skopje hotel room for 23 days and beaten, stripped and sodomized.
He said he was then taken by members of a CIA 'black renditions' team and flown by the CIA to Afghanistan, where he was held as a terrorism suspect. Masri said he was beaten in Afghanistan and went on a hunger strike to protest his confinement. On May 28, 2004, Masri was flown to Albania where he was dumped on the side of an abandoned road.
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Labels: CIA, prisoner, torture

Cheney Plan Exempts CIA From Bill Barring Abuse of Detainees
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: The Bush administration has proposed exempting employees of the Central Intelligence Agency from a legislative measure endorsed earlier this month by 90 members of the Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody. The proposal, which two sources said Vice President Cheney handed last Thursday to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the company of CIA Director Porter J. Goss, states that the measure barring inhumane treatment shall not apply to counterterrorism operations conducted abroad or to operations conducted by "an element of the United States government" other than the Defense Department. ...
... The provision in question ... essentially proscribes harsh treatment of any detainees in U.S. custody or control anywhere in the world. It was specifically drafted to close what its backers say is a loophole in the administration's policy of generally barring torture, namely its legal contention that these constraints do not apply to treatment of foreigners on foreign soil.
Cheney Plan Exempts CIA From Bill Barring Abuse of Detainees

Labels: cheney, CIA, prisoner, torture