Posted on 09/16/2006 1:45:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The CIA believed it was operating lawfully in detaining and interrogating 96 suspected terrorists at locations from Thailand to Europe, until the Supreme Court this summer demolished that legal foundation.
The CIA is now squarely in the middle of election-year politics as Congress tries to write new definitions that could reshape the intelligence agency's program.
"At the end of the day, the director — any director — of the CIA must be confident that what he has asked an agency officer to do under this program is lawful," CIA Director Michael Hayden wrote employees on Thursday.
President Bush was more blunt: "They don't want to be tried as war criminals," he said at a news conference Friday.
The high court's ruling in June, in a case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, essentially said that the Geneva Conventions on the rights of wartime prisoners should apply to the suspected terrorists in CIA custody.
That meant that for the first time since the interrogation program was born in 2002, the Justice Department could not give the CIA a written opinion on whether its techniques still were legal.
Spy agencies rely on such opinions to justify activities that get little, if any, public scrutiny.
To Bush, the CIA and their allies, the law urgently needs to be changed to protect the interrogation program, which they consider one of the most important ways to deter attacks against the United States.
"The Hamdan decision in effect calls a time-out in the war on terror," said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
But the program's detractors say a fix is needed to prevent further damage to the U.S. image abroad and to reduce risks to U.S. military personnel who may be caught by enemies.
"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," retired Gen. Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, wrote Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record). The Arizona Republican is resisting Bush's call for more lenient rules on interrogations.
The CIA's practices raised concerns almost from the day that the agency began questioning detainees suspected of terrorist links.
Early in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, senior military officers were so concerned about the CIA's practices that they took steps to ensure that military personnel were not in the room during CIA interrogations, said a government official familiar with both military and intelligence operations. The official and others in government and on Capitol Hill spoke recently about the sensitive CIA activities on the condition they not be identified.
But Gary Berntsen, the commander of a CIA team in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, said CIA personnel initially did not have time for interrogations — a term from the military and intelligence world that implies the use of specific techniques to coerce information from prisoners.
Instead, he said, intelligence officers conducted cursory interviews of newly captured fighters to see if they had information they wanted to share.
"We were seizing one city after the next," Berntsen said. "There were hundreds of people" in custody.
He credits a British team in Afghanistan with finding a tipster in December 2001 who knew the details of a Singapore plot to use 21 tons of explosives to try to blow up the U.S., British, Israeli and Australian embassies in a follow-up attack to the Sept. 11 strikes. "We were desperate to find the next attack," Berntsen said.
Not long after the March 2002 capture of top al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, the CIA's practices became more formal. Agency operatives knew Zubaydah had a wealth of information because of his role as a recruiter and his close ties to al-Qaida's senior leadership, but he was not cooperative.
The CIA decided it would need to hold high-value terrorists such as Zubaydah for an extended periods in an effort to extract information. They also began using some "enhanced interrogation techniques" with success.
One senior U.S. official said "only a fraction" of the agency's 96 high-value detainees have experienced those techniques because "the least obtrusive means are used."
Yet by mid-2004, the CIA's inspector general had completed a report on the treatment of detainees after the possible involvement of CIA personnel in the deaths of at least four prisoners. The review covered interrogation tactics.
Current and former U.S. officials say some techniques are well-known: exposing prisoners to cold, disorienting them or depriving them of sleep. The most controversial is waterboarding, when a detainee is strapped to a board and has water run over him to simulate drowning.
Bush administration officials say the Justice Department has deemed the CIA's practices lawful. In addition, the senior U.S. official said the House and Senate Intelligence committees have now been told everything about the CIA's overseas prisons and interrogation program, except the countries where the prisons were.
But a congressional aide disputed that. The aide said briefings for the Senate committee took place only recently and that the administration has denied the committee access to materials it needs to fulfill its oversight role of the CIA. For example, the committee's top Democrat, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, has not been able to see the Justice Department's legal opinions.
The Supreme Court's decision froze the interrogations and led the administration to turn over the last 14 prisoners in CIA custody to the military officials running a prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The next step is up to Congress. Lawmakers are struggling over how to write legislation creating rules for how to try suspected terrorists and how to specify the lengths that authorities can go in questioning these detainees.
A bill favored by McCain and two other influential Republican senators would prevent CIA personnel involved in the detention program from being sued or prosecuted for their actions. The CIA wants the Congress to go one step further and bless its actions.
In his memo last week to CIA personnel, Hayden also said he wants Congress to define in U.S. law terms of the Geneva Conventions that bar "humiliating and degrading treatment" and "outrages upon personal dignity."
Human rights groups see the effort as an end run and contend established military rules could be applied to all government agencies, including the CIA.
Said Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch: "The only point in having a CIA program is to use techniques that go well beyond what is permitted by the Army Field Manual."
___
Associated Press writer Anne Plummer Flaherty contributed to this report.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Michael Hayden. US President George W. Bush has for the first time confirmed the existence of secret CIA prisons for suspected terrorists, and defended tough interrogations branded as torture by human rights groups.(AFP/Jim Watson)
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner, R-Va., left, and committee member, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. meet reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006 after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden regarding military tribunals. At center is Warner's press secretary John Ullyot. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
Common article three of the Geneva Convention is willingly being ignored here by the 4 Senator Stooges with their fake PR spin. There are all sorts of ways Terrorists fail to fit the critera to be considere in the Convention.
Don't take my word for it, read it at the link. Anyone can see the glaring probles with the Junk Media PR blit. Pretty obvious NONE of them, nor the 4 Senate Stooges, even read it.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/375?OpenDocument
Here is why they are so desperate to impose their arrogant ego driven emotional whimsy on the Administration. They have to choose if they will stand with us and alienate their Junk Media cronies or stand with the Junk Media. They simply lack the guts to speak truth to the Junk Media whiner.
It is an utterly stupid move politically. The Junk Media will love and cherish the "Republican Mavericks" as long as they can be a shield to deflect voter anger at Senate Democrats. As soon as they reach the point any of the silly 4 seriously challenge ANY Democrat in a 2008 race, the Junk Media will suddenly forget all about the "maverick and remember the Republican part of that title.
Repeatly spitting in your political base's face, while doing nothing FOR them, is NOT a "brilliant political move as the Junk Media Talking Heads would have you believe. The 4 Senator Stooges cutting their own political throats as far as any serious consideration for any higher office goes. What is really sad is they are too arrogant to even notice their own political suicide.
Incredibly odd that "a former JAG" is this grotesquely ignorant of what Common Article 3 ACTUALLY says. It seems to indicate this whole stunt is merely another LIE told by the RINO clown posse to come up with YET another excuse to backstab the Administration. CFR, the Silly 7 of the Gang of 14, the Al Qeda Bill of Rights, now this. Just when can we expect the 4 Senate stoodges to stand WITH us, the voters who sent them?
Despite all the hoopla, these terms are what it comes down to. Is depriving a Christian a copy of the Bible more degrading than depriving a Muslim a Koran? What techniques were in play when the 4 prisoners died in custody? "Humiliating and degrading treatment" could mean almost anything, and everything to a Muslim... they seem to be easily offended.
A picture of two traitors.
Lets tie the Presidents hands behind his back and see how he does. These two are either traitors or they have shit for brains. maybe both.
It doesn't matter, ya know why? When it comes good men and women defending this country, their family, and the idea of United States Of America, the activist courts, McPainintheass, and his three stooges can all go straight to hell, before they would NOT do what is neccessary to defend these sacred institutions.
When McPITA and the rest of the DBM/dems fall because of this stupid whiney pissant bitchin' it's going to be a knockout blow!!!
America has millions upon million of good men and women fighting for me and my family every day and I will spend the rest of my life saluting and thanking them for the rest my life and especially GEORGE W BUSH for kicking terrorist ass!.
You Arizonians need to stop smoking the peyote and do some SERIOUS house cleaning! Kick his butt out!!!!!
"In his memo last week to CIA personnel, Hayden also said he wants Congress to define in U.S. law terms of the Geneva Conventions that bar "humiliating and degrading treatment" and "outrages upon personal dignity."
I would say forcing an illegal combatant to listen to the Chili Peppers is probably OK. Piping in Yoko Ono screech music would be inhumane.
I'm afraid they might find that soothing... have you ever heard a Muslim call to prayer?
I posted this on another thread, but it's worth it for this thread also.
"Tortured screams ring out as Iraqis take over Abu Ghraib"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1699197/posts
It seems like the "detainees" NOW think that maybe the "panties-on-the-head" and a "dog collar" weren't really so bad after all, and "wish WE were BACK!!!".
Yes, one doesn't have to be an expert in international law to see that the 1949 Geneva Convention Section 3 clearly does not apply to terrorists.
I think Rush is right in saying that McCain and Graham are the willing sponsors of a "terrorist Bill of Rights".
It would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous.
Ted Kennedy probably pays One Thousand bucks a night for such treatment.
Apperntly to the 4 Senator Stoodges the clock can be turned back to 09-10-01 simply because McCain wants it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.