Posted on 03/24/2007 9:23:01 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Rockefeller mulls secret prison shutdown
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is questioning whether the CIA's secret prison program — which he fears has become a black eye to the United States — should continue.
The review led by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., comes as the Bush administration deliberates an executive order, called for by Congress, that will establish new guidelines for the CIA's system for detaining and interrogating suspected terrorists. It is the agency's most publicly controversial intelligence collection program.
Rockefeller says there is no doubt that intelligence from detainees has been valuable. Yet he says he wonders whether the CIA needed to create a system outside of long-standing FBI and military interrogation programs.
Rockefeller's spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi, said he has not been convinced that the CIA prisons produce better intelligence than the FBI and military systems.
"The real question is whether the administration's decision to pursue an alternate system (at the CIA) was the right approach," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday.
President Bush said he emptied the CIA's secret prisons in September and sent its last 14 high-value detainees to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he left open the possibility that the program could be used again.
As chairman, Rockefeller has promised to conduct more vigorous oversight of the spy agencies than did his Republican predecessor. He is asking whether having a separate CIA detention and interrogation system is necessary and worth the toll on the U.S. image abroad.
"The widespread reports about secret prisons and torture, whether accurate or not, have damaged the United States' reputation around the world and hindered counterterrorism efforts with our allies," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"About 30 are considered major terrorism suspects and have been held under the highest level of secrecy at black sites financed by the CIA and managed by agency personnel, including those in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, according to current and former intelligence officers and two other U.S. government officials. Two locations in this category -- in Thailand and on the grounds of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay -- were closed in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
A second tier -- which these sources believe includes more than 70 detainees -- is a group considered less important, with less direct involvement in terrorism and having limited intelligence value. These prisoners, some of whom were originally taken to black sites, are delivered to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, a process sometimes known as "rendition." While the first-tier black sites are run by CIA officers, the jails in these countries are operated by the host nations, with CIA financial assistance and, sometimes, direction."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644_pf.html
"U.S. officials have privately described the threat of rendition as a powerful tool in prying loose information from suspects who fear torture by foreign countries. But Gonzales, speaking to reporters at the Justice Department yesterday, said that U.S. policy is not to send detainees "to countries where we believe or we know that they're going to be tortured."
That represents a slight modification of his congressional testimony in January that renditions would not be made to countries where it is "more likely than not" they will be tortured. Gonzales added yesterday that if a country has a history of torture, Washington seeks additional assurances that it will not be used against the transferred detainee."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15130-2005Mar7.html
In wartime, I would expect CIA and similar operators to have safe houses scattered around the globe, I would be shocked if they didn't. I expect them to have secure locations where they can conduct their interrogations, and I expect that terrorists taken down in their operations will have to be dealt with, meaning in many cases incarcerated for a time.
I don't expect many of them to be incarcerated in 5 star hotels.
That doesn't disturb me in the least.
I am disturbed that people supposedly in the know are discussing it with the New York Times, or the Washington Post, and that politicians and pundits are trying to make hay out of it. Don't get me wrong, as a news junkie I love reading articles such as the ones you link. I am disturbed that someone on Rockefeller's committee, perhaps Rockefeller himself, is talking to the press. I'm disturbed that maybe people in the intelligence community itself is trying to blow an operation by leaking it to the press.
I oppose torturing detainees, even more when we don't do the torturing. I expect the culture in America will put some brakes on the torture, compared to say Syria.
We've "rendered" people to Syria, asking for assurances that they won't torture...right.
I agree with you.
Except that Senator John McStain got around to that first.
So is the prison secret, or would the shutdown be secret?
Why would he do that, when he's one of them?
Mark
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