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WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Former and current U.S. officials say a CIA report details the U.S. agency’s threatened use of a drill and gun in the interrogation of an al-Qaida suspect. The unidentified officials said the report, due for release to the public next week, details how captured al-Qaida commander Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was threatened with a power drill and a gun by CIA interrogators in an attempt to procure information, The Washington Post said Saturday. The anonymous officials said he gun and drill were not used on Nashiri but placed nearby in an attempt to instill fear in...

Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees by Eric Holder is expected

District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle Thursday morning granted Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, a writ of habeas corpus that could result in his being freed on August 21. Justice Department officials 22 more days to determine whether or not they can try Jawad in a criminal court in the U.S. Jawad was arrested by Afghan police in December 2002 for allegedly throwing a grenade into a vehicle containing two US troops and an Afghan interpreter. It's unclear how old Jawad was at the time, but he was almost certainly 17 years old or younger. Jawad confessed to Afghan police that...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After more than five years, the Pentagon revealed why it is holding a Saudi nicknamed "the Professor" at Guantanamo Bay, saying he once lived with a Sept. 11 conspirator and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden. Shaker Aamer's lawyer denies the allegations, made after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week requested the release of the Saudi, who has been an unofficial leader among the detainees, and four other former residents of Britain. The Bush administration, which has been urging other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners amid international pressure to close the military jail,...

What does it mean when a country that likes to proclaim itself a defender of freedom plays a song about liberation to people it is torturing? When the architects of torture assert that enhanced interrogation is strictly “by the book,” it turns out that they mean this in a more literal sense than we might have imagined: the Bible, it turns out, was used as a form of torture at Abu Ghraib. Iraqi POW Haj Ali Shalal (“the man behind the hood”) has reported that he was forced to listen to loud and constant repetitions of Psalm 137—in the jaunty,...

On Friday, the CIA busted one of its own and charged him — or her — with leaking classified information. While this guy or gal goes to jail, over at The Washington Post, reporter Dana Priest is still admiring the brand new Pulitzer Prize sitting on her mantle, for writing about what this very leaker told her: the secret prison story. It was last November when Priest published a story in The Washington Post that the U.S. was maintaining a secret array of prisons where American intelligence could interrogate Al Qaeda-types who had been captured on the field of battle...

Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective. GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks. When told of the GOP claims, Democrats strongly criticized the members who revealed...

The most successful interrogation of an Al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or "walling" and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies. (snip) "He was a diabetic and couldn't eat anything with sugar in it." At their next meeting, the Americans brought him some sugar-free cookies, a gesture that took the edge off Abu Jandal's angry demeanor.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney will appeal a CIA decision denying his request for the release of memos he's contended are crucial to proving the success of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees. Cheney's office released a two-sentence statement reacting to the denial, "The Obama Administration has denied Vice President Cheney's request for the declassification of two documents that provide information about the effectiveness of the detainee program. Vice President Cheney is preparing his appeal to this denial."

Charles Krauthammer opined on Special Report on Fox News about Nancy Pelosi.

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret. Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But...

WASHINGTON -- CIA interrogators waterboarded an Al Qaeda prisoner 183 times, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memo, and another prisoner 83 times, the New York Times reported on Monday. Quoting the CIA inspector general in a 2004 investigation, the memo from May 30, 2005 says interrogators used the waterboard at least 83 times during August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda and close associate of Usama bin Laden, the Times said. In March 2003, the controlled method of simulated drowning was used on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001...

WASHINGTON — As the president-elect’s incoming administration looks at possible locations to relocate detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Republican lawmakers from those districts have already begun voicing opposition to the moves. Sources within Barack Obama’s transition team have said that an announcement on the closing of the Guantanamo detention facilities could come within hours of his inauguration. Shutting down the prison and relocating the 260-plus terrorist suspects to other locations was one of Obama’s campaign promises. But moving those prisoners to U.S. military bases could create a distraction or possible target for future terrorist attacks, lawmakers warned this week....

US agents at Guantanamo Bay tortured a Saudi man suspected of involvement in the 11 September attacks, the official overseeing trials at the camp has said. Susan Crawford told the Washington Post newspaper that Mohammad al-Qahtani had been left in a "life-threatening condition" after being interrogated. She said Mr Qahtani had been subjected to sustained periods of cold, isolation and sleep deprivation. Mr Qahtani remains at Guantanamo, but all charges against him were dropped. He had been facing trial on counts of conspiracy, terrorism, and murder in violation of the laws of war.

A Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo Bay says the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Washington Post reported. "We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," Susan J. Crawford told the Post. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. Crawford is the first senior Bush administration official who investigates Guantanamo dealings to publicly say a detainee was tortured.

During a recent interview on ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney said the following with respect to waterboarding senior al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM): “There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source [KSM]. So, it's been a remarkably successful effort. I think the results speak for themselves.” Put aside for a moment the debate over waterboarding, which has been discussed ad naseam, and think about what Cheney is saying with respect to the totality of America’s intelligence on al...

US calls for sacking of Iraq's interior minister over Sunni prisoner abuse Jonathan Steele Saturday December 17, 2005 The Guardian (UK) The US is pressing for the sacking of Bayan Jabr, Iraq's Shia interior minister, whose staff have been discovered to be torturing Sunni prisoners. With a strong Sunni role in Iraq's next government apparently secure after their high turnout in Thursday's election, US officials want to ensure that cabinet posts are no longer exploited for sectarian or partisan ends. Sunnis have long complained that the interior ministry is one of the worst offenders. Inspections of two detention centres on...

The government never accused Muslim Tatar, a 55-year-old pizza shop owner, of doing anything illegal. But Tatar says his life fell apart after his son was among six men charged last May in connection with a plot to attack Fort Dix. He sees his son, who he says is innocent, only through the glass wall at a federal detention center. He has been called a terrorist - and worse. He has health problems. He lost his pizza shop and struggled to find another job as a part-time cook. "My mortgage is behind," he said. "Everything's a big problem. My family...

A recently released propaganda video by the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite revealing. Not only does the video demonstrate the group’s growing effort to package arguments in a manner designed to appeal to Westerners on the political left, but it also serves as a barometer of radical Muslim groups’ broader shift in rhetorical strategy. The video, “Iraq: Past and Present Colonialism,” appears for the first twenty-seven minutes to be a standard leftist critique of the Iraq war, indistinguishable from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The slickly-produced video begins with the history of past colonialism in Iraq—including the Mongol conquest...