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CIA chief backs interrogation policy<br><br>
Friday 18 March 2005 7:17 AM GMT <br><br>
<br>
<b>CIA director Porter Goss has defended his spy agency's current
interrogation practices but could not say all methods used as recently as
last December conformed to US law. <br><br>
</font><font size=4 color="#FF0000">Sometimes this requires what we
euphemistically call a kinetic solution on foreign soil," Goss said.
(referring to ghost detainees and rendition)<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>US officials do not view torture as a method for
gaining vital intelligence, Goss said on Thursday. But he acknowledged
some CIA operatives may have been uncertain about approved interrogation
techniques in the past. <br><br>
"Professional interrogation has become a very useful and necessary
way to obtain information to save innocent lives, to disrupt terrorist
schemes and to protect our combat forces," Goss told the Senate
Committee on Armed Services. <br><br>
"The United States does not engage in or condone torture," he
added. "I know for a fact that torture is not productive. That's not
professional interrogation. We don't torture." <br><br>
Goss, who took over the Central Intelligence Agency last September,
assured the committee the CIA complied fully with a broad definition of
torture contained in a Justice Department memo issued on 30 December,
2004. <br><br>
"At this time, there are no techniques, if I could say, that are
being employed that are in any way against the law or would be considered
torture," he said at a public hearing held to examine worldwide
threats to US national security. <br><br>
<b>Illegal CIA practices<br><br>
</b>He could not offer assurances about CIA practices earlier last year,
when the government followed a narrower interrogation policy that critics
say led to torture. <br><br>
<br>
"Are you able to tell us today that there were no techniques being
used by the intelligence community that were against the law ... up to
the end of 2004?" asked Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the
committee's ranking Democrat. <br><br>
"I am not able to tell you that," said Goss, who offered to
discuss the issue further at a later closed-door session. <br><br>
The US intelligence community's interrogation and detention practices
have drawn increasing world attention amid a recent series of media
reports that have focused on a CIA policy of transferring detainees to
countries known to practice torture. <br><br>
<b>Pressure<br><br>
</b>Senate Democrats have also stepped up pressure on Republican
lawmakers for a congressional investigation of the CIA detainee issue.
<br><br>
The CIA inspector general is investigating about a half-dozen cases of
suspected abuse. Two others have been referred to the Justice Department,
including the case of a CIA contractor charged in the 2003 death of an
Afghan detainee. <br><br>
Since the 11 September, 2001, attacks, the United States is estimated to
have sent 100 to 150 detainees to countries known to engage in torture,
including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan. <br><br>
<b>Unregistered detainees<br><br>
</b>Officials said the US military had also held about 30 unregistered
"ghost" detainees at facilities in Iraq at the CIA's request.
<br><br>
<br>
"Terrorists brought the war to our soil. We have taken the war to
them. Sometimes this requires what we euphemistically call a kinetic
solution on foreign soil," Goss said. <br><br>
<br>
Republican John McCain of Arizona told Goss he was concerned
interrogators in suspected abuse cases may not have known what methods
were acceptable. <br><br>
<br>
"If you're going to talk about the techniques ... there has been in
that case some uncertainty. There has been an attempt to determine what
those policies are. I think that that uncertainty is largely
resolved," the CIA director replied. <br><br>
<b>Agencies<br>
By <br><br>
</b>You can find this article at:<br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/51DED773-CB89-43B1-B0E8-78B64073CA24.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/51DED773-CB89-43B1-B0E8-78B64073CA24.htm</a>
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