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<font size=5 color="#FF0000"><b>TWO Article follow<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>Report claims CIA used 'torture' <br>
By Paul Reynolds <br>
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website <br>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7945783.stm" eudora="autourl">
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7945783.stm<br><br>
</a><b>CIA interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda suspects
"constituted torture", according to a leaked report by the
international Red Cross. <br><br>
</b>The findings were based on testimonies by 14 so-called
"high-value" detainees who were held in secret CIA prisons.
<br><br>
They were interviewed after being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
<br><br>
President George W Bush denied torture had happened and President Barack
Obama has banned US agents from carrying out such practices. <br><br>
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has an international
role in monitoring standards for prisoners and trying to ensure
compliance by governments with the Geneva Conventions. <br><br>
It was denied access to the prisoners until their transfer to Guantanamo
Bay. <br><br>
“ <b>I was told that they would not allow me to die but that I would be
brought to the 'verge of death and back again' </b>” <br>
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed <br>
Among those interviewed by the ICRC was the alleged mastermind of the
9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who said he was told he would be
"brought to the verge of death and back". <br><br>
The ICRC report was obtained by Mark Danner, a US writer, whose account
is in the New York Review of Books. <br><br>
The report was not intended for publication but, as is the procedure in
such cases, was given in confidence to the US government. <br><br>
"For the first time the words are those of the detainees
themselves," Mark Danner says in a podcast attached to his story.
<br><br>
<b>'Breaking point' <br><br>
</b>The report's table of contents lists the methods the prisoners told
the ICRC they had endured. <br><br>
Taken overall they constitute an attempt to break a prisoner down through
sensory deprivation and beatings, none of which is supposed to leave
physical damage that can be traced. <br><br>
The accounts indicate that a combination of methods was used on each
prisoner. <br><br>
The methods listed included: Suffocation by water or waterboarding;
prolonged stress standing; beating by use of a collar; confinement in a
box; prolonged nudity; sleep deprivation and subjection to noise and cold
water; and denial of solid food. <br><br>
"They never used the word 'torture'... only to 'hard time',"
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is quoted as saying. <br><br>
"I was never threatened with death, in fact I was told that they
would not allow me to die, but that I would be brought to the 'verge of
death and back again'." <br><br>
He said he underwent waterboarding five times: "A cloth would be
placed over my face, cold water from a bottle kept in a fridge was then
poured onto the cloth by one of the guards so I could not breathe."
<br><br>
He said a clip was put on his finger to monitor his pulse "so they
could take me to the breaking point". <br><br>
<b>'Minimise physical damage' <br><br>
</b>Another prisoner Abu Zubaydah was apparently the first to be
subjected to this "alternative set of procedures". <br><br>
He said: "I was told... that I was one of the first to receive those
interrogation techniques, so no rules applied." <br><br>
In his case, there was a variation apparently not used subsequently.
<br><br>
'INTERROGATION METHODS' <br>
Waterboarding Beatings Sleep deprivation Prolonged stress standing
Prolonged nudity Confinement in a box Denial of solid food <i>Source:
ICRC Report <br>
</i>He said he was put into a tall box and later into a smaller one in
which he had to crouch, causing a wound on his leg to start bleeding.
<br><br>
He also had a towel tied round his neck with which his interrogators
would slam him against a wall, which had plywood attached to it.
<br><br>
Mr Danner surmised this was to minimise the physical damage caused to
him. <br><br>
With other prisoners this towel became a plastic collar used with the
same effect. <br><br>
<b>Contradiction? <br><br>
</b>President Bush acknowledged that, as he put it, an "alternative
set of procedures" had been used on some prisoners but he denied
this meant they had been tortured, which is outlawed by an international
convention. <br><br>
"The United States does not torture," President Bush said in
September 2006. That was after the techniques described had been used.
<br><br>
The Bush administration developed a legal protection, under which the
definition of torture was narrowed to exclude the methods described.
<br><br>
Mr Danner says the ICRC report now presents a "clear
contradiction" of that position and that "this contradiction
needs to be worked out". <br><br>
Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the US's Senate Judiciary Committee,
has proposed that former officials be given immunity in return for
evidence. <br><br>
Human rights groups want accountability. <br><br>
President Obama has spoken of "looking forwards". He has also
banned the use of the techniques by all US agencies, including the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which had been given special
dispensation by the Bush administration. <br><br>
The ICRC has said that it regrets the publication of the information
attributed to its report. <br><br>
<b>'Essential' <br><br>
</b>There has been a counter attack by former Vice President Dick Cheney,
who once said that the use of waterboarding had been, for him, a
"no-brainer". <br><br>
He accused President Obama of "making choices that, in my mind,
will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another
attack". <br><br>
Some have questioned the value of the intelligence gained from harsh
techniques. <br><br>
Mr Cheney said: "I think those programmes were absolutely essential
to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that
let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United
States after 9/11." <br><br>
<i><a href="mailto:Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk">
Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk </a><br>
</i>Story from BBC NEWS:<br>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7945783.stm" eudora="autourl">
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7945783.stm<br><br>
</a>Published: 2009/03/16 16:17:41 GMT<br><br>
© BBC MMIX<br><br>
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<font size=3>
<a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/compare-and-con.html" eudora="autourl">
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/compare-and-con.html</a>
<br><br>
16 Mar 2009 01:38 pm<br><br>
</font><h3><b>Compare And Contrast</b></h3><font size=3>From the
<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22530">Red Cross's summary</a>
of Bush-Cheney torture techniques:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Contents<br>
<dd>Introduction<br>
<dd>1. Main Elements of the CIA Detention Program<br>
<dd>1.1 Arrest and Transfer<br>
<dd>1.2 Continuous Solitary Confinement and Incommunicado Detention<br>
<dd>1.3 Other Methods of Ill-treatment<br>
<dd>1.3.1 Suffocation by water<br>
<dd>1.3.2 Prolonged Stress Standing<br>
<dd>1.3.3 Beatings by use of a collar<br>
<dd>1.3.4 Beating and kicking<br>
<dd>1.3.5 Confinement in a box<br>
<dd>1.3.6 Prolonged nudity<br>
<dd>1.3.7 Sleep deprivation and use of loud music<br>
<dd>1.3.8 Exposure to cold temperature/cold water<br>
<dd>1.3.9 Prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles<br>
<dd>1.3.10 Threats<br>
<dd>1.3.11 Forced shaving<br>
<dd>1.3.12 Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food<br>
<dd>1.4 Further elements of the detention regime...<br><br>
</dl>The Gestapo's list of torture techniques that fit into their
"<a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html">
enhanced interrogation program</a>" - a torture regime designed to
avoid too-obvious or incriminating physical scars:<br><br>
<a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2009/03/16/translationofmuellermemo_3.jpg">
<img src="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/images/2009/03/16/translationofmuellermemo_3.jpg" width=500 height=525 alt="Translationofmuellermemo_3">
</a> <br>
Bush and Cheney were, in fact, more brutal in their "enhanced
interrogation" than the Gestapo was. And note that I am not engaging
in the slightest hyperbole here. I'm not saying that the US is Nazi
Germany in any way. I am saying that the torture program used by Bush and
Cheney follows exactly the specific methods used by the Gestapo. This is
not in any historical dispute, although the irony of using the exact same
phrase for the exact same methods is one reason the Bushies dropped the
term. <br><br>
We also have a very specific legal precedent. When the US captured
officials who had done to prisoners exactly what the last president did,
the US prosecuted them, found them guilty and
<a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html">
executed them</a></i>. The price Cheney pays is a fawning interview on
CNN. <br><br>
That's who we are. That's what we've become.<br><br>
<br><br>
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