ABUSE CRISIS: Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations

WASHINGTON, May 12 � The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.
At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

New York Times

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, none known to be housed in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees.

Defenders of the operation said the methods stopped short of torture, did not violate American anti-torture statutes, and were necessary to fight a war against a nebulous enemy whose strength and intentions could only be gleaned by extracting information from often uncooperative detainees. Interrogators were trying to find out whether there might be another attack planned against the United States.

If these people are willing to die for Jihad by suicide, what would these techniques do to change their minds? If one of the detainees should end up dying due to one of these interrorgatioms, he still would be a Martyr. Abuse of "detainees" is growing in attention do to the revelation of these attacks in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, none known to be housed in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees.

The directives empowered the C.I.A. to kill or capture Qaeda leaders, but it is not clear whether the White House approved the specific rules for the interrogations.

I belive the White House would have to approve any such measures, but on the other hand, Bush's Patriot Act has given uncermountable power to government agencies.

Another thing to question is how far The Patriot Act can go. Since Iraq is under US control, does this Law apply there also? Nick Bergs death could have been attributed to this. When he was in Iraqi Police custody, he was not allowed to see a lawyer, make a phone call or do any of the things a 'criminal' would have alloted to him. This just keeps getting worse.



[Edited on 12-5-2004 by TrickmastertricK]