cia prisons (9.11.05, update 18.7.12)

Eingereicht von Banga Boris
Einreichungsdatum 17.06.2005
Eingereicht im Nationalrat
Stand der Beratung Erledigt

Eingereichter Text
Mit an Sicherheit grenzender Wahrscheinlichkeit ist nach heutigem Kenntnisstand davon auszugehen, dass die USA, d. h. die CIA, eventuell das FBI und andere Dienste, zivile Luftfahrzeuge für "renditions" (zur Folterung nach Syrien, Ägypten, Jordanien, Marokko) und für Entführungen von Terrorismusverdächtigen (zumindest drei Fälle in Schweden und Italien bzw. Deutschland) verwendet haben und verwenden. Nach den Genfer Konventionen und nach dem Uno Pakt II über die bürgerlichen und politischen Rechte gilt nicht nur das Non-Refoulement-Prinzip, sondern auch das absolute Folterverbot.
Dabei ist auch unser Land betroffen. Sowohl die dazu verwendete Boeing 737 (Business Jet) als auch eine Gulfstream überflogen nicht nur häufig den schweizerischen Luftraum, sondern landeten auch mehrmals in Genf.
Die Boeing 737 ist registriert unter einer privaten Firma und hat ihre Immatrikulation bereits mehrfach gewechselt. Auch die Gulfstream wechselt laufend ihre Immatrikulation und gilt aktuell als Firmenflugzeug der Firma Sikorsky. Beide Flugzeuge sind nicht "Standard" und weisen keinerlei Beschriftungen auf. Hingegen besitzen sie spezielle Einstiegsleitern (Unabhängigkeit von der Bodenorganisation) und besondere Antennen für Satcom.
1. Hat der Bundesrat Kenntnis von diesen Überflügen und Landungen in der Schweiz und wie hat er reagiert?
2. Ist der Bundesrat bereit, bei verdächtigen Flugzeugen (sie gelten nach der Landung auf dem Abstellplatz als exterritorial) die einzig möglichen Kontrollen (Zoll und Bordbuch) lückenlos durchführen zu lassen?
3. Ist der Bundesrat bereit, die USA in unmissverständlicher Form zur Einhaltung insbesondere der Genfer Konventionen anzuhalten?

Antwort des Bundesrates vom 23.09.2005
1. Der Bundesrat hat von diesen Flügen aus der Presse erfahren. In der Zwischenzeit getroffene Abklärungen haben ergeben, dass die in der Anfrage beschriebenen und in der Presse mit Immatrikulation genannten Flugzeuge am 24. Dezember 2003 sowie am 25. Januar und am 15. April 2004 in Genf gelandet und anschliessend nach Washington weitergeflogen sind. Die Bewegungen im Luftverkehr von und nach der Schweiz können bei Vorliegen konkreter Hinweise auf staatsschutzrelevante Vorgänge vom Dienst für Analyse und Prävention des Eidgenössischen Justiz- und Polizeidepartementes überprüft oder bei Vorliegen von konkreten strafrechtlichen Verdachtsmomenten von den zuständigen Strafverfolgungsbehörden bearbeitet werden, doch handelt es sich dabei nicht um systematische Überprüfungen aller Flugvorgänge. Dies ist auch nicht möglich, weil täglich hunderte von Flügen von und nach der Schweiz zu verzeichnen sind. Für die beiden erwähnten Flüge aus den Jahren 2003 und 2004 lagen zum Zeitpunkt der Landung in der Schweiz keine Verdachtsmomente vor, die eine eingehendere Überprüfung hätten erforderlich erscheinen lassen.
Auch die nachträglichen Abklärungen ergaben keinerlei Hinweise, dass die genannten Flüge in die Schweiz rechtswidrigen Zwecken gedient hätten, namentlich dem unfreiwilligen Transport von Personen durch die Schweiz oder der unfreiwilligen Verbringung von Personen aus der Schweiz.
2. In der Schweiz gelandete ausländische Luftfahrzeuge unterstehen uneingeschränkt dem Schweizer Recht. Sie gelten nicht als exterritorial. Die Zollgesetzgebung regelt abschliessend, welchen Kontrollen in der Schweiz landende und ab der Schweiz abfliegende Luftfahrzeuge unterstehen. Sind solche Kontrollen nach Zollrecht zwingend vorgeschrieben, werden sie entsprechend auch lückenlos durchgeführt. Es handelt sich hierbei beispielsweise um die Kontrolle des Ladungsmanifestes und, soweit Personen gewerbsmässig befördert werden, des Reisendenverzeichnisses. Nach dem Auslad wird das Luftfahrzeug zudem durch einen Zollbeamten besichtigt, wobei ihm auf Verlangen sämtliche Räume, Schränke und Behältnisse zu öffnen sind, die für die Vornahme der Besichtigung erforderlich sind. Bei Verdachtsmomenten haben die Zollbehörden weiter jederzeit die Möglichkeit, Kontrollen durchzuführen. Diese Verdachtsmomente beschränken sich aber in der Regel auf die mögliche Verletzung von Zollvorschriften. Technische Kontrollen an ausländischen Luftfahrzeugen können gemäss den Vorgaben der europäischen Zivilluftfahrtorganisation im Rahmen des Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft durch das Bazl durchgeführt werden. Die Kontrollen hierbei beschränken sich aber auf rein technische Aspekte wie z. B. Pilotenlizenzen, im Cockpit mitzuführende Dokumente, die Sicherheitsausrüstung in Cockpit und Kabine sowie den allgemeinen Zustand des Luftfahrzeuges.
3. Die Schweiz hat mehrmals sowohl auf multilateraler wie auch auf bilateraler Ebene die grundlegende Bedeutung des Folterverbotes als zwingende Bestimmung des Völkerrechtes in Erinnerung gerufen. Weiter haben Bundesrätin Micheline Calmy-Rey und Staatssekretär Ambühl anlässlich ihrer Besuche in Washington im Juni 2005 den amerikanischen Behörden ein Memorandum übergeben, in welchem darauf hingewiesen wird, dass die Überführung von Personen in Länder, in denen sie riskieren, gefoltert zu werden, gegen das Folterverbot und das ebenfalls völkergewohnheitsrechtliche Non-Refoulement-Prinzip verstösst. Nachdem in den Medien entsprechende Berichte erschienen sind, hat das EDA die Botschaft der USA in Bern um Klärung ersucht. Das EDA hat die Daten und die Immatrikulationen der Botschaft übermittelt und festgehalten, dass, sollten sich diese Angaben bestätigen, die Schweiz diese Praxis verurteilen und von den USA die Einstellung dieser Flüge verlangen würde. Der Vertreter der USA teilte mit, er werde die Anfrage weiterleiten und den Behörden in Washington die Bedenken der Schweiz zur Kenntnis bringen. Die Schweiz wird eine offizielle Antwort erhalten.

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

In Afghanistan, the largest CIA covert prison was code-named the Salt Pit, at center left above. (Space Imaging Middle East)

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was that a second strike was imminent.

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.

Some detainees apprehended by the CIA and transferred to foreign intelligence agencies have alleged after their release that they were tortured, although it is unclear whether CIA personnel played a role in the alleged abuse. Given the secrecy surrounding CIA detentions, such accusations have heightened concerns among foreign governments and human rights groups about CIA detention and interrogation practices.

The contours of the CIA's detention program have emerged in bits and pieces over the past two years. Parliaments in Canada, Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands have opened inquiries into alleged CIA operations that secretly captured their citizens or legal residents and transferred them to the agency's prisons.

More than 100 suspected terrorists have been sent by the CIA into the covert system, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and foreign sources. This figure, a rough estimate based on information from sources who said their knowledge of the numbers was incomplete, does not include prisoners picked up in Iraq.

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.

Morocco, Egypt and Jordan have said that they do not torture detainees, although years of State Department human rights reports accuse all three of chronic prisoner abuse.

The top 30 al Qaeda prisoners exist in complete isolation from the outside world. Kept in dark, sometimes underground cells, they have no recognized legal rights, and no one outside the CIA is allowed to talk with or even see them, or to otherwise verify their well-being, said current and former and U.S. and foreign government and intelligence officials.

Most of the facilities were built and are maintained with congressionally appropriated funds, but the White House has refused to allow the CIA to brief anyone except the House and Senate intelligence committees' chairmen and vice chairmen on the program's generalities.

The Eastern European countries that the CIA has persuaded to hide al Qaeda captives are democracies that have embraced the rule of law and individual rights after decades of Soviet domination. Each has been trying to cleanse its intelligence services of operatives who have worked on behalf of others -- mainly Russia and organized crime.

The idea of holding terrorists outside the U.S. legal system was not under consideration before Sept. 11, 2001, not even for Osama bin Laden, according to former government officials. The plan was to bring bin Laden and his top associates into the U.S. justice system for trial or to send them to foreign countries where they would be tried.

"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever discussed," said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period. "It was against the culture and they believed information was best gleaned by other means."

On the day of the attacks, the CIA already had a list of what it called High-Value Targets from the al Qaeda structure, and as the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack plots were unraveled, more names were added to the list. The question of what to do with these people surfaced quickly.

The CTC's chief of operations argued for creating hit teams of case officers and CIA paramilitaries that would covertly infiltrate countries in the Middle East, Africa and even Europe to assassinate people on the list, one by one.

But many CIA officers believed that the al Qaeda leaders would be worth keeping alive to interrogate about their network and other plots. Some officers worried that the CIA would not be very adept at assassination.

The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers.

Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.

Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials.

Among the first steps was to figure out where the CIA could secretly hold the captives. One early idea was to keep them on ships in international waters, but that was discarded for security and logistics reasons.

CIA officers also searched for a setting like Alcatraz Island. They considered the virtually unvisited islands in Lake Kariba in Zambia, which were edged with craggy cliffs and covered in woods. But poor sanitary conditions could easily lead to fatal diseases, they decided, and besides, they wondered, could the Zambians be trusted with such a secret?

Still without a long-term solution, the CIA began sending suspects it captured in the first month or so after Sept. 11 to its longtime partners, the intelligence services of Egypt and Jordan.

A month later, the CIA found itself with hundreds of prisoners who were captured on battlefields in Afghanistan. A short-term solution was improvised. The agency shoved its highest-value prisoners into metal shipping containers set up on a corner of the Bagram Air Base, which was surrounded with a triple perimeter of concertina-wire fencing. Most prisoners were left in the hands of the Northern Alliance, U.S.-supported opposition forces who were fighting the Taliban.

"I remember asking: What are we going to do with these people?" said a senior CIA officer. "I kept saying, where's the help? We've got to bring in some help. We can't be jailers -- our job is to find Osama."

Then came grisly reports, in the winter of 2001, that prisoners kept by allied Afghan generals in cargo containers had died of asphyxiation. The CIA asked Congress for, and was quickly granted, tens of millions of dollars to establish a larger, long-term system in Afghanistan, parts of which would be used for CIA prisoners.

The largest CIA prison in Afghanistan was code-named the Salt Pit. It was also the CIA's substation and was first housed in an old brick factory outside Kabul. In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death.

The Salt Pit was protected by surveillance cameras and tough Afghan guards, but the road leading to it was not safe to travel and the jail was eventually moved inside Bagram Air Base. It has since been relocated off the base.

By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black-site deals with two countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation.

Then the CIA captured its first big detainee, in March 28, 2002. Pakistani forces took Abu Zubaida, al Qaeda's operations chief, into custody and the CIA whisked him to the new black site in Thailand, which included underground interrogation cells, said several former and current intelligence officials. Six months later, Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh was also captured in Pakistan and flown to Thailand.

But after published reports revealed the existence of the site in June 2003, Thai officials insisted the CIA shut it down, and the two terrorists were moved elsewhere, according to former government officials involved in the matter. Work between the two countries on counterterrorism has been lukewarm ever since.

In late 2002 or early 2003, the CIA brokered deals with other countries to establish black-site prisons. One of these sites -- which sources said they believed to be the CIA's biggest facility now -- became particularly important when the agency realized it would have a growing number of prisoners and a shrinking number of prisons.

Thailand was closed, and sometime in 2004 the CIA decided it had to give up its small site at Guantanamo Bay. The CIA had planned to convert that into a state-of-the-art facility, operated independently of the military. The CIA pulled out when U.S. courts began to exercise greater control over the military detainees, and agency officials feared judges would soon extend the same type of supervision over their detainees.

In hindsight, say some former and current intelligence officials, the CIA's problems were exacerbated by another decision made within the Counterterrorist Center at Langley.

The CIA program's original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials.

The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, they said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach any threshold," one intelligence official said.

Several former and current intelligence officials, as well as several other U.S. government officials with knowledge of the program, express frustration that the White House and the leaders of the intelligence community have not made it a priority to decide whether the secret internment program should continue in its current form, or be replaced by some other approach.

Meanwhile, the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA officers, some of whom also argue that the secrecy surrounding the program is not sustainable. "It's just a horrible burden," said the intelligence official.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - A classified report issued last year by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general warned that interrogation procedures approved by the C.I.A. after the Sept. 11 attacks might violate some provisions of the international Convention Against Torture, current and former intelligence officials say.

The previously undisclosed findings from the report, which was completed in the spring of 2004, reflected deep unease within the C.I.A. about the interrogation procedures, the officials said. A list of 10 techniques authorized early in 2002 for use against terror suspects included one known as waterboarding, and went well beyond those authorized by the military for use on prisoners of war.

The convention, which was drafted by the United Nations, bans torture, which is defined as the infliction of "severe" physical or mental pain or suffering, and prohibits lesser abuses that fall short of torture if they are "cruel, inhuman or degrading." The United States is a signatory, but with some reservations set when it was ratified by the Senate in 1994.

The report, by John L. Helgerson, the C.I.A.'s inspector general, did not conclude that the techniques constituted torture, which is also prohibited under American law, the officials said. But Mr. Helgerson did find, the officials said, that the techniques appeared to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under the convention.

The agency said in a written statement in March that "all approved interrogation techniques, both past and present, are lawful and do not constitute torture." It reaffirmed that statement on Tuesday, but would not comment on any classified report issued by Mr. Helgerson. The statement in March did not specifically address techniques that could be labeled cruel, inhuman or degrading, and which are not explicitly prohibited in American law.

The officials who described the report said it discussed particular techniques used by the C.I.A. against particular prisoners, including about three dozen terror suspects being held by the agency in secret locations around the world. They said it referred in particular to the treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is said to have organized the Sept. 11 attacks and who has been detained in a secret location by the C.I.A. since he was captured in March 2003. Mr. Mohammed is among those believed to have been subjected to waterboarding, in which a prisoner is strapped to a board and made to believe that he is drowning.

In his report, Mr. Helgerson also raised concern about whether the use of the techniques could expose agency officers to legal liability, the officials said. They said the report expressed skepticism about the Bush administration view that any ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under the treaty does not apply to C.I.A. interrogations because they take place overseas on people who are not citizens of the United States.

The current and former intelligence officials who described Mr. Helgerson's report include supporters and critics of his findings. None would agree to be identified by name, and none would describe his conclusions in specific detail. They said the report had included 10 recommendations for changes in the agency's handling of terror suspects, but they would not say what those recommendations were.

Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director, testified this year that eight of the report's recommendations had been accepted, but did not describe them. The inspector general is an independent official whose auditing role at the agency was established by Congress, but whose reports to the agency's director are not binding.

Some former intelligence officials said the inspector general's findings had been vigorously disputed by the agency's general counsel. To date, the Justice Department has brought charges against only one C.I.A. employee in connection with prisoner abuse, and prosecutors have signaled that they are unlikely to bring charges against C.I.A. officers in several other cases involving the mishandling of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the current and former intelligence officials said Mr. Helgerson's report had added to apprehensions within the agency about gray areas in the rules surrounding interrogation procedures.

"The ambiguity in the law must cause nightmares for intelligence officers who are engaged in aggressive interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects and other terrorism suspects," said John Radsan, a former assistant general counsel at the agency who left in 2004. Mr. Radsan, now an associate professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, would not comment on Mr. Helgerson's report.

Congressional officials said the report had emerged as an unstated backdrop in the debate now under way on Capitol Hill over whether the C.I.A. should be subjected to the same strict rules on interrogation that the military is required to follow. In opposing an amendment sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, Mr. Goss and Vice President Dick Cheney have argued that the C.I.A. should be granted an exemption allowing it extra latitude, subject to presidential authorization, in interrogating high-level terrorists abroad who might have knowledge about future attacks.

The issue of the agency's treatment of detainees arose shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, after C.I.A. officers became involved in interrogating prisoners caught in Afghanistan, and the agency sought legal guidance on how far its employees and contractors could go in interrogating terror suspects, current and former intelligence officials said.

The list of 10 techniques, including feigned drowning, was secretly drawn up in early 2002 by a team that included senior C.I.A. officials who solicited recommendations from foreign governments and from agency psychologists, the officials said. They said officials from the Justice Department and the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, were involved in the process.

Among the few known documents that address interrogation procedures and that have been made public is an August 2002 legal opinion by the Justice Department, which said that interrogation methods just short of those that might cause pain comparable to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death" could be allowable without being considered torture. The administration disavowed that classified legal opinion in the summer of 2004 after it was publicly disclosed.

A new opinion made public in December 2004 and, signed by James B. Comey, then the deputy attorney general, explicitly rejected torture and adopted more restrictive standards to define it. But a cryptic footnote to the new document about the "treatment of detainees" referred to what the officials said were other still-classified opinions. Officials have said that the footnote meant that coercive techniques approved by the Justice Department under the looser interpretation of the torture statutes were still lawful even under the new, more restrictive standards.

It remains unclear whether all 10 of the so-called enhanced procedures approved in early 2002 remain authorized for use by the C.I.A. In an unclassified report this summer, the Senate Intelligence Committee referred briefly to Mr. Helgerson's report and said that the agency had fully put in effect only 5 of his 10 recommendations. But in testimony before Congress in February Mr. Goss said that eight had.

Some former intelligence officials have said the C.I.A. imposed tighter safeguards on its interrogation procedures after the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison came to light in May 2004. That was about the same time Mr. Helgerson completed his report.

The agency issued its earlier statement on the legality of approved interrogation techniques after Mr. Goss, in testimony before Congress on March 17, said that all interrogation techniques used "at this time" were legal but declined, when asked, to make the same broad assertion about practices used over the past few years.

On March 18, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, the agency's director of public affairs, said that "C.I.A. policies on interrogation have always followed legal guidance from the Department of Justice."

I know this sounds out there, but I can't shake the feeling they're on a mission to saturate Europe with cocaine. One has to only remember the war waged on Nicarauga and all the exposés which followed proving the CIA was running drugs, not to mention supplying the gangs in South Central Los Angeles with crack. Snakes!

When I first read about this, I felt my inner bs meter shoot up when it was said they were making stopovers to transport terrorist suspects to secret interrogation/torture centers in Eastern Europe and even Gitmo. An airport in Porto? The hub is via Lisboa and south, Algarve, so Faro would make sense. Those weren't the airports named. The base at Lajes has been brought into it, The government in power is coughing and sputtering, the left is demanding a major investigation.

Check any CIA factbook and a lot of other sources which all claim Portugal is the gateway for drugs, especially coke from South America, Afghanistan for heroin and Morocco for hashish. A big report came out recently which revealed cocaine use is at an all time high in Spain and Britain, with Portugal right in there. Portuguese publications have run articles about the decline in heroin use and how the drug of choice now is cocaine and, get this, the users in one article were 13 to 15 years old. This country is awash in drugs and now there's a Columbian connection due to the cocaine. Hey, the junkie rate declines, heroin isn't selling that well, but wow, let's give 'em a taste of cocaine. It has to get here somehow and how better to get it here from Colombia but by the CIA?

Back to those planes. I've been told by too many reputable people and have also believed the CIA are the biggest drug lords on the planet. I found an article from Columbia Tribune about how it was very unlikely the secret prisons exist, which was mostly about the flights, but the part I zeroed in on was at the end:
The Portuguese government said it was consulting with the U.S. government after Diario de Noticias reported Friday that 34 planes that landed in Portugal over the past three years were suspected of involvement in secret CIA operations.
Secret? Hmmm. When this first broke it was 3 planes and the year has changed from 2003 to 2005. Another suspicion-raiser were reports of a huge drug bust, the first on the 22nd of November, the others on the 26th or 27th, depending on where it was read. From Xinhuanet:
LISBON, Nov. 22 (Xinhuanet) --Portugal's Judicial Police (PJ) announced on Tuesday that they seized 6.1 tons of cocaine and arrested seven suspects during a raid on Monday.
Though it's a bit different the players seem to be the same. The first bust report stated,
The cocaine came from Colombia. A Colombian and six Frenchmen were arrested in the raid.
. The later bust as reported by UPI;
LISBON, Portugal, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Portuguese police have seized more than 7 tons of cocaine and arrested six people, including a Frenchman under investigation in Spain for money laundering.
Both included either 5 to 6 Frencmen and one Colombian. If there were really a second record bust in 6 days, that news would have had the headlines screaming 13 Tons and what do you get? News. This hasn't been news as there was no two and two to put together. Why? It doesn't make sense, and I feel more confused than when I first began writing. I can't see this having anything to do with the CIA planes, unless that other report about the Spanish finding 2 tons of coke destined for the Netherlands plays a part. Link. Hmm. The last report of a CIA plane landing there was a week ago according to the Columbian Tribune.

Stop the GD presses. It sure pays to search in many different ways. After finding the plane that landed in the Netherlands was from a CIA front, "Path Corp" I searched that with CIA. I found a blog, xer-files that has me whistling even though I have a mouthful of crackers. Woootwooot. The first entry was about the Path plane. The entry before is what roped and pulled me in:
November 24, 2005 -- LATE NEWS -- The Frequency Monitoring Centre in the Netherlands is now reporting on yet another CIA prisoner aircraft transiting Schipol East Airport in Amsterdam. The plane departed Schipol on November 18, 2005 enroute to Reykjavik, Iceland. The plane, a DeHavilland Dash 8-315B (registration N505LL) flew to Amsterdam from Sabiha Gökçen Airport in Istanbul, Turkey on November 16, 2005. The plane is registered to Path Corporation, a CIA front company. (Path owns three other aircraft: N120JM (Fairchild.SA227-AT), N212CP (Cessna/208B), and N221SG (Gates Learjet Corp 35A). N505LL was photographed at Chandler Airport in Phoenix on May 18, 2005 and has been seen in Afghanistan on CIA covert missions.
Turkey? Afghanistan? Whoa. Where do the drugs come from? Where are they consumed? What is Amsterdam known for? I don't feel quite as ridiculous as when I first began this wondering if the CIA were transporting drugs, not terrorists. I'm going to stand by this hunch, like I would my man. The feeling is that strong. In the meantime, Portugal plays a major role, even if the players are usually another nationality. I don't understand why the borders and the waters aren't more patrolled, unless...oh yes, they're still doing for the CIA what they've done since the revolution 30-some years ago. Whatever is asked.

Just think about it. Iraq is costing more than the US can afford. All wars have been paid for with drug money, so what makes things different now? The CIA has always been the top dog. What makes that different? Not a damn thing. It will always be business as usual and nothing anyone can come up with to prove what I'm sensing is true, will mean a thing. These agencies all play the same game -- there're no separate teams, in spite of what the news, Hollywood or the White House want you to believe.

There you have it. I feel better having written out what's been stuck inside for over a week now. I could be totally wrong or totally right, but will never know. Hell, they could be transporting both -- terrorist suspects and drugs, a most sick and slick operation that only the CIA can get away with. Snakes.

A bitter debate over torture has erupted in Europe. Washington is believed to have used EU countries as transit points for moving terrorism suspects to clandestine locations where they may have been tortured. The Council of Europe and other organizations are now demanding answers -- from the US and European countries who looked the other way.

Dick Marty, a liberal-minded Swiss citizen with a gray beard, glasses and a high forehead, knows what it's like to face a powerful opponent. As a prosecutor, he once successfully prosecuted the Mafia. His current adversary is just as intimidating and perhaps even more secretive than the Mafia. It's the United States Central Intelligence Agency, which, in an effort to back the White House, has responded to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by kidnapping terrorism suspects and presumably abusing them in secret prisons. Now the Council of Europe has hired Marty to find out which European countries may have helped the US agents achieve their objectives.

Last Friday, the Swiss prosecutor made it clear that he has no compunctions about picking a fight with the world's sole remaining superpower. A self-confident Marty filed a request with the European Union's satellite center in Torrejón, Spain for satellite photographs from the past three years. He hopes to use the images to determine whether the alleged secret prisons did in fact exist, in countries like Poland and Romania. He also contacted the European aviation authority, Eurocontrol, asking for data on the flight movements of 31 aircraft suspected of having served as CIA shuttles for the transport of prisoners or abducted terrorism suspects.

Marty's mission touches on a hot-button issue -- and it's the first serious attempt to investigate and expose an arbitrary system Washington has allegedly used as one of its most effective weapons in combating terrorism. The US agents have used torture-like methods that many experts believe violate international law to extract statements from suspected members of al-Qaida. Until now, Washington's European allies have consistently looked the other way when it came to this notorious aspect of the worldwide counterterrorism effort.

A regular CIA gulag appears to have been created in recent years, with many prisoners kept in Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and various central Asian nations, places where the CIA was given access to the prisoners at all times. Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, also claims to have seen a suspicious-looking prison camp at Camp Bondsteel, an American base in Kosovo.

But the highest-ranking al-Qaida members are apparently kept moving with a small group of CIA interrogation experts, like an invisible caravan, from one of the so-called black sites to another. Outrage over claims that some of these secret prisons may be located at former military bases in Eastern Europe triggered the Council of Europe's investigation.

Turning a blind eye to human rights violations?
In the past, the Europeans turned a blind eye to the Americans' human rights violations. After all, Islamist terror was considered more dangerous and, more importantly, was being committed by a common enemy. But now European politicians have had enough.

Marty secretly hopes for trans-Atlantic cooperation, and he may well get it. A heated debate has broken out in the United States over whether the West's leading power can resort to torture when it believes its national security is under threat. The Bush administration's draconian methods have met with sharp resistance in the US Senate. US President George W. Bush, for his part, has threatened to veto an amendment that would require the CIA -- like any other US government agency -- to use only methods allowed under international law to extract information from its prisoners. Vice President Dick Cheney's vehement efforts to obstruct the amendment even prompted former CIA Director Stansfield Turner to angrily label Cheney a "vice president for torture."

Another amendment the US Congress recently approved would give the US government 60 days to present a detailed report on the secret CIA prisons, or black sites. Specifically, Congress wants information on both the locations of these sites and all the interrogation methods allegedly used there. In other words, it appears that the US Congress and Swiss prosecutor Marty are both urgently seeking the same information.

The Council of Europe's investigator already submitted a discreet request to the office of Democratic Senator John Kerry, who proposed the amendment, asking for information on the outcome of the report. Meanwhile, however, Marty can at least look forward to receiving informal help. In light of the heated debate over torture in Washington, the prospects of keeping the highly confidential report under wraps are slim.

The White House is increasingly coming under fire, especially in light of the difficulties Bush is having in convincing his fellow Americans that he is, in fact, winning the global war against terrorism. Indeed, every attempt on the part of the administration to suppress the revolt in the Senate against White House-sanctioned interrogation practices has so far failed.

The US does not engage in torture, but rather "unique and innovative" methods of prisoner interrogation, explains CIA Director Porter Goss. But what these methods entail has since become public knowledge. Under the policy, blows to the face and the abdomen are allowed, as is the apparently routine practice of forcing prisoners to stand for 40-hour periods in ice-cold cells while periodically spraying them with cold water. In an especially repugnant practice known as waterboarding, the prisoner is made to believe that he is drowning. "We must never simply fight evil with evil," says Republican Senator John McCain, himself a torture victim during the Vietnam War. "It will kill us."

European governments in the hot seat
The investigations in Europe are also acquiring a new sense of urgency, prompted by an official investigation request filed by the Council of Europe, which arrived in European capitals last Tuesday and has made officials nervous in several member states, including Germany. In a questionnaire accompanying the request, Terry Davis, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, asks for information on the "activities of foreign services" on German soil and demands an investigation into the possible abduction of suspected al-Qaida activists. The request also includes questions about prisoner "transport by air."

The German government will have some explaining to do, especially when it comes to charges that the German authorities turned a blind eye to the Americans having used their military base in Frankfurt am Main, which was just closed in October, Berlin's Schönefeld Airport and the US military base in Ramstein essentially as European transfer stations for their secret prisoner transports.

British journalist Stephen Grey, who claims to have a list of the flight movements of CIA aircraft, says he has discovered 210 suspicious flights in England alone. In January 2003, the Austrian air force even sent up two fighter jets to check on a suspicious Hercules flying under registration number N8183J. An investigation later revealed that the plane had taken off from the Rhine-Main Airbase in Frankfurt and was operated by Tepper Aviation, which is considered a CIA front company.

The German government has long been unofficially aware of such episodes. But it too has no knowledge of what or who was actually being transported on the aircraft. Nevertheless, Berlin has yet to follow the lead of the Danish government, which insisted that the Pentagon discontinue flights in Danish airspace that are "incompatible with international conventions."

The Council of Europe also wants to know how the German government intends to ensure that such activities on the part of "foreign agencies" are monitored in the future -- and "to what extent domestic law provides for a suitable response to such violations of the law," especially when they relate to the "curtailment of liberty by foreign agencies."

In short, the Council of Europe wants to know what European governments intend to do about CIA agents being allowed to fly their prisoners across Europe with impunity. The Germans won't be the only ones with some explaining to do by Feb. 21, the deadline for all member states to return the questionnaire. The truth is that hardly any US ally in Europe has sufficiently met its obligation to comply with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits any form of torture.

In Germany, there is at least one documented case of the CIA abducting Khaled el-Masri, from the southern city of Neu-Ulm. The story of Masri, who was abducted in Macedonia in late 2003 and flown to Afghanistan in January 2004, is one of the first cases to expose the secret CIA program.

Masri, who has had a German passport for the past decade, was interrogated for months in a prison in Afghanistan, where he was likely tortured and, after no evidence was found to incriminate him, was secretly flown back to Europe in late May 2004. The case has drawn the attention of both the German and the Spanish authorities, because the aircraft used to transport Masri, a Boeing 737 with registration number N313P, was owned by a company with ties to the CIA and made a stop on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

The German government must have known about the allegations by no later than June 2004, when Masri's attorney, Manfred Gnjidic wrote to then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and the Federal Chancellery. The authorities reacted as they often do in embarrassing situations, using behind-the-scenes diplomacy in an attempt to make the problem go away.

At first, agents with Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), sent a discreet inquiry to their US counterparts with whom they normally enjoy a close working relationship. The reply was succinct: it was a mistake, the kind that happens now and then.

Then, in Feb. 2005, then Interior Minister Otto Schily flew to Washington and met with CIA Director Goss. Schily demanded an explanation and an assurance that the abductions would cease. But this time Schily, otherwise known for his good relationship with the Bush administration, came away more or less empty-handed.

In a similar case, the Italian Justice Ministry has attempted to exert pressure on its own judiciary. Justice Minister Roberto Castelli publicly chastised a Milan public prosecutor who caused trouble for Castelli by filing an extradition request for 22 CIA agents. Prosecutor Armando Spataro said that in February 2003 the US agents kidnapped Imam Abu Omar in broad daylight in Milan, placed him on a Lear jet operated by CIA airline Tepper Aviation, and sent him to Egypt via the US airbase in Ramstein, Germany. If Castelli sends the extradition request to Washington, the move will anger the Bush administration. But if he refuses, he'll irritate many Italians. To avert either outcome, Castelli first plans to meticulously examine the prosecutor's petition for signs of "leftist anti-Americanism."

Two Eastern European countries are coming under even more pressure than Germany or Italy: Poland and Romania, both countries that apparently served as temporary destinations for the CIA's secret al-Qaida transports. Insiders in Washington claim that the two countries also contained secret black sites.

The issue is especially worrisome to the Romanians. If investigator Marty, currently making inquiries in Bucharest, finds evidence of the existence of a secret US prison, the country's planned accession to the EU in 2007 could be in jeopardy. But all other Europeans who, despite not having actively supported the prisoner transports, looked the other way for too long will hardly be able to avoid coming clean. "If it becomes apparent that flying torture chambers are circling over Europe," threatens Martin Schulz, Social Democratic group leader in the European Parliament, "there will be no getting around an official inquiry."

Correction Appended: A correction has been made to this text. Through a translation error, SPIEGEL Online incorrectly stated that Khaled el-Masri was abducted by the CIA in the German city of Neu-Ulm. In fact, he was abducted in Macedonia.

Eingereicht von Teuscher Franziska
Einreichungsdatum 05.12.2005
Eingereicht im Nationalrat
Stand der Beratung Erledigt

Eingereichter Text
1. Hat eine Schweizer Behörde, und wenn ja, welche, über Landung von geheimen CIA-Flugzeugen in der Schweiz Bescheid gewusst?
2. Da die Flüge angeblich geheim sind, wie hat das EDA davon erfahren?
3. Was wird das EDA unternehmen, wenn die USA weiterhin die Auskunft über die Flüge verweigern?

Eingereicht von Teuscher Franziska
Einreichungsdatum 12.12.2005
Eingereicht im Nationalrat
Stand der Beratung Erledigt

Eingereichter Text
1. Wofür hat die Schweiz Geheimdienste, wenn der Bundesrat nicht durch diese, sondern über die Presse von den geheimen CIA-Flügen erfährt?
2. Seit wann weiss der Geheimdienst DAP von diesen Flügen?
3. Zieht der Bundesrat Sanktionen gegen die USA in Betracht, wenn er keine Antwort auf seine Anfrage zu den CIA-Flügen von den USA bekommt?

Eingereicht von Banga Boris
Einreichungsdatum 14.12.2005
Eingereicht im Nationalrat
Stand der Beratung Erledigt

Eingereichter Text
Im Anschluss an meine Anfrage 05.1093 ersuche ich den Bundesrat um die Beantwortung folgender Fragen:
- Sind die drei CIA-Jets mit den Nummern N379 (später N8068V und N44982), N313P (später N4476S) und N85VM (später N227SV) zwischen dem 11. September 2001 bis Ende 2002 in der Schweiz gelandet oder haben sie die Schweiz überflogen? Wenn ja, wann?
- Haben andere in der internationalen Presse als CIA-Flugzeuge enttarnte Maschinen vom September 2001 bis heute Überflüge oder Landungen in der Schweiz getätigt? (Die wichtigsten Registraturen könnten nachgeliefert werden.)
- Hat er von den USA Passagier- und Crewlisten für jeden nachweislichen Überflug und für jede nachweisliche Landung von CIA-Maschinen in der Schweiz verlangt? Wenn nein, ist er bereit, dies zu tun?
- Hat er oder eine andere Behörde überprüft, ob sich zu den Zeitpunkten, an denen die genannten CIA-Flugzeuge auf Schweizer Flughäfen standen, von Italien international gesuchte oder andere CIA-Agenten unter den Gästen von örtlichen Hotels befanden? Wenn nein, ist er bereit, diese Überprüfung machen zu lassen?
- Hat er überprüft, warum sich der von Italien wegen Entführung gesuchte CIA-Agent Robert Sheldon Lady sowie mindestens zwei weitere Kommandomitglieder nach der Entführung des Imams Abu Omar zwei Mal in Zürich aufhielten? Wenn ja, was ergaben diese Überprüfungen? Wenn nein, ist er bereit, dies auf geeignetem Weg zu überprüfen?
- Hat er überprüft, ob eine der beiden Maschinen, mit denen Abu Omar via Ramstein nach Kairo verschleppt wurde, den Schweizer Luftraum benützte? Wenn ja, was ergab diese Überprüfung? Wenn nein, ist er bereit, diese Überprüfung vorzunehmen?

Antwort des Bundesrates vom 10.03.2006
- Gemäss den Ermittlungen flog der Jet mit der Nummer N379P (später N8068V und N44982) zwischen 2001 und 2002 zehnmal über die Schweiz. Der Jet mit der Nummer N313P (später N4476S) durchquerte den Schweizer Luftraum am 24. November 2002 und am 1. Dezember 2002. Der Jet mit der Nummer N85VM (später N227SV) flog am 8. November 2002, am 12. November 2002 und am 22. November 2002 über die Schweiz.
- Neben den in der Interpellation erwähnten Jets haben auch andere Flugzeuge das Schweizer Hoheitsgebiet in der Zeit von September 2001 bis heute überflogen. Zwischen dem 24. Dezember 2003 und dem 25. Januar 2004 gab es vier Landungen in Genf Cointrin. Der Bundesrat verfügt jedoch weder im Falle der obenerwähnten Jets, noch im Falle der übrigen Flugzeuge über Beweise, dass es sich um CIA-Flüge handelte, die für den illegalen Gefangenentransport benutzt worden wären.
- Artikel 3 Buchstabe c des Übereinkommens über die internationale Zivilluftfahrt, dem die Schweiz beigetreten ist, besagt, dass "ein Staatsluftfahrzeug eines Vertragsstaates das Hoheitsgebiet eines anderen Staates nur überfliegen oder dort landen darf, wenn es eine Bewilligung durch besondere Vereinbarung erhalten hat". Gemäss Artikel 5 des Übereinkommens haben alle im Nichtlinienflugverkehr eingesetzten Luftfahrzeuge der Vertragsstaaten das Recht, in das Hoheitsgebiet eines anderen Vertragsstaates einzufliegen, es ohne Landung zu überfliegen und nichtgewerbliche Landungen durchzuführen, ohne vorher eine Genehmigung einholen zu müssen. In allen oben erwähnten Fällen handelte es sich um nichtgewerbliche Flüge. Gemäss Völkerrecht muss die Identität der Passagiere bei solchen Flügen nicht bekannt gegeben werden. In der Praxis wäre eine Überprüfung ihrer Identität kaum möglich. Bis jetzt gibt es keine Beweise für CIA-Operationen auf Schweizer Hoheitsgebiet oder im schweizerischen Luftraum, bei denen die Grundsätze des Völkerrechtes oder des Schweizer Rechtes verletzt worden wären. Trotzdem hat der Bundesrat die amerikanischen Behörden um weitere Informationen zu diesen Landungen in Genf Cointrin gebeten, sobald er davon erfahren hatte, d. h. im Juni 2005.
Die angeblichen Aufenthalte der von Italien wegen Entführung gesuchten CIA-Agenten in Schweizer Hotels sind Gegenstand von Ermittlungen der Bundesanwaltschaft.
Den erfolgten Nachforschungen zufolge soll ein von Aviano gestartetes Flugzeug auf dem Weg nach Ramstein am 17. Februar 2003 über die Schweiz geflogen sein. Ob Abu Omar an Bord war, entzieht sich der Kenntnis des Bundesrates. Die amerikanischen Behörden wurden um Erläuterungen gebeten, und die Bundesanwaltschaft hat Ermittlungen eingeleitet.

Eingereicht von Müller Geri
Einreichungsdatum 15.12.2005
Eingereicht im Nationalrat
Stand der Beratung Im Plenum noch nicht behandelt

Eingereichter Text
Der Bundesrat wird aufgefordert, folgende Massnahmen zu beschliessen:
1. Die USA werden deutlich für ihr völkerrrechtswidriges Verhalten gerügt.
2. Die Administration der USA muss sich vor dem Gerichtshof im Haag verantworten.
3. Die Schweiz stellt per sofort sämtliche polizeiliche und militärische Zusammenarbeit ein und untersagt jeglichen Waffenhandel.
4. Die Schweiz führt eine lückenlose Untersuchung über amerikanische Souveränitätsverletzungen in der Schweiz durch.
5. Die Schweiz untersagt ab sofort jegliche Überflüge und Landungen von Flugzeugen, welche sich nicht den internationalen Normen unterstellen. Sie akzeptiert keine "unbekannten Frachten" mehr.
6. Die Schweiz macht eine USA-unabhängige Analyse über die Sicherheit in der Schweiz und schlägt geeignete Präventionsmassnahmen vor. Diese werden insbesondere mit ihren Nachbarländern abgestimmt.
7. Die Schweiz bemüht sich um Uno-Reformen, welche es ermöglichen, ein Regulativ zu erstellen, das alle Länder möglichst gleichberechtigt behandelt.

Begründung
Die USA geben vor, weltweit der Vorreiter für die Demokratie und Menschenrechte zu sein. In Wirklichkeit mehren sich die Verletzungen des Völkerrechtes und der Menschenrechte. Die Liste ist lang: offene (Iran, Afghanistan) und verdeckte Kriegführung (Venezuela, Kuba) gegen mehrere Länder ohne Uno-Legitimation; Verletzung international festgelegter Menschenrechte (Folter in Guantanamo und anderen Ländern, Folter in von den USA kontrollierten Gefängnissen), Verletzung der Aufsichtspflicht als internationale Truppe z. B. in Kosovo (Vertreibung von Hunderttausenden Roma) zusammen mit anderen vor Ort stationierten Truppen. Die bisherigen Ermittlungen in der CIA-Affäre von Dick Marty untermauern zusätzlich, mit welchen völker- und menschenrechtswidrigen Methoden die USA umgehen. Jedes andere Land würde im vergleichbaren Fall mehrfach gerügt und sanktioniert werden. Die USA kommen mit kritischen Bemerkungen davon ("man müsste Massnahmen prüfen").
Vor diesem Hintergrund muss nun die Schweiz ihre beiden Rollen überprüfen, wie sie gegenüber den USA und der Weltöffentlichkeit auftritt. Zum einen ist sie Depositärstaat der Menschenrechtskonventionen. Damit soll sie nicht bloss Staaten mit Menschenrechtsverletzungen konfrontieren, welche keine Gegenmassnahmen ergreifen können (Kuba z. B.), sondern gemäss den genauen, internationalen Vereinbarungen über Menschenrechtsverletzungen Mass nehmen und alle rügen, welche diese Rechte systematisch verletzen. Zum anderen ist die Schweiz auch ein souveränes Land, welches die Wahl hat, mit wem sie wie kooperieren will. Es steht ihr dabei sehr schlecht an, wenn sie weiterhin mit einem Land Waffenkäufe und -verkäufe betreibt, das gemäss eigenen Angaben Krieg führt. Es ziemt sich nicht, mit einem solchen Land Freihandelsabkommen abzuschliessen.

Stellungnahme des Bundesrates vom 10.03.2006
1. Die Schweiz hat die USA wiederholt auf hoher politischer Ebene auf ihre Verpflichtungen unter dem Völkerrecht und insbesondere unter dem humanitären Völkerrecht hingewiesen. In einem Memorandum, das Staatssekretär Michael Ambühl am 14. Juni 2005 dem US-State Department sowie Bundesrätin Micheline Calmy-Rey am 27. Juni 2005 der US-Aussenministerin Condoleezza Rice übergeben haben, drückte die Schweiz ihre Besorgnis aus über den Status der Häftlinge in Guantanamo sowie die Praxis der sogenannten "Extraordinary renditions" und erinnerte an die Einhaltung der erwähnten völkerrechtlichen Normen. Im Zusammenhang mit den angeblichen CIA-Flügen verlangte das EDA von den USA seit Ende Juli 2005 wiederholt Auskunft. Am 8. Dezember 2005 übermittelte die US-Botschaft im Auftrag des State Departments die Erklärung von Staatssekretärin Condoleezza Rice, wonach "the United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured". Am 30. Januar 2006 haben die USA gegenüber der Schweiz erklärt, dass sie den schweizerischen Luftraum oder schweizerische Flughäfen nicht für illegale Gefangenentransporte benutzt haben und die Souveränität der Schweiz auch in Zukunft respektieren werden.
Es liegen den Schweizer Behörden keine Beweise vor, dass der Schweizer Luftraum oder Schweizer Flughäfen von der CIA für illegale Tätigkeiten benutzt wurden (vgl. Punkt 4).
2. Der Internationale Strafgerichtshof in Den Haag ist für die individuelle Strafverfolgung zuständig. Das bedeutet, dass nur Individuen, nicht aber Staaten vorgeladen werden dürfen. Zudem sind die USA nicht Mitglied des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofes. Streitigkeiten zwischen Uno-Mitgliedstaaten können vom Internationalen Gerichtshof geregelt werden, dessen Sitz sich ebenfalls in Den Haag befindet. Ein Fall kann aber nur mit Zustimmung der betroffenen Staaten vor den Gerichtshof gebracht werden. Es ist deshalb unmöglich, vor einem der beiden Gerichtshöfe in Den Haag ein Verfahren gegen die USA anzustrengen. Der Bundesrat erachtet ein solches Vorgehen auch nicht als opportun.
3. Bei einer Einstellung der Ein- und Ausfuhr von Kriegsmaterial mit den USA wären sicherheitspolitische Konsequenzen in Rechnung zu stellen. Die USA sind für die Schweiz ein bedeutender Lieferant von Kriegsmaterial und tragen damit wesentlich zu der in Artikel 1 des Kriegsmaterialgesetzes postulierten schweizerischen Versorgungssicherheit bei. Die wirtschaftlichen Nachteile einer Einstellung der Lieferungen von Kriegsmaterial an die USA würden zudem weit über die Rüstungsindustrie hinausreichen.
4. Die Bundesanwaltschaft hat Ermittlungen wegen Verdachtes auf verbotene Handlungen für einen fremden Staat (Art. 271 StGB) eröffnet.
5. Der Überflug über schweizerischem Territorium unterliegt der Respektierung des internationalen Rechtes, der schweizerischen Souveränität und der Rechtsordnung der Schweiz. Die Schweiz und die USA sind Vertragsstaaten des Chicago-Übereinkommens über die internationale Zivilluftfahrt, welches Privatflugzeuge berechtigt, in das Hoheitsgebiet des anderen Vertragsstaates einzufliegen, es zu überfliegen und nichtgewerbliche Landungen durchzuführen, ohne eine Genehmigung einholen zu müssen. Das Bazl beteiligt sich seit dem Jahre 2000 am Safa-Programm (Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft) der Europäischen Zivilluftfahrtkonferenz (ECAC), welches auch polizeiliche und zollrechtliche Kontrollen von gelandeten Flugzeugen zulässt. Diese können allerdings nur bei begründetem Verdacht erfolgen und liegen in der polizeilichen Befugnis der Kantone des entsprechenden Flughafens. Bei den zur Frage stehenden Landungen in der Schweiz lagen keine Verdachtsmomente vor, die damals eine Kontrolle begründet hätten.
Ausländische Militär- und andere ausländische Staatsluftfahrzeuge dürfen nur mit einer vom Bazl erteilten Bewilligung (diplomatic clearance) auf schweizerischem Hoheitsgebiet landen bzw. dieses überfliegen. Die Schweiz hält in den entsprechenden Jahresbewilligungen neu fest, dass die Benutzung des schweizerischen Luftraumes für Flüge, die im Widerspruch zu den Regeln des Völkerrechtes stehen, nicht gestattet ist. Aufgrund der amerikanischen Zusicherungen vom 30. Januar 2006 (vgl. Punkt 1) erneuerte die Schweiz am 31. Januar 2006 die Jahresbewilligung zur Benützung des schweizerischen Luftraumes gemäss geltendem Recht und in voller Einhaltung des Völkerrechtes.
6. Die Schweiz führt Sicherheitsanalysen und die daraus abgeleiteten Präventionsmassnahmen bereits regelmässig durch und stimmt diese im erforderlichen Ausmass international ab.
7. Die Uno beruht gemäss ihrer Charta "auf dem Grundsatz der souveränen Gleichheit aller ihrer Mitglieder". Gleichzeitig überträgt sie insbesondere den ständigen Mitgliedern des Sicherheitsrates besondere Kompetenzen, Pflichten und Aufgaben. Der Bundesrat befürwortet im Rahmen der Uno-Reformen eine Erweiterung des Sicherheitsrates, die eine bessere Vertretung der Entwicklungsländer ermöglicht und nicht nur zum einseitigen Vorteil der Grossstaaten und zum Nachteil der übrigen Länder erfolgt. Zudem setzt sich die Schweiz aktiv für die Erhöhung der Transparenz und die Weiterentwicklung der Arbeitsmethoden des Sicherheitsrates ein, damit sich alle Uno-Mitgliedstaaten in diesem Gremium besser beteiligen können.

Erklärung des Bundesrates vom 10.03.2006
Der Bundesrat beantragt die Ablehnung der Motion.

Mitunterzeichnende Frösch Therese - Garbani Valérie - Graf Maya - Huguenin Marianne - John-Calame Francine - Lang Josef - Leuenberger Ueli - Menétrey-Savary Anne-Catherine - Rechsteiner Rudolf - Recordon Luc - Rossini Stéphane - Roth-Bernasconi Maria - Salvi Pierre - Savary Géraldine - Vanek Pierre - Vischer Daniel - Zisyadis Josef (17)

Très franchement, avez-vous eu entre les mains le fameux fax égyptien intercepté par les services secrets suisses et dont les informations sur l’existence de prisons secrètes de la CIA en Europe de l’Est ont fait l’objet d’une fuite dans la presse?
– Non, j’ai découvert une transcription de ce fax dans la presse dominicale. Mais je n’avais pas vu le fax ni le document classé secret. Selon la procédure fixée dans une ordonnance du Conseil fédéral, trois de mes services avaient reçu une note résumant des informations de ce fax, sans que la source soit mentionnée.
Ces informations ne différaient guère de celles contenues dans un article du Washington Post et dans un rapport de l’organisation Human Rights Watch.
– Le fax ne vous a-t-il donc rien appris?
– La note transmise à mes services n’a rien apporté de fondamentalement neuf, et l’indiscrétion n’a rien changé à notre politique étrangère dans ce domaine: les transferts extrajudiciaires sont contraires au droit international public, les personnes accusées doivent bénéficier d’une protection juridique, et les interrogatoires sous torture sont strictement interdits.
– Vous sortez pourtant d’une semaine où le Conseil fédéral n’a cessé d’être critiqué pour son silence voire sa «servilité» à l’égard des Etats-Unis, les prisons secrètes de la CIA et les soupçons de torture...
– Ces critiques m’étonnent, car la Suisse est intervenue très tôt déjà. Elle fait partie des pays les plus persévérants pour obtenir des informations sur d’éventuels transferts extrajudiciaires de prisonniers. Dès fin juin 2005, j’avais transmis un mémorandum à mon homologue américaine, Mme Condoleezza Rice, exprimant notre position et nos préoccupations à cet égard.
–Quelles réponses avez-vous obtenues jusqu’ici?
– Nous n’avons été traités ni mieux ni moins bien que les autres pays européens. Le 8 décembre dernier,Mme Rice, lors de son passage en Europe, nous a fait transmettre copie de ses déclarations – en substance, les Etats-Unis n’ont pas transporté et ne transporteront quiconque vers un pays pratiquant la torture.
– Allez-vous en rester là, sachant que la présence de prisons secrètes en Europe, la pratique de la torture et le survol de la Suisse d’avions de la CIA avec des prisonniers privés de tout droit se précisent de jour en jour?
– Nous restons persévérants face aux Etats-Unis et nous continuons de leur demander des éclaircissements. Je précise que nos démarches concernent 74 survols de la Suisse et 4 atterrissages d’avions américains dont nous voulons savoir s’ils ont servi à des transferts illégaux de prisonniers. Nous n’avons, en revanche, pas à demander formellement de comptes aux Etats-Unis sur ce qui se serait passé dans les autres pays européens.
– Ces autres pays, dont la Roumanie, sont mentionnés dans le fameux fax. Se sont-ils plaints?
– De manière générale, les pays concernés par ces informations ont réagi avec une certaine amertume. Ils ne sont pas heureux d’être ainsi montrés du doigt. Et maintenant ils nous demandent des preuves. A l’heure actuelle, nous n’en avons pas. Mais nous sommes d’accord de partager les informations en notre possession.
– Et, avec les Etats-Unis, où en sont nos relations: Joseph Deiss a fait savoir cette semaine que les pourparlers en vue d’un accord commercial de libre-échange ne sont nullement perturbés alors que vous avez laissé entendre le contraire?
– La fuite n’améliore pas l’atmosphère, mais il ne faut pas surévaluer son effet. Surtout, le problème posé par d’éventuels transferts extrajudiciaires et l’accord de libre-échange sont deux dossiers distincts.
– Faut-il comprendre que vous ne sacrifierez pas la défense des droits humains sur l’autel de nos intérêts commerciaux?
– La défense des droits humains est un des piliers de notre politique étrangère et participe aussi de la défense de nos intérêts. Nous avons clairement des divergences d’interprétation avec les Etats-Unis sur le fait qu’il ne peut y avoir de trou juridique dans la défense des droits humains en cas de guerre ou dans un autre contexte. Mais ces divergences clairement exprimées n’empêchent pas d’entretenir des relations bilatérales constructives dans les domaines politiques, économiques ou autres.
– Le conseiller aux Etats Dick Marty, qui enquête sur les prisons de la CIA pour le Conseil de l’Europe, se plaint dumanque de collaboration de la Suisse. Allez-vous l’aider?
– Si nos informations intéressent M.Marty, nous lui répondrons bien sûr dans toute la mesure du possible. Nous avons, par ailleurs, reçu une demande d’information du secrétaire général du Conseil de l’Europe, à laquelle nous aurons répondu d’ici à la fin de janvier.

Les services secrets suisses ont tout faux
Maurice Botbol dirige depuis 1980 Intelligence Online, le site le plus pointu sur les services de renseignements. Il ne raconte pas d’exploits à la James Bond; sa spécialité est de donner avant tout le monde le nom du nouveau patron du General Intelligence Department jordanien ou de révéler l’existence de Sprint, un nouveau logiciel d’analyse de renseignements. «A ma connaissance, c’est la première fois qu’un service secret est contraint de reconnaître qu’il est à l’écoute des pays étrangers.
C’est assez invraisemblable, car les espions ne respectent rien,sauf leurs sources», constate Maurice Botbol. En d’autres termes, si les services secrets ont l’habitude d’organiser des fuites, ils s’arrangent pour que la presse ignore tout de la façon dont le document a été obtenu. Il aurait été beaucoup plus judicieux de fournir à SonntagsBlick une copie du fax égyptien original rédigé en arabe. Autre faute impardonnable: les fax diplomatiques sont normalement cryptés.
La Suisse montre qu’elle est capable de casser les codes utilisés par Le Caire. «Or, dans ce métier, il ne faut surtout pas montrer ses muscles. Au contraire, il faut faire croire aux pays étrangers que leurs systèmes de sécurité sont sans faille pour pouvoir les écouter facilement», s’amuse le directeur d’Intelligence Online.
Un membre d’un service secret étranger en poste à Berne se souvient qu’un ministre de la Défense s’était autrefois vanté que son pays pouvait écouter les Iraniens. «Résultat: Téhéran a changé tous ses systèmes de cryptage. L’Iran a utilisé du matériel beaucoup plus sophistiqué, et nous avons mis six ans avant de pouvoir de nouveau déchiffrer leurs messages», raconte l’espion européen. Les services secrets du monde entier seraient donc en train de maudire la Suisse.
Enfin, les spécialistes des services s’étonnent que l’on ait choisi parmi des milliers d’interceptions un fax égyptien.
«Le Caire n’a guère la réputation d’être pointue en matière d’espionnage. Sa principale préoccupation se limite au «flicage» de ses opposants à Londres», ironise un membre des services secrets. Un fax sur les prisons de la CIA émanant du Ministère des affaires étrangères allemand, français ou britannique aurait été autrement plus crédible. Bref, Berne a tout faux dans ce dossier.
Ian Hamel
www.intelligenceonline.fr

A. Gegenstand der Kontrolltätigkeit der Geschäftsprüfungsdelegation
Im Verlaufe des Jahres 2005 haben schweizerische und ausländische Medien sowie Menschenrechtsorganisationen verschiedentlich Behauptungen über mutmassliche Aktivitäten zur Terrorismusbekämpfung der amerikanischen Nachrichtendienste in Europa aufgestellt. Gemäss diesen Quellen hätten mehrere CIA-Flugzeuge das europäische Territorium und/oder den europäischen Luftraum für illegale Gefangenentransporte benutzt. In gewissen europäischen Ländern hätten sich geheime Gefängnisse der CIA befunden oder befänden sich sogar heute noch dort.
Diese Behauptungen führten zu mehreren parlamentarischen Vorstössen (Frage Banga 05.1093, Frage Günter 05.5232 und Fragen Teuscher 05.5244 und 05.5282). Der Bundesrat beantwortete sie am 23. September, am 5. Dezember und am 12. Dezember 2005. Die Beantwortung weiterer parlamentarischer Vorstösse ist noch ausstehend (Motion Müller Geri 05.3842, Motion Zisyadis 05.3819, Interpellation Lang 05.3744, Fragen Banga 05.1181und 05.1182). ...
(Volltext)

The outrage evident in the Council of Europe report on the secret CIA rendition programme emerges from a clash between the methods used by the United States to break up al-Qaeda networks and the sensitivities of human rights mechanisms introduced into post-war Europe and designed not to permit the unhindered use of government power.

The report's author, Swiss Senator Dick Marty, following up his earlier draft findings, identified what he felt was the difference between the responses to terrorism by Europe and the US:

"While the states of the Old World have dealt with these threats primarily by means of existing institutions and legal systems, the United States appears to have made a fundamentally different choice: considering that neither conventional judicial instruments nor those established under the framework of the laws of war could effectively counter the new forms of international terrorism, it decided to develop new legal concepts. "This legal approach is utterly alien to the European tradition and sensibility, and is clearly contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

It is important to stress here that the argument is not about the origins of the human rights mechanisms, the inspiration for which came as much from the US as from Europe. It is about their application today.

The American decision to engage in counterterrorism beyond the reach of national or international law arose from a desire - a need as Washington saw the matter - to avoid the restrictions of the US law and constitution, which protect individual rights. It therefore built not only Guantanamo Bay, but a series of "black sites", or secret prisons around the world. In these black sites, senior al-Qaeda suspects were held and interrogated, sometimes by so-called "enhanced" methods.

For the Bush administration, authority for this came from a congressional resolution passed on 14 September 2001. Under this resolution "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001... in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

Specific authority for the CIA to act as it saw best against al-Qaeda was then given by President Bush in a "presidential finding" on 17 September 2001.

It was therefore perhaps inevitable that one day, there would be a clash between the operational requirements of the CIA and the legal concerns of European human rights organisations, led by the Council of Europe, which administers the European Convention on Human Rights. This clash is but one element of the wider legal struggle that has seen efforts to get rights for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners and pressure on the US to abide by a strict interpretation of the international convention against torture.

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated that her country does not engage in torture or hand over prisoners to those who do.

The most serious charge Mr Marty makes in his report is against Poland and Romania, both of which he all but accuses of having allowed the CIA to run black sites. These suspected secret prisons were in fact exposed by the Washington Post in an article in November 2005. Poland and Romania were not named in that article - the reference was to "several democracies in Eastern Europe" - at the request of the White House, but they were soon revealed. It is believed that the sites were rapidly closed and the prisoners transferred, perhaps to somewhere in North Africa.

Mr Marty has now collated flight data from rendition flights and has pointed a finger of suspicion at both countries, which continue to deny they did anything wrong. In this, he goes beyond his earlier, preliminary report.

Other intriguing circumstantial information has come from Muhammad Bashmila, a former secret prisoner now free in Yemen. In a rare interview with the BBC Newsnight programme, he spoke of being transferred from Afghanistan to a secret prison where it was cold, where the food appeared European and where evening prayers were held at the late hour of 2045. Somewhere in Eastern Europe is suspected.

It is argued, by the British government among others, that the phenomenon of Islamic terrorism is so grave that there has to be a reconsideration of the balance of liberties. Previously, according to this view, the individual had to be protected against governments. But now the individual ability to wage war on societies is so great that individuals have to be restricted.

Mr Marty does not accept this. In his report, he states: "The compilation of so-called "black lists" of individuals and companies suspected of maintaining connections with organisations considered terrorist and the application of the associated sanctions clearly breach every principle of the fundamental right to a fair trial: no specific charges, no right to be heard, no right of appeal, no established procedure for removing one's name from the list."

But he also quotes within his report a defence from Dan Fried, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs: "We are attempting to keep our people safe; we are attempting to fight dangerous terrorist groups who are active and who mean what they say about destroying us. We are trying to do so in a way consistent with our values and our international legal obligations. "Doing all of those things in practice is not easy, partly because - as we've discovered as we've gotten into it - the struggle we are in does not fit neatly either into the criminal legal framework, or neatly into the law of war framework."

Today, The President Released His Updated National Strategy For Combating Terrorism (NSCT), Which Outlines The United States Government Strategy To Protect And Defend American Interests At Home And Abroad From Terrorism. ...

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thanks for the warm welcome. Welcome to the White House. Mr. Vice President, Secretary Rice, Attorney General Gonzales, Ambassador Negroponte, General Hayden, members of the United States Congress, families who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on our nation, and my fellow citizens: Thanks for coming.

On the morning of September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to a nightmare attack. Nineteen men, armed with box cutters, took control of airplanes and turned them into missiles. They used them to kill nearly 3,000 innocent people. We watched the Twin Towers collapse before our eyes -- and it became instantly clear that we'd entered a new world, and a dangerous new war.

The attacks of September the 11th horrified our nation. And amid the grief came new fears and urgent questions: Who had attacked us? What did they want? And what else were they planning? Americans saw the destruction the terrorists had caused in New York, and Washington, and Pennsylvania, and they wondered if there were other terrorist cells in our midst poised to strike; they wondered if there was a second wave of attacks still to come.

With the Twin Towers and the Pentagon still smoldering, our country on edge, and a stream of intelligence coming in about potential new attacks, my administration faced immediate challenges: We had to respond to the attack on our country. We had to wage an unprecedented war against an enemy unlike any we had fought before. We had to find the terrorists hiding in America and across the world, before they were able to strike our country again. So in the early days and weeks after 9/11, I directed our government's senior national security officials to do everything in their power, within our laws, to prevent another attack.

Nearly five years have passed since these -- those initial days of shock and sadness -- and we are thankful that the terrorists have not succeeded in launching another attack on our soil. This is not for the lack of desire or determination on the part of the enemy. As the recently foiled plot in London shows, the terrorists are still active, and they're still trying to strike America, and they're still trying to kill our people. One reason the terrorists have not succeeded is because of the hard work of thousands of dedicated men and women in our government, who have toiled day and night, along with our allies, to stop the enemy from carrying out their plans. And we are grateful for these hardworking citizens of ours.

Another reason the terrorists have not succeeded is because our government has changed its policies -- and given our military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel the tools they need to fight this enemy and protect our people and preserve our freedoms.

The terrorists who declared war on America represent no nation, they defend no territory, and they wear no uniform. They do not mass armies on borders, or flotillas of warships on the high seas. They operate in the shadows of society; they send small teams of operatives to infiltrate free nations; they live quietly among their victims; they conspire in secret, and then they strike without warning. In this new war, the most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists, themselves. Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operate. They have knowledge of where their operatives are deployed, and knowledge about what plots are underway. This intelligence -- this is intelligence that cannot be found any other place. And our security depends on getting this kind of information. To win the war on terror, we must be able to detain, question, and, when appropriate, prosecute terrorists captured here in America, and on the battlefields around the world.

After the 9/11 attacks, our coalition launched operations across the world to remove terrorist safe havens, and capture or kill terrorist operatives and leaders. Working with our allies, we've captured and detained thousands of terrorists and enemy fighters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and other fronts of this war on terror. These enemy -- these are enemy combatants, who were waging war on our nation. We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle.

Most of the enemy combatants we capture are held in Afghanistan or in Iraq, where they're questioned by our military personnel. Many are released after questioning, or turned over to local authorities -- if we determine that they do not pose a continuing threat and no longer have significant intelligence value. Others remain in American custody near the battlefield, to ensure that they don't return to the fight.

In some cases, we determine that individuals we have captured pose a significant threat, or may have intelligence that we and our allies need to have to prevent new attacks. Many are al Qaeda operatives or Taliban fighters trying to conceal their identities, and they withhold information that could save American lives. In these cases, it has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly [sic], questioned by experts, and -- when appropriate -- prosecuted for terrorist acts.

Some of these individuals are taken to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's important for Americans and others across the world to understand the kind of people held at Guantanamo. These aren't common criminals, or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield -- we have in place a rigorous process to ensure those held at Guantanamo Bay belong at Guantanamo. Those held at Guantanamo include suspected bomb makers, terrorist trainers, recruiters and facilitators, and potential suicide bombers. They are in our custody so they cannot murder our people. One detainee held at Guantanamo told a questioner questioning him -- he said this: "I'll never forget your face. I will kill you, your brothers, your mother, and sisters."

In addition to the terrorists held at Guantanamo, a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. This group includes individuals believed to be the key architects of the September the 11th attacks, and attacks on the USS Cole, an operative involved in the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and individuals involved in other attacks that have taken the lives of innocent civilians across the world. These are dangerous men with unparalleled knowledge about terrorist networks and their plans for new attacks. The security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend on our ability to learn what these terrorists know.

Many specifics of this program, including where these detainees have been held and the details of their confinement, cannot be divulged. Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country. I can say that questioning the detainees in this program has given us information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks -- here in the United States and across the world. Today, I'm going to share with you some of the examples provided by our intelligence community of how this program has saved lives; why it remains vital to the security of the United States, and our friends and allies; and why it deserves the support of the United States Congress and the American people.

Within months of September the 11th, 2001, we captured a man known as Abu Zubaydah. We believe that Zubaydah was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. Our intelligence community believes he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained, and that he helped smuggle al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan after coalition forces arrived to liberate that country. Zubaydah was severely wounded during the firefight that brought him into custody -- and he survived only because of the medical care arranged by the CIA.

After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he thought was nominal information -- and then stopped all cooperation. Well, in fact, the "nominal" information he gave us turned out to be quite important. For example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- or KSM -- was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and used the alias "Muktar." This was a vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM. Abu Zubaydah also provided information that helped stop a terrorist attack being planned for inside the United States -- an attack about which we had no previous information. Zubaydah told us that al Qaeda operatives were planning to launch an attack in the U.S., and provided physical descriptions of the operatives and information on their general location. Based on the information he provided, the operatives were detained -- one while traveling to the United States.

We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures. These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution, and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful. I cannot describe the specific methods used -- I think you understand why -- if I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning, and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary.

Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks -- a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh. The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh. And together these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Once in our custody, KSM was questioned by the CIA using these procedures, and he soon provided information that helped us stop another planned attack on the United States. During questioning, KSM told us about another al Qaeda operative he knew was in CIA custody -- a terrorist named Majid Khan. KSM revealed that Khan had been told to deliver $50,000 to individuals working for a suspected terrorist leader named Hambali, the leader of al Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate known as "J-I". CIA officers confronted Khan with this information. Khan confirmed that the money had been delivered to an operative named Zubair, and provided both a physical description and contact number for this operative.

Based on that information, Zubair was captured in June of 2003, and he soon provided information that helped lead to the capture of Hambali. After Hambali's arrest, KSM was questioned again. He identified Hambali's brother as the leader of a "J-I" cell, and Hambali's conduit for communications with al Qaeda. Hambali's brother was soon captured in Pakistan, and, in turn, led us to a cell of 17 Southeast Asian "J-I" operatives. When confronted with the news that his terror cell had been broken up, Hambali admitted that the operatives were being groomed at KSM's request for attacks inside the United States -- probably [sic] using airplanes.

During questioning, KSM also provided many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans. For example, he described the design of planned attacks on buildings inside the United States, and how operatives were directed to carry them out. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a point that was high enough to prevent the people trapped above from escaping out the windows.

KSM also provided vital information on al Qaeda's efforts to obtain biological weapons. During questioning, KSM admitted that he had met three individuals involved in al Qaeda's efforts to produce anthrax, a deadly biological agent -- and he identified one of the individuals as a terrorist named Yazid. KSM apparently believed we already had this information, because Yazid had been captured and taken into foreign custody before KSM's arrest. In fact, we did not know about Yazid's role in al Qaeda's anthrax program. Information from Yazid then helped lead to the capture of his two principal assistants in the anthrax program. Without the information provided by KSM and Yazid, we might not have uncovered this al Qaeda biological weapons program, or stopped this al Qaeda cell from developing anthrax for attacks against the United States.

These are some of the plots that have been stopped because of the information of this vital program. Terrorists held in CIA custody have also provided information that helped stop a planned strike on U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti -- they were going to use an explosive laden water tanker. They helped stop a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi using car bombs and motorcycle bombs, and they helped stop a plot to hijack passenger planes and fly them into Heathrow or the Canary Wharf in London.

We're getting vital information necessary to do our jobs, and that's to protect the American people and our allies.

Information from the terrorists in this program has helped us to identify individuals that al Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations, many of whom we had never heard about before. They include terrorists who were set to case targets inside the United States, including financial buildings in major cities on the East Coast. Information from terrorists in CIA custody has played a role in the capture or questioning of nearly every senior al Qaeda member or associate detained by the U.S. and its allies since this program began. By providing everything from initial leads to photo identifications, to precise locations of where terrorists were hiding, this program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill.

This program has also played a critical role in helping us understand the enemy we face in this war. Terrorists in this program have painted a picture of al Qaeda's structure and financing, and communications and logistics. They identified al Qaeda's travel routes and safe havens, and explained how al Qaeda's senior leadership communicates with its operatives in places like Iraq. They provided information that allows us -- that has allowed us to make sense of documents and computer records that we have seized in terrorist raids. They've identified voices in recordings of intercepted calls, and helped us understand the meaning of potentially critical terrorist communications.

The information we get from these detainees is corroborated by intelligence, and we've received -- that we've received from other sources -- and together this intelligence has helped us connect the dots and stop attacks before they occur. Information from the terrorists questioned in this program helped unravel plots and terrorist cells in Europe and in other places. It's helped our allies protect their people from deadly enemies. This program has been, and remains, one of the most vital tools in our war against the terrorists. It is invaluable to America and to our allies. Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else, this program has saved innocent lives.

This program has been subject to multiple legal reviews by the Department of Justice and CIA lawyers; they've determined it complied with our laws. This program has received strict oversight by the CIA's Inspector General. A small number of key leaders from both political parties on Capitol Hill were briefed about this program. All those involved in the questioning of the terrorists are carefully chosen and they're screened from a pool of experienced CIA officers. Those selected to conduct the most sensitive questioning had to complete more than 250 additional hours of specialized training before they are allowed to have contact with a captured terrorist.

I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it -- and I will not authorize it. Last year, my administration worked with Senator John McCain, and I signed into law the Detainee Treatment Act, which established the legal standard for treatment of detainees wherever they are held. I support this act. And as we implement this law, our government will continue to use every lawful method to obtain intelligence that can protect innocent people, and stop another attack like the one we experienced on September the 11th, 2001.

The CIA program has detained only a limited number of terrorists at any given time -- and once we've determined that the terrorists held by the CIA have little or no additional intelligence value, many of them have been returned to their home countries for prosecution or detention by their governments. Others have been accused of terrible crimes against the American people, and we have a duty to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice. So we intend to prosecute these men, as appropriate, for their crimes.

Soon after the war on terror began, I authorized a system of military commissions to try foreign terrorists accused of war crimes. Military commissions have been used by Presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt to prosecute war criminals, because the rules for trying enemy combatants in a time of conflict must be different from those for trying common criminals or members of our own military. One of the first suspected terrorists to be put on trial by military commission was one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards -- a man named Hamdan. His lawyers challenged the legality of the military commission system. It took more than two years for this case to make its way through the courts. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the military commissions we had designed, but this past June, the Supreme Court overturned that decision. The Supreme Court determined that military commissions are an appropriate venue for trying terrorists, but ruled that military commissions needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress.

So today, I'm sending Congress legislation to specifically authorize the creation of military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes. My administration has been working with members of both parties in the House and Senate on this legislation. We put forward a bill that ensures these commissions are established in a way that protects our national security, and ensures a full and fair trial for those accused. The procedures in the bill I am sending to Congress today reflect the reality that we are a nation at war, and that it's essential for us to use all reliable evidence to bring these people to justice.

We're now approaching the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- and the families of those murdered that day have waited patiently for justice. Some of the families are with us today -- they should have to wait no longer. So I'm announcing today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and 11 other terrorists in CIA custody have been transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. (Applause.) They are being held in the custody of the Department of Defense. As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September the 11th, 2001, can face justice. (Applause.)

We'll also seek to prosecute those believed to be responsible for the attack on the USS Cole, and an operative believed to be involved in the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. With these prosecutions, we will send a clear message to those who kill Americans: No longer -- how long it takes, we will find you and we will bring you to justice. (Applause.)

These men will be held in a high-security facility at Guantanamo. The International Committee of the Red Cross is being advised of their detention, and will have the opportunity to meet with them. Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys who will help them prepare their defense -- and they will be presumed innocent. While at Guantanamo, they will have access to the same food, clothing, medical care, and opportunities for worship as other detainees. They will be questioned subject to the new U.S. Army Field Manual, which the Department of Defense is issuing today. And they will continue to be treated with the humanity that they denied others.

As we move forward with the prosecutions, we will continue to urge nations across the world to take back their nationals at Guantanamo who will not be prosecuted by our military commissions. America has no interest in being the world's jailer. But one of the reasons we have not been able to close Guantanamo is that many countries have refused to take back their nationals held at the facility. Other countries have not provided adequate assurances that their nationals will not be mistreated -- or they will not return to the battlefield, as more than a dozen people released from Guantanamo already have. We will continue working to transfer individuals held at Guantanamo, and ask other countries to work with us in this process. And we will move toward the day when we can eventually close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

I know Americans have heard conflicting information about Guantanamo. Let me give you some facts. Of the thousands of terrorists captured across the world, only about 770 have ever been sent to Guantanamo. Of these, about 315 have been returned to other countries so far -- and about 455 remain in our custody. They are provided the same quality of medical care as the American service members who guard them. The International Committee of the Red Cross has the opportunity to meet privately with all who are held there. The facility has been visited by government officials from more than 30 countries, and delegations from international organizations, as well. After the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe came to visit, one of its delegation members called Guantanamo "a model prison" where people are treated better than in prisons in his own country. Our troops can take great pride in the work they do at Guantanamo Bay -- and so can the American people.

As we prosecute suspected terrorist leaders and operatives who have now been transferred to Guantanamo, we'll continue searching for those who have stepped forward to take their places. This nation is going to stay on the offense to protect the American people. We will continue to bring the world's most dangerous terrorists to justice -- and we will continue working to collect the vital intelligence we need to protect our country. The current transfers mean that there are now no terrorists in the CIA program. But as more high-ranking terrorists are captured, the need to obtain intelligence from them will remain critical -- and having a CIA program for questioning terrorists will continue to be crucial to getting life-saving information.

Some may ask: Why are you acknowledging this program now? There are two reasons why I'm making these limited disclosures today. First, we have largely completed our questioning of the men -- and to start the process for bringing them to trial, we must bring them into the open. Second, the Supreme Court's recent decision has impaired our ability to prosecute terrorists through military commissions, and has put in question the future of the CIA program. In its ruling on military commissions, the Court determined that a provision of the Geneva Conventions known as "Common Article Three" applies to our war with al Qaeda. This article includes provisions that prohibit "outrages upon personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment." The problem is that these and other provisions of Common Article Three are vague and undefined, and each could be interpreted in different ways by American or foreign judges. And some believe our military and intelligence personnel involved in capturing and questioning terrorists could now be at risk of prosecution under the War Crimes Act -- simply for doing their jobs in a thorough and professional way.

This is unacceptable. Our military and intelligence personnel go face to face with the world's most dangerous men every day. They have risked their lives to capture some of the most brutal terrorists on Earth. And they have worked day and night to find out what the terrorists know so we can stop new attacks. America owes our brave men and women some things in return. We owe them their thanks for saving lives and keeping America safe. And we owe them clear rules, so they can continue to do their jobs and protect our people.

So today, I'm asking Congress to pass legislation that will clarify the rules for our personnel fighting the war on terror. First, I'm asking Congress to list the specific, recognizable offenses that would be considered crimes under the War Crimes Act -- so our personnel can know clearly what is prohibited in the handling of terrorist enemies. Second, I'm asking that Congress make explicit that by following the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act our personnel are fulfilling America's obligations under Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions. Third, I'm asking that Congress make it clear that captured terrorists cannot use the Geneva Conventions as a basis to sue our personnel in courts -- in U.S. courts. The men and women who protect us should not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists because they're doing their jobs.

The need for this legislation is urgent. We need to ensure that those questioning terrorists can continue to do everything within the limits of the law to get information that can save American lives. My administration will continue to work with the Congress to get this legislation enacted -- but time is of the essence. Congress is in session just for a few more weeks, and passing this legislation ought to be the top priority. (Applause.)

As we work with Congress to pass a good bill, we will also consult with congressional leaders on how to ensure that the CIA program goes forward in a way that follows the law, that meets the national security needs of our country, and protects the brave men and women we ask to obtain information that will save innocent lives. For the sake of our security, Congress needs to act, and update our laws to meet the threats of this new era. And I know they will.

We're engaged in a global struggle -- and the entire civilized world has a stake in its outcome. America is a nation of law. And as I work with Congress to strengthen and clarify our laws here at home, I will continue to work with members of the international community who have been our partners in this struggle. I've spoken with leaders of foreign governments, and worked with them to address their concerns about Guantanamo and our detention policies. I'll continue to work with the international community to construct a common foundation to defend our nations and protect our freedoms.

Free nations have faced new enemies and adjusted to new threats before -- and we have prevailed. Like the struggles of the last century, today's war on terror is, above all, a struggle for freedom and liberty. The adversaries are different, but the stakes in this war are the same: We're fighting for our way of life, and our ability to live in freedom. We're fighting for the cause of humanity, against those who seek to impose the darkness of tyranny and terror upon the entire world. And we're fighting for a peaceful future for our children and our grandchildren.

Today, The President Announced That Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM"), Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, And 11 Other Terrorists In CIA Custody Have Been Transferred To The Custody Of The Department Of Defense, At The U.S. Naval Base At Guantanamo Bay. More information on the individuals transferred to Guantanamo is available at http://www.odni.gov/announcements/content/DetaineeBiographies.pdf.

These Men Have Provided Valuable Information That Has Saved Innocent Lives In The United States And Around The World. In addition to terrorists held at Guantanamo, a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the U.S., in a separate program operated by the CIA. The detainees recently transferred to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay were previously held and questioned by the CIA. The CIA program focused on a number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives – dangerous men with unparalleled knowledge about terrorist networks and plans for new attacks.

The CIA Program Has Been, And Remains, One Of The Most Vital Tools In Our War Against The Terrorists. Questioning of detainees in the program has given us information that has saved innocent lives by helping us to stop new attacks in America and abroad.

Information From Detainees Questioned In This Program Has Helped Unravel Plots And Terrorist Cells. According To Our Intelligence Community, The Program Has Produced Information That Has Saved Lives. Some Examples Include The Following:
    Abu Zubaydah Told Us That Al Qaida Operatives Were Planning To Launch An Attack Inside The United States. Based on information he provided, the operatives were detained, one while traveling to the U.S. Zubaydah also disclosed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM") was the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks.
Information Provided By Zubaydah Also Helped Lead To The Capture Of Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, One Of KSM's Accomplices In 9/11. Together, these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured KSM.
    KSM Provided Information That Led Us To The Capture Of A Terrorist Operative Named Zubair, Who Provided Information That Helped Lead To The Capture Of Hambali – The Leader Of Al Qaida's Southeast Asian Affiliate Known As JI (Jamal Islamia). After Hambali's arrest, KSM was questioned again, and he identified Hambali's brother as the leader of a JI cell, and Hambali's conduit for communications with al Qaida. Hambali's brother was soon captured, and he in turn led us to a cell of 17 Southeast Asian JI operatives. When confronted with the news that his terror cell had been broken up, Hambali admitted that the operatives were being groomed at KSM's request for attacks inside the U.S., possibly using airplanes.
    KSM Also Told Us Many Details Of Other Plots To Kill Innocent Americans And Provided Vital Information On Al Qaida's Efforts To Obtain Biological Weapons For Terrorist Attacks. He described the design of planned attacks on buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure the explosions went off at a point that was high enough to prevent the people trapped above from escaping out of the windows.
    Suspected Terrorists In The CIA Program Have Provided Everything From Initial Leads To Photo Identifications To Precise Locations Of Where Terrorists Were Hiding – Helping Us Take Potential Mass Murderers Off The Streets Before They Were Able To Kill Or Kill Again. Detainees in this program have helped us identify individuals that al Qaida deemed suitable for Western operations, including terrorists sent to case targets inside the U.S. Detainees in this program have identified al Qaida travel routes and safe havens, and explained how al Qaida's senior leadership communicates with its operatives in Iraq. They have identified voices in recordings of intercepted calls and helped us understand the meaning of potentially critical terrorist communications.

Legislation Authorizing The Creation Of Military Commissions To Try These Suspected Terrorists For War Crimes

Today, The President Sent Legislation To Congress To Specifically Authorize The Creation Of Military Commissions To Try These Suspected Terrorists For War Crimes. The Bill ensures that these commissions are established in a way that protects our national security and ensures a full and fair trial for the accused. As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions the President proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, can face justice. We will also seek to prosecute those believed to be responsible for the attack on the USS Cole – and an operative believed to be involved in the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Legislation Also Includes Vital Provisions To Preserve Our Ability To Question Key Terrorist Leaders And Operatives. We will continue to hunt down terrorist leaders and operatives. And as more high-ranking terrorists are captured, the CIA program will be crucial to obtaining the life-saving information they can provide.

The Supreme Court's Recent Determination That Common Article Three (CA3) Of The Geneva Conventions Applies To The War With Al Qaida Put In Question The Future Of The CIA Program. CA3 prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment." These and other provisions are vague and undefined and could be interpreted in different ways by American and foreign judges.

We Owe Our Military And Intelligence Personnel Involved In Capturing And Questioning Terrorists Clear Rules So They Can Continue To Do Their Jobs And Protect Our People. We are asking Congress to pass legislation that will clarify the rules for our personnel fighting the war on terror. We need to ensure that those questioning the terrorists can continue to do everything within the limits of the law to get information that can save American lives.

Passing This Legislation Is A Top Priority, And We Will Work With Congress To Act Quickly To Strengthen And Clarify Our Laws To Meet The Threats Of A New Era. We will ensure that the CIA program goes forward in a way that follows the law, meets the national security needs of our country, and protects the brave men and women we ask to obtain information that will save innocent lives.

On September 6, 2006, STEPHEN A. CAMBONE, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, has "approved FM 2-22.3 in accordance with DOD Directive 3115.09, DOD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning." (see: FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52), p.381: http://www.army.mil/references/FM2-22.3.pdf)
Issued by the Headquarters of the Department of the U.S. Army, and distributed to the Regular Army, Army National Guard, and the Army Reserve, Field Manual FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52) "HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS", specifies in Chapter 8 "Approach Techniques and Termination Strategies" (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON President George W. Bush acknowledged Wednesday that 14 of the most notorious terrorism suspects had been held and interrogated in secret CIA camps, but said that they had been moved to the Guantánamo Bay detention center to face eventual trial, with the legal protections provided by the Geneva conventions.

Bush said that the International Committee of the Red Cross would be allowed to meet with the men at the U.S. base in Guantánamo, on the Cuban coast. "Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys, who will help them prepare their defense, and they will be presumed innocent," he said.

Bush was speaking five days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to an audience that included some victims' family members. In a series of recent speeches, he has sharpened his public focus on national security, raising its profile ahead of important congressional elections in November.

Bush said that the transfer of the 14 - including some of the chief architects of the Sept. 11 assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - had emptied the secret CIA camps where the men had been held. But he also made clear that the administration would work to clarify legal questions, so that they could be used again. "Having a CIA program for questioning terrorists will continue to be crucial to getting lifesaving information," he said. Tribunals of a few detainees had begun earlier, but they were halted amid legal uncertainty.

[The transfer of 14 high-value detainees would empty, but not close, secret CIA camps in Europe, the Middle East and Asia where these men have been held, said U.S. officials quoted by The Associated Press.]

Bush's statement was the first official acknowledgment of the camps. Revelation of their existence last year by The Washington Post had created tensions with complicit governments that, publicly, had denied their existence.

The president said simply that "a small number of terrorist suspects" had been held and questioned outside the United States in a "special program" by the Central Intelligence Agency. "This group includes individuals believed to be key architects of the Sept. 11 attacks and attacks on the USS Cole" in Yemen in 2000, as well as on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. "These are dangerous men with unparalleled knowledge about terror networks and their plans of new attacks," Bush said. "The security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend on our ability to learn what these terrorists know."

The CIA camps were believed to be in East Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and to have accommodated anywhere from scores of people to 1,000 or more at some point. Renewing his caution against complacency, Bush said: "The most important source of information on where terrorists are hiding, and what they are planning, is the terrorists themselves. Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terror networks operate."

Bush said that he could not divulge the camps' location or any other details, to avoid retribution against U.S. allies. "I can say that innocent lives have been saved, here in the United States and across the world," he said. He added that interrogation techniques used had been "tough, and they were safe, and lawful and necessary."

Also Wednesday, in a decisive retreat from practices made infamous by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the U.S. Army explicitly banned several interrogation techniques and required all members of the military to observe, "at a minimum," the code set out in the Geneva conventions to protect suspects.

It appeared that in making its surprise announcements, the administration hoped to blunt its critics' arguments while bolstering its own case that high-value detainees cannot be tried exactly as ordinary prisoners of war would be. Bush has been pressing Congress for legislation that would, for example, allow sensitive evidence to be kept from defendants.

Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, offered backhanded praise. "Today the administration finally recognized that the protections of the Geneva convention should be applied to prisoners in order to restore our moral authority and best protect American troops," he said. For five years, Kerry added, "this administration abused our Constitution, violated our laws and most importantly failed to make America safe."

For more than a year, the administration had been reworking its widely criticized policies on the treatment of suspects. But its move to embrace standards long urged on the United States by many other countries and an array of human rights groups, and to accept a larger level of transparency in doing so, came as something of a surprise.

Bush said that the 14 detainees included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two of the principal planners of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They also included Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian who was once a key aide to Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. The Indonesian-born militant Hambali was also on a list provided by the White House; he is the suspected mastermind of the 2002 bombings in Bali in which more than 200 people, many of them Australian tourists, died.

All the 14 detainees will be granted Geneva protections. At a time uncertain, they will face what surely will be an extraordinary round of legal proceedings. One U.S. Navy official in Guantánamo told reporters that military tribunals there, delayed for months by uncertainty, could begin early next year.

A new U.S. Army manual released Wednesday, which had been withheld for more than a year amid criticism of the Defense Department's treatment of prisoners, explicitly bans eight interrogation techniques: forced nudity or sexual acts, use of hoods or duct tape; beatings; electric shock; the simulated drowning known as "waterboarding," heat or temperature distress; withholding food or water; mock executions; and the use of dogs for intimidation, but not for maintaining security.

Several of those, including the use of dogs, hoods and sexual humiliation, were documented in scores of photos taken by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, generating widespread outrage, the prosecution of some military personnel involved, and an intense re-examination of official interrogation rules and how they are policed.

A few new techniques would be allowed for terrorism suspects : a so- called good-cop-bad-cop technique of pairing a hostile interrogator with another who is seemingly sympathetic, and a "false flag" technique in which interrogators pretend to represent a foreign government. In addition, detainees could be held separately from other prisoners to prevent them sharing information.

The revised manual applies to anyone in Defense Department custody, which now includes those high-level prisoners transferred by the CIA to Guantánamo. The intelligence agency has been accused of prisoner mistreatment in Afghanistan and Iraq linked to a network of secret prisons around the world used for detention and interrogation.

A U.S. Army directive released Wednesday states that it is Defense Department policy that "all detainees shall be treated humanely and in accordance with U.S law, the law of war and applicable U.S. policy." "All persons subject to this directive shall observe the requirements of the law of war, and shall apply, without regard to a detainee's legal status, at a minimum the standards articulated in Common Article 3 to the Geneva conventions of 1949," it adds. That article requires humane treatment of people detained during an armed conflict. It forbids "cruel treatment and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

[Bush again warned that the fight was far from over. "As the recently foiled plot in London shows, the terrorists are still active, and they're still trying to kill our people," Bush said, speaking before an audience at the White House that included survivors of Sept.11 victims. "The most important source of information on where terrorists are hiding, and what they are planning," Bush said, "is the terrorists themselves. Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terror networks operate."]

The suspects include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, thought to be the Sept. 11 mastermind, and other close associates of Osama bin Laden. Mr. Bush said he had decided to bring them into the open after years in which the C.I.A. held them without charges in undisclosed sites abroad, in a program the White House had not previously acknowledged.

The announcement, in the East Room of the White House, was the first time the president had discussed the secret C.I.A. program, and he made clear that he had fully authorized it. Mr. Bush defended the treatment the suspects had received but would not say where the so-called high-value terrorist detainees had been held or what techniques had been used to extract information from them.

The transfer of the high-level suspects to Guantánamo Bay effectively suspended the extraordinary program, in which the intelligence agency became the jailer and interrogator of suspects counterterrorism officials considered the worlds most wanted Islamic extremists.

The government says the 14 terror suspects include some of the most senior members of Al Qaeda captured by the United States since 2001, including those responsible for the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Most of the detainees have been interviewed extensively and are believed to have little remaining intelligence value.

With the transfer of the suspects to Guantánamo, which is run by the Defense Department, the International Committee of the Red Cross will monitor their treatment, Mr. Bush said. He used the East Room appearance to urge Congress to authorize new military commissions to put terror suspects on trial, replacing rules established by the administration but struck down in June by the Supreme Court.

As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, can face justice, Mr. Bush said, to an audience that included family members of the victims. He added, To start the process for bringing them to trial, we must bring them out into the open.

To that end, the president sent Congress legislation proposing new rules for the commissions and detailing specific standards for the humane treatment of detainees. Yet the proposal hews closely to the old commission model, and it retains several provisions the court found troublesome, including language that permits defendants to be excluded from their own trials.

At the same time, the Pentagon released a new Army Field Manual that lays out permissible interrogation techniques and specifically bans eight methods that have come up in abuse cases. Among the techniques banned is water-boarding, in which a wet rag is forced down a bound prisoners throat to cause gagging; intelligence officials have said Mr. Mohammed was subjected to that treatment while in C.I.A. custody.

Although the C.I.A. has faced criticism over the use of harsh techniques, one senior intelligence official said detainees had not been mistreated. They were given dental and vision care as well as the Koran, prayer rugs and clocks to schedule prayers, the official said. They were also given reading material, DVDs and access to exercise equipment.

Administration officials said the timing of Mr. Bushs decision to bring the terror suspects to trial was driven not by politics but by the need to respond to the Supreme Courts decision and the fact that the suspects were no longer regarded as sources of valuable intelligence.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans reacted warily. But even those who criticized the proposal said it was imperative for Congress to pass legislation setting up tribunals soon.

I do not believe it is necessary to have a trial where the accused cannot see the evidence against them, said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a former military prosecutor who has played a central role in the debate. But Mr. Graham said he believed his differences with the White House can be overcome.

Mr. Bushs speech was the third in a series he is delivering on the war on terror in the days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it carried potential political benefits for a White House that is intent on maintaining Republican control of Congress this November.

The address helped put a face on the enemy, reminding Americans that while Osama bin Laden to whom Mr. Bush referred repeatedly in a speech on Tuesday is still at large, many terrorists have been captured. Five years after the attacks, Mr. Bush gave the families of Sept. 11 victims something to cheer about, and those in the audience did, as he announced he wanted to put the suspects on trial.

By moving the high-profile suspects to Guantánamo just two months before the midterm elections, the administration is putting intense pressure on lawmakers to act before adjourning to campaign. If Democrats try to thwart legislation to try senior members of Al Qaeda, they will risk being labeled weak on national security, a label they can ill afford in an election that may turn on the question of which party is better suited to keep Americans safe.

This is certainly a logical and very sound step both substantively and politically, said David Rivkin, who served in the White House counsels office under the first President Bush and is sympathetic to this administrations approach. Its reminding the country and the world of the folks we are fighting against. Nobody can say these are just pitiful foot soldiers; these are pretty senior guys.

The C.I.A. program, though officially a secret, has been the subject of numerous news reports in recent months. By speaking publicly about it for the first time, Mr. Bush hopes to build support for it on Capitol Hill, and in the public.

The White House released biographies of the 14 suspects and details of the accusations against them. They include such well-known Qaeda operatives as Abu Zubaydah, who the administration said was trying to organize a terrorist attack in Israel at the time of his capture, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who the authorities say helped facilitate the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite the new information, human rights organizations were critical of Mr. Bushs announcement.

Its wonderful that at last the United States has acknowledged that these detention sites exist, said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. But Mr. Cox described the program as a form of torture, and said the United States should suspend it.

In his speech, Mr. Bush fiercely resisted that characterization. I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world, he said. The United States does not torture. Its against our laws, and its against our values. I have not authorized it and I will not authorize it.

A senior intelligence official said there had been fewer than 100 detainees in the C.I.A. program since its inception shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Beyond the 14, the remainder have either been turned over to the Defense Department as so-called unlawful enemy combatants, returned to their countries of origin or sent to nations that have legal proceedings against them.

The official described the C.I.A. detainees as the governments single largest source of insight into Al Qaeda, saying they accounted for 50 percent of everything the authorities had learned about the terrorist network. But, he said, Some of these people have been held for a considerable period of time, and their intelligence value has aged off.

Mr. Bush said the C.I.A. would not relinquish its capability to detain and question terrorism suspects, and the senior intelligence official said the administration intended that the program would continue. But agency officials who feared employees might be subject to lawsuits or criminal prosecution welcomed the hand-off of the detainees and the prospect that the C.I.A.s role would be limited in future cases.

I am confident that this will be greeted with relief by agency employees, said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel for the C.I.A. Many of them were uncomfortable with their role as jailers.

Military justice experts say that if Congress passes the legislation, trials of some terror suspects at Guantánamo could begin relatively quickly, in three to four months. But the trials of the 14 high-value suspects, who are held in a special high-security facility separate from other detainees, might not begin for at least a year, because the government would have to build its case .

One expert who has been critical of the administrations plan, Eugene R. Fidell, predicted that the proposal would attract a lawsuit.

Going the way they have done this is in fact quite unfair to the very families of 9/11 victims who President Bush had at his meeting today, Mr. Fidell said, because those people need closure and in fact what hes done is guarantee further protracted delay because of the inevitable litigation.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats were also critical. Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Bush should have disclosed the program years ago and called his speech the opening salvo in the fall campaign.

EUROPEAN leaders have demanded to know the exact location of the secret prisons used by the CIA to interrogate terror suspects in what critics said was a system tacitly approving torture.

Dick Marty, the Swiss senator who led a Council of Europe investigation, called the admission by George Bush of the existence of the secret detention centres "just one piece of the truth".

The Red Cross yesterday welcomed the transfer of high-level terror suspects to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said it planned to check on them "very soon", but reiterated its desire to visit all detainees in the US war on terror, wherever they may be held.

Critics said the US president's acknowledgment of the CIA programme and justification of tough interrogation measures vindicated the worst fears that Washington had gone too far in the pursuit of terror suspects.

Mr Bush seemed to be trying to justify "impunity legislation" that would allow the CIA to continue to operate the centres and use "alternative techniques" of interrogation, said Robert Freer, of Amnesty International. He noted Mr Bush did not rule out cruel, degrading and inhuman prisoner treatment even if he proclaimed, "The United States does not torture." The president said the CIA's "procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our constitution and our treaty obligations. The department of justice reviewed the authorised methods extensively, and determined them to be lawful."

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said there remained the possibility of the CIA using practices which are deemed as torture under international law, such as mock drownings.

Europe's Mr Marty said: "I have always been certain that these prisons existed, so I am not surprised." Mr Marty said earlier this year that 14 European nations - spanning from Dublin to Berlin to Bucharest - colluded with US intelligence in a "spider's web" of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities. His claims triggered a wave of angry denials, including those from the US. Mr Marty said he thought the timing of Mr Bush's admission "probably has to do with the fact that the elections are coming up in the United States".

Graham Watson MEP, the British leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament, said the revelation by Mr Bush would "bring a new interest and momentum" to the work of the parliament's separate investigation.

Mr Bush got strong backing from Australia, a staunch supporter of his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and long detentions without trial of terrorist suspects, though much of the global response was critical of Mr Bush's "limited disclosures" to justify the secret prisons.

Muslim politicians and activists decried the secret prison programme and the types of interrogation techniques used on detainees. Asma Jehangir, a senior member of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, demanded Washington end the programme immediately and apologise for ever bringing it into existence. "They have to admit that what they did was wrong," said Mr Jehangir.

Following President Bush’s acknowledgement that the CIA has operated secret prisons for terrorism suspects, MEPs in the temporary committee investigating claims of such illegal activity in Europe called on Thursday for European governments to reveal their involvement. They also heard from Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and representatives of three more alleged victims of extraordinary rendition.

"I am very pleased that Bush made this statement, which proves that we were right to set up this committee", said committee chair Carlos Coelho (EPP-ED, PT). "He explained to the world his decision to transfer detainees to Guantanamo, where they will face a court and be protected by the Geneva Convention, which is a step in the right direction."

Previously, there had been suspicions but not proof, said Jas Gawronski (EPP-ED, IT) but now President Bush himself had provided proof. "But don't try to link the usefulness of this committee to his acknowledgement (...) Bush didn't apologise, he just stated the facts and said he will keep the secret prisons open if new terrorists are caught.” The US President may have been influenced by forthcoming elections, but “in any case I appreciate that US has the guts to correct its own errors".

Rapporteur Claudio Fava (PES, IT) said "I am not glad about the statements, I am rather shocked he could lie for so long previously! (...) Since Bush spoke last week we have seen complete silence from the Commission and Council. Maybe we don't have the legal means to act but we can raise our voice and condemn it."

"Bush is admitting a criminal practice, and we have confirmed that such practice has lead to the radicalisation of terrorism," said Giusto Catania (GUE, IT). "The definitive silence of EU countries following his statement has only one explanation: that they were not surprised at all."

Sophie In 't Veld (ALDE, NL) said “I propose we ask Member States to send a written declaration on what they know about secret prisons and transfers," and, if they had any information obtained through torture in those camps, "how do they feel about it?". She and Raul Romeva (Greens/EFA, ES) proposed applying article 7 of the EU treaty, which provides for sanctions when there is a serious and persistent breach of human rights by a Member State, to any country which is shown to have hosted a secret prison or helped with US renditions.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, the first minister to give evidence to the committee, said CIA activities in Spain had not broken the law: "I can categorically state that - subject to what might be revealed during investigations - the Spanish government is not aware of any illegal activities or existence of detention centres", he said and stressed: "Our government has not authorised any violation of the law". He extended his assurance to the Spanish CNI, saying that "no Spanish intelligence service has been involved directly or indirectly with the US on this matter.”

However, he added: "Our territory may have been used not to commit crimes as such but as a stopover on the way to commit crime in other territories," saying that 66 suspect flights had made stops in Spain.

Asked by MEPs for his personal reaction to President Bush’s statement, he said "One does not need courage to condemn unacceptable and illegal activities which do not respect fundamental freedoms (...) Bush does not say that such camps are on European territory. Let’s not get drawn into easy anti-Americanism here; the USA is a great country with a Supreme Court whose work has effectively forced Bush to make this statement".

Bernhard Docke, a lawyer representing Murat Kurnaz, who was held at the Guantanamo Bay prison from late 2001 until August 2006, said there was no proof to justify his detention. Mr Kurnaz, though born and raised in Germany, was a Turkish citizen, who traveled to Pakistan in the autumn of 2001 and was arrested by the authorities there. He was then handed over to US forces and transferred to Guantanamo Bay, apparently on suspicion of having sought to fight for the Taliban, said Mr Docke, who said his client had been tortured while at Guantanamo.

Mr Docke said the German authorities had failed to help, on the basis on Mr Kurnaz’s Turkish citizenship, with the Turkey’s response has been “belated and passive.” He was, however, finally release after Chanceller Angela Merkel raised his case during a visit to Washington this year, which, said Sarah Ludford (ALDE, UK) was proof of “what can be done when you have the political will to do it.”

Gül Pinar, a lawyer who represents the family of Mohammed Zammar, a German citizen, said they did not know where he was or even if he was alive. He had been arrested in Morocco in 2001, said Mrs Pinar, presumably under the US extraordinary renditions programme, and sent to Damascus by private plane, where it is thought he may still be imprisoned in Syria’s Far-Filastin prison. She said that while she could not prove it, she believed the German intelligence services had been involved. Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (GUE/NGL, DE) said the committee should raise the case when they visit Berlin later in September.

The Committee also heard from Francesca Longhi, lawyer for Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen detained in Pakistan and, said Mrs Longhi transported to Morocco “under CIA aegis” aboard a private American plane in May 2002. Currently held in a Moroccan prison, Mr Britel has been subjected to “torture and illegal means of interrogation", his lawyer said during the hearing. "Our [Italian] government", she added, "did not choose to look into that”.

11/09/2006
Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners
Chair : Carlos Coelho (EPP-ED, PT)

REF.: 20060908IPR10498 Contact:
Maria Andres Marin
Press Service
: maria.andres@europarl.europa.eu
: (32-2) 28 44299 (BXL)
: (33-3) 881 73603 (STR)
: (32) 0498.983.590

Piotr Zalewski
Press Service
: piotr.zalewski@europarl.europa.eu
: (32-2) 28 32232 (BXL)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- U.S. officials detained Maher Arar in 2002 at a New York airport as he was trying to return home to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia. Canada had placed Arar, a Syrian native, on a terrorism watch list. He says the U.S. arrested him and eventually sent him to Syria, where he allegedly was tortured and held for 10 months.

A Canadian report this week concluded that Arar wasn't a terrorism suspect. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says the U.S. legally deported Arar and didn't send him to Syria to be tortured. Syria defends its handling of the case, saying a Canadian diplomat visited Arar twice and found he was treated well.

CNN's Miles O'Brien talked to Arar, 36, about his experience.
O'BRIEN: What exactly happened to you inside that Syrian prison?
ARAR: Well, I was beaten with a cable on multiple occasions. I was abused psychologically from time to time, and I was asked questions that would be of interest mostly to the Canadian RCMP police and the Canadian security agencies, and possibly to American agencies.
O'BRIEN: How did you respond?
ARAR: Well, I tried my best to answer them, you know, since I had nothing to the hide. But the Syrians, they basically beat first and ask questions second. And that's what they did to me. In fact, on the third day, to my surprise, they wanted me to confess that I had been to a training camp in Afghanistan, which at the end of that day, I falsely confessed to try to stop the beating. The beating did not stop. But the -- you know, it decreased in intensity after that false confession.
O'BRIEN: Did you think you'd get out of it alive?
ARAR: No, the beating I went through, just beyond human imagination. The cell they put me in, the size - it was the size of a grave, 3 feet wide, 6 feet long and 7 feet high. It was dark, it was filthy.
O'BRIEN: Do you blame the Canadian police for putting you on that watch list?
ARAR: Well, the findings of the inquiry report clearly state that it is likely that the Americans based their decision to send me to Syria on this false information. Well, this is not to absolve the American officials who took the decision from any responsibility. At the end of the day, they are the ones who took the decision to send me to a country that they themselves acknowledge practices torture on detainees.
O'BRIEN: What happened to you, I think most people would agree, is tragic and inexcusable. But in the war on terror, mistakes might be made. How do you address that?
ARAR: I think, you know, my story, speaks about basic human rights abuses that happen after 9/11. This was a deliberate, deliberate attempt to send me to Syria to extract information under torture. Now what I would like the U.S. government to do is to accept the findings of the inquiry and to clear my name. That's what I'm asking them to do at the minimum.

In the matter of CIA flights and secret CIA prisons in Europe - latest development: "Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist", Brian Knowlton, IHT, 6 Sep 06: www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm - Senator Dick Marty (dick.marty@parl.ch), headed an inquiry by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (see: "Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states", Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Draft report – Part II (Explanatory memorandum) Rapporteur: Mr Dick Marty, Switzerland, ALDE, June 7, 2006, AS/Jur (2006) 16: .../CE06.pdf). On page 41, section 3.6 (§177), the report addresses in the following terms the case of Mr. Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen the CIA rendited - as it happened routinely, presumably by way of Swiss airspace - to Syria for apparently out-sourced "interrogation" by way of a refueling stopover at an Italian airport said to be Rome (Ciampino, Aviano, Fiumicino?):

CLANCY: We're going to turn now and spend a little bit of time on an important subject, the controversial weapon in the U.S. war on terror. Washington calls it rendition. Human rights groups say it's nothing more than outsourcing torture.

Rendition -- and let's explain what it actually is -- it involves the seizing of terror suspects in a country outside the U.S. and then transferring them to a third country where there aren't laws about just how tough they can be in interrogation. The CIA practice started in 1995. It was authorized by then President Bill Clinton. It's unclear how many suspects have been rendered. We will hear from both sides the rendition debate shortly.

VASSILEVA: But first, we examine the case of Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar. By Washington's definition, Arar was not technically rendered because he was in the U.S. when he was sent back to Syria as a terror suspect. Still, his case is being held up as an example of how U.S. policy flagrantly flaunts international law.

BRONWYN ADCOCK, CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Canadian Maher Arar is an innocent man. Yet based on unfounded suspicions, he was sent for ten months of hell in a Syrian prison, where he was tortured.
MAHER ARAR, FORMER TORTURE DETAINEE: Let me tell you something that happened during the interrogation. I urinated myself twice during the interrogation. I don't know what that shows, but my nerves, like, I can't control myself. It's so scary when you hear people being tortured. It's so scary when you are beaten. And I would just say anything -- anything they want -- just to stop the torture.
ADCOCK: Maher Arar was sent to Syria by United States government officials who believed he had information about terrorist suspects. Ahar's lawyers believe the U.S. sent him for the purpose of interrogation under torture.
BILL GOODMAN, MAHER ARAR'S ATTORNEY: They wanted to torture him. But they didn't quite have the wherewithal, the guts, let's say, to do what they really intended to do -- was to torture this man. So they franchised the torture. They knew the Syrians wouldn't blink at torturing someone. And the purpose was, supposedly, to get information from him about his connections with al Qaeda, which, by the way, are totally nonexistent.
ADCOCK: Maher Ahar is not the only case of what's known as extraordinary rendition, a secretive U.S. policy of outsourcing torture to countries like Syria and Egypt. It's proving embarrassing and controversial for the U.S. government. Arar was the first to sue the government over the practice. In clear victory for the Bush administration, his case was thrown out of court.
GOODMAN: I think some of our clients are terrified of coming back to the United States, and even though...
ADCOCK: Bill Goodman says this gives a green light for the government to continue with extraordinary rendition.
GOODMAN: If they can get away with doing it to Maher Arar, they're going to get away with doing it to whoever they choose to do it to, whether he be a non-citizen or a citizen, in my humble opinion. Or she. And that person will -- who's sent to Syria today can be sent to the Sudan or Somalia tomorrow, or who knows where the next day.
ADCOCK: Maher Arar's terrifying journey began in the summer of 2002, when he was detained while in transit at JFK Airport in New York. He was held here in a Brooklyn detention center for two weeks, with little access to a lawyer. He was accused of being a member of al Qaeda and told he was to be deported -- not to Canada, but to Syria, the country of his birth. ARAR: And I told him, I said, listen, you're going to send me to a country that you know does -- has no law, they don't follow the law. If you send me there, I'm going to be tortured. So I raised the torture issue many times.
ADCOCK: Despite his pleas and with no legal extradition process, Arar was put on board a Gulf Stream jet. It's now known that these planes have been widely used in America's rendition program, taking detainees everywhere from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Once in Syria, Maher Arar's worst fears were realized.
ARAR: They would basically put me back to the interrogation and they would beat me again like three or four times with a cable. And now they started beating me on my shoulder, on my back, on my hips, on -- mostly. And they would ask questions. Again, sometimes they would beat first and then ask second.
ADCOCK: Arar says in Syria, he was asked identical questions to those asked when he was detained in the U.S., leading him to believe that his Syrian interrogators were acting behalf of the United States.
ARAR: And I asked the colonel, actually -- I said, you guys know I have nothing to do with any allegations the Americans have against me. Why don't you release me? And he said, oh, you're going home very soon. Now whether I believe him or not -- because they lie to me all the times, right? But he could -- I could tell in their eyes that they had no interest in me.
ADCOCK: Syrian officials have since confirmed that they only took Arar because the Americans requested it.
Maher Arar was released home to Canada after ten months, time spent in a coffin-sized cell in solitary confinement. He's never been charged with anything. "Dateline" caught up with Maher Arar again after he'd received the news about the court's decision.
ARAR: When a human being is wronged, the first place he would expect to go is to the justice system. And in my case, that's what -- I exactly did. And I filed a lawsuit two years ago. And I wanted to held the people accountable. And all of a sudden, the judge, he's just saying, you know, good luck. That's what's, you know, scary about it.
ADCOCK: In his court case against the U.S. government, Arar asked for compensation and a statement that what happened to him was unlawful. The case was dismissed, largely because of national security and foreign policy considerations. The judge said taht he couldn't declare what happened to Arar was illegal because it could threaten the security of America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "A judge who declares on his or her own Article III authority that the policy of extraordinary rendition is under all circumstances unconstitutional must acknowledge that such a ruling can have the most serious of consequences to our foreign relations or national security or both."
ADCOCK: The judge said that such decisions are for the government, not the judiciary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "The task of balancing individual rights against national security concerns is one that courts should not undertake without the guidance or the authority of the coordinate branches, in whom the constitution imposes responsibility for our foreign affairs and national security. Those branches have the responsibility to determine whether judicial oversight is appropriate."
ADCOCK: Arar's lawyers are shocked by the judgment. Bill Goodman says judicial oversight of the government is an essential part of democracy.
GOODMAN: This is a principle that goes back to the magna carta, at least to the 1213, the 13th century and probably beyond. But if the courts cannot get involved and cannot demand answers from the executive branch and cannot demand answers from the executive branch, and cannot tell the executive branch that it cannot abuse its power, than nobody can. We're setting ourselves up for an executive branch which will -- which is prepared to, will likely and undoubtedly, in my opinion, will abuse its power.
ADCOCK: Bill Goodman agrees it's important to consider national security, but not at any cost.
GOODMAN: I think they have to be taken into consideration in determining whether or not what the government has done is reasonable. But I do not think that they're a trump card and can be played and as a result no court can get involved in deciding whether or not somebody's rights have been violated. That would be a violation of the most basic and fundamental democratic principles of the American Constitution.
ADCOCK: This is clearly not the view of the judge, though. He went as far as saying that the judiciary doesn't have the right to hold the government to account over policies like rendition, even if the law is broken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Judges should not, in the absence of explicit direction by Congress, hold officials who carry out such policies liable for damages, even if such conduct violates our treaty obligations or customary international law.
ADCOCK: The Ahar judgment is clearly written in the context of America being in the middle of a so-called war on terror. It frequently cites the importance of national security. Ahar's lawyers say this has led the judge to act in fear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fear of terror, you know, fear there will be another terrorist attack. And that if there is, that these opinions that the judges will be blamed because they let the terrorists get away with it, because they -- they tied the hands of the government in fighting the war on terror. Which, of course, this isn't. This is demanding of the government that it do what the Constitution compels it to.
ADCOCK: For Mahar Ahar, his only connection with terrorists is that he was mistaken for one. It's a devastating blow.
AHAR: You have to understand the context in which all of this happened, you know. I was a successful engineer before. I was living a normal life. I had everything I wanted, you know. And all of a sudden, I am put out a job. I am still -- I still have scars, mostly psychological scars, and I'm still with the nightmares. I'm still with -- suffering from psychological effects. And financially, I have -- it's very, very, you know, bad situation. And that's what's disappointing about this. Not only, like, it's giving the Bush administration the green light to continue in their evil practice, but also it's very destructive for me on a personal level.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: All right. A day in court. Maher Arar has decided he's going to appeal the U.S. court decision. CNN invited U.S. officials to come here and talk with us. They had to decline, they said. The Justice Department did issue a statement, saying, we're having ongoing litigation with Mr. Arar. The Department of Justice cannot say anything outside of court. A U.S. State Department official did say the U.S. had no intention of mistreating Arar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN MCCORMACK, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: My understanding of this is that he was -- at the time, U.S. officials made a determination that he posed -- based on the information that they had that he posed a threat, so he was removed from the U.S. to a country of his citizenship, Syria. It was done after there were assurances that his treatment would meet the standards of the Geneva Conventions, meaning that in the sense that he was not going to be maltreated. We had to have a reasonable expectation that he was not going to be tortured or maltreated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: Well, what do the Syrians say then? Well, we contacted the Syrian government. Its ambassador to the United States says Arar was not treated badly in its care, and strongly contests his allegations that he was tortured. As for the Canadians, an exhaustive inquiry there came to a close recently and it exonerated Maher Arar.
VASSILEVA: Well, when we return, much more on the rendition controversy, including the views of two experts who debate the case of Arar. Were his civil rights trampled on? We'll get their views, coming up.
VASSILEVA: Welcome back. Seen live in more than 200 countries across the globe. CLANCY: This is YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International.
VASSILEVA: We want to continue now with our look at that controversial practice of rendition.
CLANCY: People asking, really, is this the pursuit of justice, security, or is it persecution?
VASSILEVA: Well, we got the opinion of two experts.
CLANCY: Jonathan Hafetz is the associate council at the Brennan Center for Social Justice at New York University.
VASSILEVA: He says rendition robs people of their civil rights.
CLANCY: Now at the same time, JAn Ting, a lawyer, professor and former U.S. immigration official, in fact, suggests the practice is not only legal, but it's necessary.
VASSILEVA: And he actually took issue with our report on Maher Arar.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAN TING, FMR. U.S. IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: I taught your piece was inaccurate, and therefore incomplete and biassed. I mean, if Mr. Arar was mistreated, that was certainly a regrettable thing. But as most of your Canadian viewers know, there's been big debate in Canada as to what the Canadian government did wrong. Clearly, the Canadian government advised the United States government that Mr. Arar was an al Qaeda operative, and his removal from the United States was based on that representation from the Canadian government. Now, in accordance with American law, he was deported to a country of which he was a citizen, Syria, as the government representative said. Representations were made that he would not be tortured, would not be mistreated. I just think it's one more example of finger-pointing on the part of people outside the United States that, rather than blame themselves for errors that have been made, it's always easier to blame the United States.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: You know, I'm just curious about one thing about that -- since when did the U.S. start trusting the Syrians on that sort of thing?
TING: Well, you know, I mean, it's a ridiculous assertion to believe that the United States, which views Syria as an adversary, as a country of origin of terrorism and part of the axis of evil is in position to manipulate the Syrians to do our bidding. I mean, it just stretches credibility to even make that suggestion.
HOLMES: My point was the U.S. sought assurances from Syria that he would be well treated. My point is, since when did the U.S. trust Syria on that? JONATHAN HAFETZ, BRENNAN CTR. FOR JUSTICE: Can I interject for a moment?
TING: Well, look, we do the best we can do. When we're deporting somebody -- you asked me a question, you know. When we're deporting somebody, we have to find a country willing to take them, and the country we have diplomatic leverage on to take them is the country of which the individual is a citizen.
HOLMES: All right, Jonathan, let's bring you in now. One thing that strikes me, if the man's meant to be a member of it is a terrorist organization, why would we send him back to a country we accuse of terror sponsoring? Why would he not be charged and dealt with right on U.S. soil?
HAFETZ: The allegations in the Arar case clearly show that he was sent to Syria, outsourced for torture, because the United States had suspicions he might be involved in terrorism, and essentially asked Syria to do the dirty work. And let me just go back, because I think Professor Ting, there's -- I want to clarify something about what he said about the findings of the Canadian report.
HOLMES: Certainly, they critiqued the Canadian government as well. But they also made some devastating findings about the complicity of the United States.
HAFETZ: First of all, the -- while Arar was in custody in the United States, the Canadian counterterrorism officials contacted the United States and said they did not know for certain whether Arar was, in fact, a terrorist. They had concerns about it. And they also -- the United States never informed Canada that they were planning to send him to Syria, and further, while Arar was in custody, he was denied a clearly established right, which was the right to seek the assistance of his consul. This was done in secret. This is the manifestation of a secret rendition program where you send people beyond the law.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: All right, Michael Holmes there, hosting those two gentlemen, talking about rendition. We got pretty spirited there at some points.

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Canada will present a formal protest to the United States over the case of a Canadian man deported to Syria by U.S. agents, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told President Bush on Friday.

Software engineer Maher Arar was arrested in New York in September 2002 and was sent to Syria, where he says he was repeatedly tortured. He was released a year later.

An official inquiry into the affair put much of the blame on Canadian police, who wrongly told U.S. border agents that Arar was an Islamic extremist. But inquiry head Dennis O'Connor also urged Ottawa to formally protest to both Syria and the United States over the way they had treated Arar.

"The prime minister expressed concerns relating to the case of Maher Arar in the wake of the recent report of the O'Connor report and (said) that we would be launching an official protest," said Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas. A spokeswoman for Harper, speaking separately, said the protest would be delivered shortly. Harper called Bush to discuss a number of topics, including Arar, officials said.

Harper's right-wing Conservatives, who won the January 23 election, campaigned on a promise to repair relations with the United States. Relations had become strained under the previous Liberal government. Bush is unpopular with many Canadians and the protest may help deflect opposition complaints that Harper is too close to the U.S. president.

THE BUSH administration has pushed aggressively for expanded surveillance powers, military commissions and rough interrogation techniques. When it comes to fighting the war on terrorism, just about anything goes. Except, that is, those routine steps with no civil liberties implications at all that might significantly interrupt terrorism -- such as, say, reading the mail of convicted terrorists housed in American prisons. The federal Bureau of Prisons, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine wrote, "does not read all the mail for terrorist and other high-risk inmates on its mail monitoring lists." It is also "unable to effectively monitor high-risk inmates' verbal communications," including phone calls. So while the administration won't reveal the circumstances under which it spies on innocent Americans, the communications of imprisoned terrorists, at least, appear sadly secure.

This is not a hypothetical problem. Jailed terrorists and organized-crime figures try to communicate with confederates outside of prison walls. Three inmates involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, while housed at the federal government's highest-security prison, managed to exchange around 90 letters with Islamist extremists between 2002 and 2004, including with terrorists in Spain who were planning attacks there. Just last month, federal prosecutors accused a drug lord at the same facility of running a huge distribution network in Los Angeles using coded conversations and messages. Imprisoned people can direct major crimes from behind bars.

Yet somehow, the bureau leaves unread a lot of mail to and from inmates it designates as warranting monitoring. What's more, at some federal institutions, the amount of mail monitored is going down . Part of the problem is that the bureau "does not have enough proficient translators to translate inmate mail written in foreign languages" -- a government-wide deficiency. Even when officers eyeball mail, they are not sufficiently "trained in intelligence techniques to evaluate whether terrorists' communications contain suspicious content," the report said.

This should be the easy part of fighting terrorism. It is simply a question of devoting adequate resources to making happen something that everyone agrees needs to happen. When a lawyer for the imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman helped him covertly send messages to his followers, federal prosecutors rightly pressed charges and won a conviction against her. How ironic that other terrorists need only set pen to paper and their exhortations can slip through unread.

Eingereicht von Oskar Freysinger
Einreichungsdatum 6.10.2006
Eingereicht im Nationalrat
Stand der Beratung erledigt

Eingereichter Text
1.    Wie beurteilt der Bundesrat die mit dem neuen Verhör-Handbuch der amerikanischen Armee angekündigte Art der Wahrnehmung der Pflichten eines Signatarstaates der Genfer Konventionen? Und was gedenkt der Bundesrat allenfalls zu unternehmen, um sicherzustellen, dass solch perfide Verhörpraktiken nicht auch die unabdingbare Vertrauenswürdigkeit von ICRC-Delegierten, Diplomaten und anderer Träger schweizerischer Guter Dienste untergraben werden?
2.    Kann der Bundesrat ausschliessen, dass im October 2002 der Schweizer Luftraum benutzt wurde um den zu Unrecht verdächtigten Kanadier Maher Arar nach Syrien zu verschleppen und dort mit menschenrechtswidrigen Methoden einvernommen zu werden?
3.    Wie gedenkt der Bundesrat allenfalls zu gewährleisten, dass auch nicht der geringste Teil des allfälligen Schweizer Milliardenbeitrags an den EU-Kohäsionsfonds zur Aufrechterhaltung irgendeines in Osteuropa weitergeführten CIA-Geheimgefängnisses verwendet werden mag?

Begründung
1.    Etikettenschwindel wird in jedem Rechtsstaat allgemein als Verletzung des grundsätzlichen Gebots von Treu und Glauben empfunden und je nach Sachlage geahndet. Der Missbrauch der Rotkreuz-Insignien wird weltweit als perfid empfunden und steht unter entsprechender Strafandrohung, denn besonders im Kriegsfall erfüllen sie unverzichtbare Schutzfunktionenen sowohl für Zivilpersonen als auch für Soldaten (z.B. Artikel 44 und 45 der 2.Genfer Konvention von 1949: www.icrc.org). Die amerikanische Armee hat soeben die Falsch-Flaggen-Methode zur wirksameren Einvernahme von Kriegs- und andern Gefangenen durch Angehörige der U.S. Streitkräfte eingeführt ("false flag approach", FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52), S.139 und 156: www.army.mil/references/FM2-22.3.pdf; www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Flag). Unter Vorschaukelung falscher Tatsachen bezweckt diese Methode Gefangene vertrauensselig und entsprechend gesprächig zu machen. Dem Vernehmen nach sollen dazu besonders diensteifrige Ausländer mit fremden, z.B. schweizerischen Akzenten, zum Einsatz kommen, damit "der Gefangene glaubt, er habe es mit einem Vertreter eines Staates zu tun, welcher mit seinem Heimatstaat oder seiner Organisation befreundet sei."
2.    Die schon mit dem Bericht des Europarat-Rapporteurs Dick Marty aufgezeigten Verletzungen der Menschenrechte und der Souveränität verschiedener Mitgliedstaaten durch amerikanische Gefangenentransporte und Geheimgefängnisse (.../EU06.pdf) findet sich, trotz anfänglich hartnäckiger Verleugnung, nunmehr bestätigt durch die Erklärung von Präsident Bush ("Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist", International Herald Tribune, 7.September 2006: .../ciaprisons.htm#exist). Der am 18.September 2006 vorgelegte aufsehenerregende Schlussbericht der Untersuchungskommission des kanadischen Parlaments "Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar" (www.ararcommission.ca/eng/10.htm ¦ www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Arar) belegt den konkreten Fall des inzwischen von jeder Schuld freigesprochenen kanadischen Bürgers Maher Arar, welcher am 8.Oktober 2002 mit einem CIA-Jet anscheinend via Schweizer Luftraum und Zwischenhalt in Rom nach Syrien zur dortigen "Einvernahme" verfrachtet wurde.
3.    Nach offiziellen amerikanischen Angaben sollen einzelne Geheimgefängnisse auch in Osteuropa weiterhin "für besondere Zwecke" aufrechterhalten werden (.../ciaprisons.htm#Europe). Das kann nur mit dem Einverständnis der betreffenden Regierungen erfolgen. Dabei soll es sich auch um Staaten handeln, die vom beabsichtigten Schweizer Beitrag zum Kohäsionsfonds für die Osterweiterung profitieren sollen. Solange nicht verlässlich klargestellt ist, dass dieser Schweizer Beitrag in keiner Art und Weise zur Fortführung dieser rechtsstaatlich und souveränitätsrechtlich bedenklichen Geheimgefängnisse Verwendung findet, sprechen vorrangige fundamentale Bedenken gegen diese Hilfeleistung.

Antwort des Bundesrates vom 08.12.2006
1. Der Missbrauch der durch die Genfer Abkommen und deren Zusatzprotokolle anerkannten Embleme ist gemäss Artikel 38 des Zusatzprotokolls I verboten. Artikel 39 Absatz 1 dieses Zusatzprotokolls verbietet zudem die Verwendung von Flaggen oder militärischen Kennzeichen, Abzeichen oder Uniformen neutraler oder anderer nicht am Konflikt beteiligter Staaten in einem bewaffneten Konflikt. Als neutraler Staat ist die Schweiz von dieser Bestimmung betroffen. Der Bundesrat verfügt aber über keine Informationen, dass die Embleme der Genfer Abkommen oder die Schweizer Flagge von amerikanischen Militärpersonen missbraucht worden wären. Die in der Anfrage erwähnten Bestimmungen des Handbuchs der amerikanischen Armee sprechen von der Verwendung einer Fremdsprache - darunter fallen auch Schweizer Dialekte - bei Gefangenenverhören. Eine solche Verwendung ist an sich im humanitären Völkerrecht nicht verboten. Zudem präzisiert das Handbuch, dass es verboten ist, sich als IKRK-Delegierten auszugeben.
2. Aufgrund der Ermittlungen der Bundesanwaltschaft kann der Bundesrat ausschliessen, dass der Schweizer Luftraum im Oktober 2002 zur Überführung von Maher Arar benutzt wurde.
3. Bei der Unterstützungsleistung an die zehn neuen EU-Mitgliedstaaten handelt es sich nicht um einen Finanzbeitrag in den EU-Kohäsionsfonds, sondern um ein Programm der bilateralen Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Schweiz und jedem einzelnen dieser Staaten. Die Schweiz behält dadurch die volle Kontrolle über die Verwendung der Unterstützungsbeiträge, und durch die vertraglichen Bestimmungen der Zusammenarbeit ist die volle Transparenz gewährleistet. Jedes Projekt, das im Rahmen des Erweiterungsbeitrags umgesetzt wird, muss durch die Schweizer Behörden genehmigt werden, und die Projektausführung wird überwacht. Unterstützungsbeiträge zugunsten allfälliger geheimer Einrichtungen sind somit völlig ausgeschlossen.

Déposé par Oskar Freysinger
Date de dépôt 06.10.2006
Déposé au Conseil national
Etat des délibérations liquidé

Texte déposé
1.     Après la sortie du nouveau manuel d'interrogatoire de l'armée américaine, que pense le Conseil fédéral de la manière dont les Etats-Unis abordent leurs obligations en tant qu'Etat signataire des Conventions de Genève? Et que pense-t-il entreprendre au besoin pour garantir que des méthodes d'interrogatoire aussi perfides ne saperont plus le crédit qui est indispensable aux délégués du CICR, aux diplomates et aux autres personnes qui proposent les bons offices de la Suisse?
2.     Le Conseil fédéral peut-il certifier qu'on n'a pas utilisé l'espace aérien suisse en octobre 2002 pour transférer en Syrie le citoyen canadien Maher Arar, soupçonné à tort, et pour l'y interroger selon des méthodes contraires aux droits de l'homme?
3.     Comment le Conseil fédéral compte-t-il garantir au besoin qu'il n'y aura pas la moindre part du milliard que la Suisse versera le cas échéant dans le fonds de cohésion de l'UE qui sera utilisée pour le maintien d'une des prisons secrètes de la CIA qui sont encore en service en Europe de l'Est?
I.     Dans tout Etat de droit, l'étiquetage frauduleux est ressenti, d'une manière générale, comme une violation d'un principe fondamental: le principe de la bonne foi; il est réprimé suivant les cas. L'emploi abusif des signes distinctifs de la Croix-Rouge est considéré comme perfide dans le monde entier; il fait l'objet de sanctions pénales, car ces signes distinctifs remplissent une fonction de protection indispensable, particulièrement en temps de guerre, tant pour les civils que pour les soldats (cf. p. ex. art. 44 et 45 de la 2e Convention de Genève de 1949: www.icrc.org). L'armée américaine vient de mettre au point une méthode qui permet à ses membres d'interroger plus efficacement les prisonniers de guerre et les autres prisonniers; cette technique est connue sous le nom de "faux drapeau" ("false flag approach", FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52), p.139 et 156: www.army.mil/references/FM2-22.3.pdf; www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Flag). Cette méthode, par laquelle on présente des faits erronés, vise à donner aux prisonniers une confiance aveugle en leurs geôliers pour qu'ils se mettent à parler. On a apparemment recours à des étrangers particulièrement zélés qui maîtrisent les accents de différents pays, par exemple les accents suisses, afin que le détenu croie qu'il a affaire à un représentant d'un pays ami de son pays d'origine ou de l'organisation à laquelle il est affilié.
II.     Déjà révélées dans le rapport de Dick Marty, rapporteur du Conseil de l'Europe, les violations des droits de l'homme et de la souveraineté de plusieurs Etats membres commises par les Etats-Unis lors de transports de prisonniers et dans leurs prisons secrètes (.../EU06.pdf) sont maintenant confirmées par le président Bush, bien qu'il se soit tout d'abord obstiné à les nier («Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist», International Herald Tribune du 7 septembre 2006 : .../ciaprisons.htm#exist). Le 18 septembre 2006, une commission d'enquête du Parlement canadien a présenté un rapport final retentissant intitulé "Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar" (www.ararcommission.ca/eng/10.htm ¦ www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Arar). Ce rapport expose le cas du citoyen canadien Maher Arar, reconnu innocent depuis, qui avait été transféré en Syrie à bord d'un jet de la CIA le 8 octobre 2002 pour y être "interrogé", apparemment après avoir transité par l'espace aérien suisse et avoir fait halte à Rome.
III.     D'après des informations officielles fournies par les Etats-Unis, quelques prisons secrètes sont maintenues en Europe de l'Est à des fins particulières (.../ciaprisons.htm#Europe). Or ce maintien n'est possible qu'avec l'assentiment des gouvernements concernés. Il doit s'agir en l'occurrence de gouvernements d'Etats qui vont profiter de la contribution que la Suisse versera le cas échéant dans le fonds de cohésion destiné à l'élargissement de l'UE à l'Est. Tant que l'on ne sera pas sûr que cette contribution de la Suisse ne servira en aucune manière au maintien de ces prisons secrètes contestables du point de vue de l'Etat de droit et du droit de la souveraineté, il ne faudra pas fournir cette aide vu les objections fondamentales prioritaires que l'on peut faire.

Réponse du Conseil fédéral du 08.12.2006
1. L'utilisation indue des emblèmes reconnus par les Conventions de Genève et leurs protocoles est interdite par l'article 38 du Protocole Additionnel I. L'article 39, alinéa 1 du même protocole interdit quant à lui l'utilisation, dans un conflit armé, "de drapeaux ou pavillons, symboles, insignes ou uniformes militaires d'Etats neutres ou d'autres Etats non parties au conflit". En tant qu' Etat neutre, la Suisse est ainsi concernée par cette disposition. Le Conseil fédéral n'a pas connaissance que les emblèmes des Conventions de Genève ou le drapeau suisse aient été utilisés de manière indue par les militaires américains. Les dispositions du manuel de l'armée américaine mentionnées dans la question parlementaire parlent du recours à une langue étrangère lors d'interrogations de détenus, ce qui en soi n'est pas prohibé par le droit international humanitaire, y compris s'il s'agit d'un dialecte suisse. En outre, le Manuel précise qu'il est interdit de se faire passer pour un délégué du CICR.
2. Sur la base de l'enquête effectuée par le Ministère Public de la Confédération, le Conseil fédéral peut exclure que l'espace aérien suisse ait été utilisé pour le transport de M. Maher Arar en octobre 2002.
3. Le soutien apporté aux dix nouveaux pays membres de l'Union européenne n'est pas une contribution financière au fonds de cohésion de l'UE. Il s'inscrit dans un programme de coopération bilatérale entre la Suisse et chacun des pays concernés. L'utilisation des contributions demeure donc sous l'entier contrôle de la Suisse. En outre, les dispositions conventionnelles réglant la coopération permettent d'assurer la pleine transparence. Chaque projet mis en oeuvre dans le cadre de la contribution de la Suisse à l'UE élargie doit être approuvé par les autorités suisses, et faire l'objet d'un contrôle durant toute la phase de réalisation. Il est donc absolument exclu qu'une partie de ces fonds de soutien puisse être utilisée pour d'éventuelles installations secrètes.

Depositato da Freysinger Oskar
Data del deposito 06.10.2006
Depositato il Consiglio nazionale
Stato attuale Liquidato

Testo depositato
1.     Come valuta il Consiglio federale l'interpretazione degli obblighi degli Stati firmatari delle Convenzioni di Ginevra annunciata nel nuovo manuale sugli interrogatori dell'esercito americano? Cosa pensa di intraprendere il Consiglio federale, al fine di garantire che queste pratiche sleali non minino la credibilità imprescindibile dei delegati del CICR, dei diplomati e di chi presta i buoni uffici svizzeri?
2.     Il Consiglio federale può escludere che lo spazio aereo svizzero sia stato utilizzato nel 2002 per trasportare in Siria il canadese Maher Arar - ingiustamente sospettato - al fine di interrogarlo con metodi contrari ai diritti dell'uomo?
3.     Cosa pensa di fare il Consiglio federale per garantire che neanche una minima parte del miliardo di franchi svizzeri versato quale contributo al fondo di coesione dell'UE sia utilizzata per mantenere carceri segreti della CIA nell'Europa dell'Est?

Motivazione
I.     In tutti gli Stati di diritto, l'uso fraudolento di insegne è generalmente considerato una violazione del principio fondamentale della buona fede ed è perseguito in funzione della fattispecie. L'abuso del simbolo della Croce rossa è considerato sleale in tutto il mondo ed è punito di conseguenza poiché, soprattutto in caso di guerra, questo emblema svolge un irrinunciabile ruolo protettivo a favore sia della popolazione civile sia dei militi (p.es. art. 44 e 45 della Seconda Convenzione di Ginevra del 1949: WWW.icrc.org). L'esercito americano ha addirittura introdotto il metodo della bandiera falsa al fine di rendere più efficaci gli interrogatori di prigionieri di guerra o altri da parte dei militari USA ("false flag approach", FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52), p. 139 e 156: www.army.mil/references/FM2-22.3.pdf; www.solami.com/ciaprisonshtm#Flag). Questo metodo, basato sull'inganno, ha lo scopo di infondere fiducia nei soldati e di indurli a parlare. A tal fine saranno impiegati stranieri particolarmente zelanti con accento straniero, anche svizzero, affinché "il prigioniero creda di avere a che fare con un rappresentante di uno Stato amico del suo Stato di origine o dell'Organizzazione che lo impiega".
II.     Nonostante le ostinate smentite iniziali, il presidente Bush ha ora confermato le violazioni dei diritti dell'uomo e della sovranità di alcuni Stati membri in relazione al trasporto di prigionieri americani e all'esistenza di carceri segrete ("Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist", International Herald Tribune, 7 settembre 2006: .../ciaprisons.htm#exist) (.../EU06.pdf), che erano già state oggetto del rapporto del relatore del Consiglio d'Europa Dick Marty. Il sensazionale rapporto finale presentato il 18 settembre 2006 dalla Commissione d'inchiesta del Parlamento canadese "Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar" (www.ararcommission.ca/eng/10.htm; www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Arar) documenta il caso concreto del cittadino canadese Maher Arar - nel frattempo assolto da ogni colpa - che l'8 ottobre 2002 era stato trasportato in Siria per esservi "interrogato" con un Jet della CIA, verosimilmente attraverso lo spazio aereo svizzero e con scalo a Roma.
III.     Secondo dati ufficiali americani, singole carceri segrete saranno verosimilmente mantenute per "scopi speciali" (.../ciaprisons.htm#Europe). A tal fine è necessario l'accordo dei Governi in questione. In alcuni casi si tratterà di Stati che beneficeranno del contributo svizzero al Fondo di coesione per i Paesi dell'Est. Fintanto che non sarà accertato che questo contributo non verrà in alcun modo utilizzato per mantenere queste carceri segrete di dubbia natura dal profilo dello Stato di diritto e della sovranità, preminenti considerazioni di fondo parlano contro tale aiuto.

Risposta del Consiglio federale del 08.12.2006
1. L'abuso degli emblemi riconosciuti dalle Convenzioni di Ginevra e dai loro protocolli addizionali è vietato in base all'articolo 38 del protocollo addizionale I. L'articolo 39 capoverso 1 di questo protocollo addizionale vieta inoltre, in un conflitto armato, l'uso delle bandiere o emblemi, insegne o uniformi militari di Stati neutrali o di altri Stati non Parti in conflitto. Tale disposizione riguarda anche la Svizzera, in qualità di Paese neutrale. Il Consiglio federale non è però a conoscenza di abusi relativi agli emblemi riconosciuti dalle Convenzioni di Ginevra oppure alla bandiera Svizzera da parte di militari americani. Le disposizioni del manuale dell'esercito americano citate nell'interrogazione menzionano l'uso di una lingua straniera, compresi quindi i dialetti svizzeri, nell'audizione di detenuti. Si tratta di un'operazione di per sé non vietata dal diritto internazionale umanitario. Il manuale precisa inoltre che è proibito farsi passare per delegato del CICR.
2. In base ai risultati dell'inchiesta svolta dal Ministero pubblico della Confederazione, il Consiglio federale ritiene di poter escludere che lo spazio aereo svizzero sia stato utilizzato nell'ottobre del 2002 per il trasferimento di Maher Arar.
3. Il sostegno finanziario accordato ai dieci nuovi membri dell'UE non è destinato al Fondo di coesione dell'Unione europea, ma comprende invece un programma di cooperazione bilaterale con ognuno di questi Paesi. In tal modo la Svizzera può mantenere il pieno controllo sulle modalità d'impiego di questi mezzi finanziari e può beneficiare della piena trasparenza sancita dalle disposizioni contrattuali su cui poggia tale programma. Le autorità svizzere dovranno approvare la realizzazione di tutti i progetti finanziati in base a questo contributo e potranno esercitare un controllo sulla fase esecutiva. Ciò consente quindi di escludere nel modo più assoluto che i contributi vengano utilizzati per finanziare eventuali installazioni segrete.

Submitted by Oskar Freysinger
Submission date 6.10.2006
Submitted in the national council
Status pending

Submitted text
1.    What are the Swiss Government's views on a Geneva Conventions Signatory State's perception of its related obligations, as reflected in a U.S. Armed Forces field manual on the interrorgation of detainees? And what, in the event, is the Government prepared to do, in order to guarantee that such perfide interrogation practices will not also undermine the indispensable trustworthiness of ICRC delegates, diplomats and other practitioners of Swiss good offices?
2.    Can the Government exclude that in October 2002 Swiss air space was used for shipping the baselessly suspected Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria where, in favor of U.S. authorities, he was apparently interrogated with methods not in line with human rights protections characteristic of Western culture, values and democracies?
3.    How, in the event, is the Government to make sure that not even the slightest part of Switzerland's eventual one billion Swiss franc contribution to the European Union's Cohesion Fund will be used in favor of any of the secret CIA prisons which, reportedly, are going to be maintained or created in some Eastern European countries.

Development
1.    False labelling is a universally reprobated behavior. Even in times of war, there are strict limits to the use of war ruses (the United States is understood to be still bound by the Hague Land War Convention and its Regulations' articles 23 &, 24 of 29 July 1899, all of which are also reflected in art.37 of the Additional Protocol of 1977). And when the weapons are laid down, a core principle of civilized behavior, i.e. the obligation to act in good faith, must not be tampered with under any pretext - lest the role of an outcast, willy-nilly, be assumed. Accordingly, the abuse of the Red Cross emblems is universally felt as a perfidy and a grave breach of a key pillar of the international humanitarian law, i.e. the Geneva Conventions, which is punishable in each of its Signatory States. The reason is simple: in the event of war in particular, these insignia fulfill indispensable protective functions both for civilians and for soldiers. And any undermining of their universal respect - potentially at least - gravely threatens legitimate interests of each Signatory State (e.g. articles 44 and 45 the 2nd Geneva Convention of 1949: www.icrc.org). Nonetheless, the American army has now officially provided for what it calls a "false flag approach" and which is designed to enhance the effectiveness of the interrogations of war and other prisoners by members of the U.S. armed forces (FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52), p.139 and 156: www.army.mil/references/FM2-22.3.pdf; www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Flag). Under false pretenses, this method aims to "trick the detainee into cooperating with US forces. For example, using an interrogator who speaks with a particular accent [such as a Swiss accent suggestive of some trustworthy Red Cross or good offices functions], making the detainee believe that he is actually talking to representatives from a different country, such as a country that is friendly to the detainee’s country or organization."
2.    The report of the Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty "Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states" produced solid support for the widely-held belief that the United States maintains in Europe, Middle East and Asia a system of secret prisons for interrogation of terrorism suspects, as well as a globally operating camouflaged transportation system (.../EU06.pdf). Persistent official denials notwithstanding, President Bush recently admitted the undeniable (“Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist”, International Herald Tribune, 7.September 2006: .../ciaprisons.htm#exist). On September 18, 2006, the Canadian Parliament's Commission of Inquiry presented its final “Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar” (www.ararcommission.ca/eng/10.htm ¦ www.solami.com/ciaprisons.htm#Arar), highlighting the numerous administrative bunglings and failures in the case of the already previously totally innocented Canadian citizen Maher Arar who, on October 8, 2002, with a CIA jet apparently using Swiss air space and refuling in Rome, was shipped to Syria for special “interrogation”.
3.    According to official American data, also some secret prisons located in Eastern Europe are to be maintained “for special purposes” (.../ciaprisons.htm#Europe). That can take place only with the agreement of the governments concerned. Reportedly, this involves states which are to profit from the eventual Swiss contribution to the EU Cohesion Fund for the extension to the East. From the point of view of the Rule of Law, national sovereignty and respect for human rights, secret prisons per se and, in particular, their foreign-controlled use and airlinks among them are inacceptable. Accordingly, pre-eminent fundamental reservations stand in the way of this eventual Swiss contribution, at least as long as it cannot reliably be ruled out that any of these political and legal aberrations might in any way benefit from same.

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors have wrapped up an investigation into the 2003 suspected CIA kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan, which could lead to criminal charges being brought against 38 people, most of them CIA agents. Judicial sources said on Saturday that 26 CIA agents and the head of Italy's Sismi military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari, were among the 38 suspects notified at the end of the probe, meaning prosecutors can now ask a judge to order them to stand trial.

The magistrates say a CIA-led team seized Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, in Milan in 2003 and flew him to his native Egypt. Nasr says he was tortured there while being questioned. Prosecutors believe Sismi helped the CIA in the operation. Pollari says Sismi did nothing wrong.

In July, the Milan prosecutors asked Italy's justice minister to request the extradition of the suspected U.S. agents.

The CIA tried to persuade Germany to silence EU protests about the human rights record of one of America's key allies in its clandestine torture flights programme, the Guardian can reveal. According to a secret intelligence report, the CIA offered to let Germany have access to one of its citizens, an al-Qaida suspect being held in a Moroccan cell. But the US secret agents demanded that in return, Berlin should cooperate and "avert pressure from EU" over human rights abuses in the north African country. The report describes Morocco as a "valuable partner in the fight against terrorism".

The classified documents prepared for the German parliament last February make clear that Berlin did eventually get to see the detained suspect, who was arrested in Morocco in 2002 as an alleged organiser of the September 11 strikes. He was flown from Morocco to Syria on another rendition flight. Syria offered access to the prisoner on the condition that charges were dropped against Syrian intelligence agents in Germany accused of threatening Syrian dissidents. Germany dropped the charges, but denied any link.

After the CIA offered a deal to Germany, EU countries adopted an almost universal policy of downplaying criticism of human rights records in countries where terrorist suspects have been held. They have also sidestepped questions about secret CIA flights partly because of growing evidence of their complicity.

The disclosure is among fresh revelations about how the CIA flew terrorist suspects to locations where they were tortured, and Britain's knowledge of the practice known as "secret rendition". They are contained in Ghost Plane, by Stephen Grey, the journalist who first revealed details of secret CIA flights in the Guardian a year ago. More than 200 CIA flights have passed through Britain, records show.

He describes how one CIA pilot told him that Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, was a popular destination for refuelling stops and layovers. "It's an 'ask-no-questions' type of place and you don't need to give them any advance warning you're coming," the pilot said.

The CIA used planes of Air America, a group of private companies it secretly owned, and a second company, Aero Contractors. A CIA Gulfstream V jet, frequently used for the secret rendition of prisoners, flew to Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large base, the book says. Grey plans to publish more than 3,000 logs of the CIA flights on the internet this week.

CIA pilots, sometimes using false identities and whose planes regularly passed through Britain, ran up huge bills in luxury hotels after flying terrorist suspects to secret locations where they were tortured. But they revealed their whereabouts and identities by
indiscreet use of mobile phones and allowed outsiders to track their aircraft's flights.

On one occasion, CIA pilots and crew lived it up in Majorca after rendering Benyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian brought up in Notting Hill, west London, to Afghanistan where he was tortured. Benyam was detained in Pakistan early in 2002, and then flown to Morocco, where he says he suffered appalling torture. He is being held at Guantánamo Bay.

Benyam has said in a statement to his lawyer that he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials. He says that while in Morocco he was shown photos of people he knew from a west London mosque, and was asked about information he was told was supplied by MI5.

The government has consistently denied it has ever actively cooperated in the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme". The Foreign Office said yesterday that the government had "not approved and will not approve a policy of facilitating transfer of individuals through the UK to places where there are substantial grounds to believe they face a real risk of torture".

In January 2004 a crew of CIA agents checked into the five-star Marriott Son Antem golfing resort in Palma for a well-deserved rest. The agents had just flown from Rabat in Morocco to Afghanistan and back to Algeria - a gruelling 8,000-mile journey - and were looking forward to luxuriating in the hotel's spa where, as the brochure put it, they could "journey to deep inner peace". But as the crew were basking in comfort at US taxpayers' expense there was little peace for their cargo. In the hold on that day was Benyam Mohammed, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee alleged to be one of the world's most dedicated jihadists. In Morocco, Mohammed would later allege, he had been doused in hot liquids, subjected to incessant loud noise and had his penis slashed with a scalpel.

The details of Mohammed's treatment emerges in Ghost Plane, a new book by investigative journalist Stephen Grey describing the CIA's clandestine system of international terrorist transfers known as extraordinary rendition. The Marriott Son Antem was not the only luxury hotel in Palma frequented by CIA agents. The rendition crews also liked to stop off at the Gran Melia Victoria, a five-star hotel in the centre of the Majorcan capital. On one occasion, they ordered three bottles of fine Spanish wine, and five crystal glasses from Mallorcair, one of the plane's ground handling agents - refreshments for the flight home, all charged to the CIA's bill.

Agents displayed a similar taste for luxury in Milan where Italian prosecutors accuse the CIA of involvement in the seizure and rendering of Abu Omar, a radical Egyptian cleric, to Cairo in 2003. Italian investigators found the CIA agents spent nearly $150,000 (£80,000) on accommodation. Two spent nearly $18,000 during a three-week stay at Milan's Savoy hotel.

But the US secret service operatives' indiscretions meant the task of the Italians investigating the kidnapping of Abu Omar was made simple.

CIA officers frequently called each other's hotels and many of the 22 CIA agents allegedly involved had "frequent flyer" numbers or hotel loyalty cards so they could earn points during their stay in the Italian fashion capital. Among itemised phone bills discovered by Italian counter-terrorism police was one showing 156 calls had been made to a landline in Milan. This led them to the US consulate.

Another example of the indiscretions and contradictions in the US administration's rendition programme emerges in its willingness to lavish money on entertaining the Syrians.

In December 2002, Syrian president Bashar Assad and his wife paid an official visit to London. They were guests of honour at the City of London. But back in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on that same day in December 2002, seven prisoners
were languishing in jail, sent there by the US despite President George Bush's view that Syria was part of an "axis of evil" with a legacy of "torture, oppression, misery, and ruin". There is clear evidence the seven rendered there by the US were brutally tortured.

One, Maher Arar, abducted with the help of Canada, was freed after more than nine months when he signed a false confession that he had trained at a camp in Afghanistan. For Mr Arar, the contrast between his treatment and the Syrian president's is likely to be a bitter pill to swallow.

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage." Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.

The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many detainees at Guantanamo, is seeking emergency access to him.

The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public.

Because Khan "was detained by CIA in this program, he may have come into possession of information, including locations of detention, conditions of detention, and alternative interrogation techniques that is classified at the TOP SECRET//SCI level," an affidavit from CIA Information Review Officer Marilyn A. Dorn states, using the acronym for "sensitive compartmented information."

Gitanjali Gutierrez, an attorney for Khan's family, responded in a court document yesterday that there is no evidence that Khan had top-secret information. "Rather," she said, "the executive is attempting to misuse its classification authority . . . to conceal illegal or embarrassing executive conduct."

Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor who has represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said the prisoners "can't even say what our government did to these guys to elicit the statements that are the basis for them being held. Kafka-esque doesn't do it justice. This is 'Alice in Wonderland.' "

Kathleen Blomquist, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said yesterday that details of the CIA program must be protected from disclosure. She said the lawyer's proposal for talking with Khan "is inadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified information that is vital to our country's ability to fight terrorism."

Government lawyers also argue in court papers that detainees such as Khan previously held in CIA sites have no automatic right to speak to lawyers because the new Military Commissions Act, signed by President Bush last month, stripped them of access to U.S. courts. That law established separate military trials for terrorism suspects.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is considering whether Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts. The government urged Walton to defer any decision on access to lawyers until the higher court rules.

The government filing expresses concern that detainee attorneys will provide their clients with information about the outside world and relay information about detainees to others. In an affidavit, Guantanamo's staff judge advocate, Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy, said that in one case a detainee's attorney took questions from a BBC reporter with him into a meeting with a detainee at the camp. Such indirect interviews are "inconsistent with the purpose of counsel access" at the prison, McCarthy wrote.

Dorn said in the court papers that for lawyers to speak to former CIA detainees under the security protocol used for other Guantanamo detainees "poses an unacceptable risk of disclosure." But detainee attorneys said they have followed the protocol to the letter, and none has been accused of releasing information without government clearance.

Captives who have spent time in the secret prisons, and their advocates, have said the detainees were sometimes treated harshly with techniques that included "waterboarding," which simulates drowning. Bush has declared that the administration will not tolerate the use of torture but has pressed to retain the use of unspecified "alternative" interrogation methods.

The government argues that once rules are set for the new military commissions, the high-value detainees will have military lawyers and "unprecedented" rights to challenge charges against them in that venue.

U.S. officials say Khan, a Pakistani national who lived in the United States for seven years, took orders from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the man accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mohammed allegedly asked Khan to research poisoning U.S. reservoirs and considered him for an operation to assassinate the Pakistani president.

In a separate court document filed last night, Khan's attorneys offered declarations from Khaled al-Masri, a released detainee who said he was held with Khan in a dingy CIA prison called "the salt pit" in Afghanistan. There, prisoners slept on the floor, wore diapers and were given tainted water that made them vomit, Masri said. American interrogators treated him roughly, he said, and told him he "was in a land where there were no laws."

Khan's family did not learn of his whereabouts until Bush announced his transfer in September, more than three years after he was seized in Pakistan.

The family said Khan was staying with a brother in Karachi, Pakistan, in March 2003 when men, who were not in uniform, burst into the apartment late one night and put hoods over the heads of Khan, his brother Mohammad and his brother's wife. The couple's 1-month-old son was also seized.

Another brother, Mahmood Khan, who has lived in the United States since 1989, said in an interview this week that the four were hustled into police vehicles and taken to an undisclosed location, where they were separated and held in windowless rooms. His sister-in-law and her baby remained together, he said.

According to Mahmood, Mohammad said they were questioned repeatedly by men who identified themselves as members of Pakistan's intelligence service and others who identified themselves as U.S. officials. Mohammad's wife was released after seven days, and he was released after three months, without charge. He was left on a street corner without explanation, Mahmood said.

Periodically, he said, people who identified themselves as Pakistani officials contacted Mohammad and assured him that his brother would soon be released and that they ought not contact a lawyer or speak with the news media.

"We had no way of knowing who had him or where he was," Mahmood Khan said this week at the family home outside Baltimore. He said they complied with the requests because they believed anything else could delay his brother's release.

In Maryland, Khan's family was under constant FBI surveillance from the moment of his arrest, his brother said. The FBI raided their house the day after the arrest , removing computer equipment, papers and videos. Each family member was questioned extensively and shown photographs of terrorism suspects that Mahmood Khan said none of them recognized. For much of the next year, he said, they were followed everywhere.

"Pretty much we were scared," he said. "We live in this country. We have everything here."

MARTONE - Ai Ministri degli affari esteri e dell'interno - Risulta all'interrogante che:

nel settembre 2006 la Commissione d'inchiesta parlamentare canadese sulle attività delle autorità canadesi nel caso Maher Arar ha reso pubbliche le conclusioni del suo rapporto finale, nonché le raccomandazioni relative alle responsabilità ed agli eventi intorno la "extraordinary rendition" di Maher Arar;

il caso di Maher Arar è stato anche trattato nel rapporto pubblicato dal Comitato per i diritti umani e gli affari legali dell'Assemblea parlamentare del Consiglio d'Europa nel giugno 2006 a cura del senatore svizzero Dick Marty ed intitolato "Presunte detenzioni segrete e trasferimenti illegale da stato a stato che hanno coinvolto paesi membri del Consiglio d'Europa";

Marty, dopo aver interpellato rappresentanti di 46 Paesi del vecchio continente, ha denunciato le reticenze istituzionali e le complicità di molti Governi su diversi fatti gravi sconosciuti all'opinione pubblica: si tratta di almeno 100 sequestri illegali di sospetti terroristi islamici sul suolo europeo su cui spiccano i rapimenti (ormai provati) di due cittadini egiziani in Svezia e di Abu Omar in Italia. Il rapporto analizza più di 1.000 movimenti e rotte di aerei fra il 2001 e il 2005, e mostra che gli aerei della CIA hanno attraversato regolarmente lo spazio aereo europeo, anche se non è ancora possibile dimostrare che abbiano trasportato prigionieri in ogni occasione;

Maher Arar, cittadino canadese, venne fermato all'aeroporto JFK di New York nel settembre 2002, di ritorno da una vacanza in Tunisia. Dopo essere stato trattenuto presso il centro di detenzione Metropolitan Detention Center ed interrogato per due settimane, venne trasportato, via Washington, Roma ed Amman, in una prigione gestita dai servizi segreti siriani. Trascorse in carcere oltre 10 mesi durante i quali venne torturato, ed obbligato a rendere false confessioni;

il Governo americano ritiene la rendition di Arar una procedura legittima in conformità con le sue regole per l'immigrazione. Ciononostante, il caso di Arar sembra rientrare chiaramente nelle "attività di tortura per procura". In seguito alle denunce fatte da Arar, il Governo canadese istituì una commissione di inchiesta che pubblicò un primo rapporto a cura dell'investigatore Stephen J. Toope il 14 ottobre 2005, nel quale si stabilì che il trattamento riservato ad Arar nel carcere siriano di Far Falestin rientrava nella fattispecie della tortura;

nel rapporto della Commissione d'inchiesta canadese, reso pubblico il 18 settembre 2006, si legge che non esiste alcuna prova che indichi che il sig. Arar abbia commesso alcun crimine o che la sua condotta comporti minacce alla sicurezza del Canada. Ciononostante, gli investigatori canadesi hanno fatto il possibile per produrre prove che dimostrassero il coinvolgimento di Arar in attività terroristiche;

dai registri di volo della Federal Aviation Administration, l'ente di controllo dei voli americani, e da quanto risulta dal rapporto del senatore Marty, la notte dell'8 ottobre 2002, un Gulfstream III -Codice N829MG- con a bordo Maher Arar atterrò all'aeroporto romano di Ciampino;

che si trattasse di un aereo della CIA è difficilmente contestabile, in quanto risulta che lo stesso aereo, con lo stesso codice, il 18 dicembre 2003 partì dalla Florida e arrivò a Guantanamo per poi ripartire e tornare in Florida a "Fort Lauderdale" dove è situata una base militare statunitense molto grande;

un altro aspetto molto inquietante nella vicenda di Arar è il fatto che, durante la sosta italiana, l'aereo segreto avrebbe avuto la copertura da parte di qualcuno che aspettava nello scalo romano;

qualcuno, a quanto risulterebbe, era presente in aeroporto all'atterraggio; da ciò si potrebbe dedurre che anche tra le istituzioni italiane si sapeva che questo volo sarebbe transitato e atterrato, si sapeva che questo volo era utilizzato per un'operazione illegale e clandestina, la "extraordinary rendition", una "consegna speciale" alla quale occorreva dare il massimo di collaborazione. Esattamente come era accuduto più o meno nello stesso periodo a Milano quando 22 agenti della CIA rapirono, in pieno giorno, l'imam di Milano, Abu Omar, con la presumibile disponibilità, compiacenza o quantomeno reticenza, dei servizi di sicurezza italiani;

Amnesty International ha intervistato numerose vittime delle cosiddette «restitutions» e le loro affermazioni si sono dimostrate oerenti e plausibili ogni volta che sono state confrontate con fatti e informazioni documentati come quelli riguardanti i voli segreti. Le descrizioni delle torture e dei maltrattamenti subiti sono altrettanto credibili. Conclusioni che coincidono con quelle dell'inchiesta condotta su incarico del Consiglio d'Europa dal senatore ticinese Dick Marty;

Amnesty International ha appurato, tramite le registrazioni di volo presso l'amministrazione federale dell'aviazione degli Stati Uniti, che quattro aerei noleggiati dalla CIA, tra il settembre 2001 e lo stesso mese del 2005, hanno usufruito per i loro spostamenti di aeroporti italiani. Secondo il rapporto di Amnesty International, la CIA ha sviluppato un ingegnoso sistema che permette di trasferire senza controllo persone in località segrete;

risulterebbe difatti che la CIA, secondo il segretario generale di Amnesty International Irene Khan, abbia organizzato molti voli attraverso una ditta intermediaria, la Premier Executive Transport, compagnia che di fatto esiste solo sulla carta. Sempre secondo Amnesty, l'amministrazione americana ha tentato in vari modi di aggirare l'interdizione della tortura e dei maltrattamenti sui prigionieri. Le ultime prove raccolte dimostrano che l'amministrazione manipola gli accordi commerciali allo scopo di trasferire dei detenuti in violazione del diritto internazionale,

se il Governo non ritenga opportuno avviare un'indagine per appurare se il territorio italiano sia stato usato per dare assistenza a voli noleggiati dalla Cia per trasferire segretamente prigionieri in Paesi dove questi avrebbero potuto subire maltrattamenti e torture o "sparire";

in attesa degli esiti di queste indagini, se il Governo ritenga doveroso assicurare che il territorio e le strutture italiani non siano utilizzati per assistere tali voli;

inoltre, se il Governo non ritenga che la lotta al terrorismo debba trovare un suo naturale e insindacabile limite nel rispetto dei diritti dei cittadini e nel diritto internazionale.

If I were an Islamist, a terrorist, a sworn foe of democracy, here is what I think I would have learned from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is what I would write down in my hard-earned manual of instruction.

BY THE WILL OF ALLAH, in all wars to come, may it prepare our brave martyrs for combat operations!

Today, the purpose of war is sharply political, not military; psychological, not physical. The main purpose of war is to dominate the way the enemy imagines and thinks about the war. Warfare is not, these days, won on a grand field of battle. Nor is it won by the force that wins series after series of military victories. Nor is triumph assured by killing far higher numbers of the enemy. The physical side of warfare no longer holds precedence.

The main strategic aim of war today is to dominate the mind of the enemy's public, and then ultimately to dominate the mind of that public's leaders.

Let me offer three examples. At what moment did the war in Vietnam come to an end? At that precise moment when America's leaders decided that they could not resist the unrelenting storyline of the enemy, which had long prevailed in their own press. The press surrendered first, then the leaders of the nation.

Observe that the Cold War ended not in an explosion of unprecedented violence, but rather at the precise moment when the Soviet elites no longer believed their own storyline. Superior ideas cowed them, superior will, superior narratives. Quite suddenly, the invincible Soviet elites folded, accepted humiliation, allowed the Wall to come down, and watched in bitterness as hundreds of millions of formerly captive peoples chose new forms of government.

The endgame was psychological, not military. There was a military component--Star Wars--but nobody knew whether or not that would ever work. It was the idea of that weapon, and will or Reagan to proceed with it.

Yet, as always, will followed storyline. First comes narrative, then the acts that give it flesh in history.

What we have discovered in Iraq is the weakest link in the ability of the United States to sustain military operations overseas. That link is the U.S. media. They are Islamists' best friends.

Experience shows that the mainstream press of the United States is alienated from the U.S. military. In addition, the American press is extremely vulnerable to anti-U.S. propaganda. Thus, the American public will be fed nearly everything that foreign adversaries--our band of brothers--wish to feed it about the war. Therefore, I write: Maxim # 1: To defeat America, impose upon the imagination of its media your own storyline.

Even if you can muster only 10,000 soldiers over the entire countryside of Iraq, paint the narrative like this: The Americans are irresistible occupiers, and yet they cannot prevent small (even individual) acts of destruction. Daily, unrelenting acts of destruction demonstrate that chaos rules. The American strategy, and the American storyline of the war, are invalidated by continuing chaos, highly visible, every single day, on worldwide television. The new dominating story is that the Americans cannot win.

Even though our own forces (for nearly two whole years now) can no longer afford to fight in a single operation lasting longer than a few hours, our martyr-brothers cannot be prevented from committing daily acts of destruction--the more stomach-turning the better--which demonstrate a ferocious will and a determination to destroy.

In such wars, my brothers, whichever party maintains the stronger will, along the most durable storyline, always wins.

To defeat the United States, then, it suffices to demonstrate that their vaunted military, for all its awesome power and tactical bravery in the field, cannot halt daily "chaos." To achieve this victory over America, it is not even necessary to create actual "chaos," but only its appearance. This definition of chaos cannot be made on cerebral, analytic, statistical, or comparative grounds. (In October the Times of London reported, "An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France" this year, with 15 attacks a day on police and emergency services and nearly 3,000 police officers injured. We don't need comparisons like this or comparisons with traffic deaths and violent crimes in individual U.S. states.)

No, the shadowy existence of this "chaos" in Iraq is projected by a steady stream of stomach-churning, atavistic, destructive acts, staged day by day where the cameras of the U.S. press cannot resist them. Some of these acts bring orange explosions and black smoke, others consist simply of dumping dead and tortured bodies where the public cannot avoid discovering them.

We design these images to show that our fighters will go where the United States will not, that our brave martyrs have harder linings in their stomachs than anyone in the West, and that our ferocity and determination, day after day, cannot be resisted.

The aim of our terror is to induce surrender before the great battles are even fought. This is the true meaning of "asymmetric" warfare. The weaker side in military strength may demonstrate conclusively that it has a stronger stomach for relentless, unstoppable acts of terror.

Besides, brothers, there seems to be a psychological tic in the minds of American journalists, which prevents them from understanding that our terror is ultimately aimed at them. Today, yes, they think it is aimed at their government, and will cripple their political opponents within that government. Without qualm or fear, therefore, they do our bidding day after day. Willingly, gleefully, with much self-congratulation, they pump our storyline into the bloodstream of the Western public.

This is far easier than anyone ever taught us. This is our new discovery, our contribution to the history of warfare. Before our very eyes, the West grows fainter and weaker every day.

Maxim # 2: Take heart, then, my terrorist brothers! Bin Laden is even more correct than we knew before the last two years. The West does not have the will to resist. Those elites among them who do have the stomach to fight back, inexorably, day after day, are being undermined by their own media.

Now and in the future, the media will do our work. All we need are martyrs sufficient in number to keep a steady stream of orange flames and black smoke before their cameras, and to dump before them bodies that are stone-cold dead, and bear all over them the unmistakable blue marks of power drills and other disfigurements.

Of such martyrs, we need each day only a handful. In 365 successive days, we need fewer than one thousand.

This small band of brothers can defeat the most powerful army in human history. The path, my brothers, is to come to dominate the minds of their public, which they must suppose is supporting them, and in reality turns quite quickly into our best ally.

This is not so huge a task, my brothers! In the long run of glorious history, the time required is like the blinking of an eye.

Michael Novak is George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Eleven European Union governments _ including Britain, Poland and Germany _ knew about secret CIA prisons operating in Europe, a draft European Parliament report concluded Tuesday.

The report presented to the EU assembly's special committee investigating allegations about the detention centers and CIA kidnappings in Europe called on governments to launch their own inquiries to determine whether human rights laws were violated. It criticized top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and anti-terror coordinator Gijs de Vries of "omissions and denials" during testimony to the committee. The draft also said there were more than a thousand CIA flights in the European region.

No EU governments have admitted that the claimed anti-terror operations were carried out on their territory. Governments have been warned by EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini that if they knew about the CIA renditions and secret flights they could be found in violation of EU law.

While thin on proof to back up the allegations, the committee report claimed it got information from secret documents and information from several sources in the United States and from national authorities in the 25-nation bloc. "At least 1,245 flights operated by the CIA have flown into the European airspace or stopped over at European airports," the draft said.

The report said 11 EU nations _ Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus _ had knowledge of the alleged U.S. secret anti-terrorism measures taking place on European soil. Germany topped the list with 336 flight stopovers, while Britain had 170, according to the report. Others include: Ireland, 147; Portugal, 91; Greece, 64; Italy, 47; Cyprus, 57; Romania, 21; Poland, 11.

It said the committee had obtained "serious circumstantial evidence" showing that Poland may have hosted a temporary secret detention center for the CIA. The British government denies knowing about secret CIA prisons or colluding in a secret program to transfer CIA prisoners. A Foreign Office spokesman said there was nothing unusual about CIA flights using British airports. "The U.K. is an international hub for refueling to and from the United States," he said on the government's customary condition of anonymity. "Under the Chicago Convention, we can't investigate the aircraft unless we think that a crime is being committed at that time." The convention requires aircraft used in military, customs and police operations to seek special authorization to land in signatory states.

Polish officials in Warsaw also rejected the allegations made by the report. "The committee's report, from what we know so far, is not based on any strong proof, but only commonly repeated assumptions, suspicions and probabilities," said Krzysztof Lapinski, spokesman for Poland's minister for special services. "We stand by our earlier stated stance that there were no secret CIA prisons in Poland."

The report also criticized most of the 25 EU governments for lack of cooperation in their probe, which was launched in January and is expected to last until January. The draft report will be voted upon by the special committee after the EU assembly's Christmas break, officials said. Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers, including compounds in Eastern Europe, were first reported in November 2005. Human Rights Watch later identified Poland and Romania as possible locations of the alleged secret prisons. Both countries have repeatedly denied involvement.

An investigator for the Council of Europe, a leading human rights group, said evidence pointed to the likelihood that planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there.

In September, President Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but did not specify where.

BRUSSELS, Nov. 28 -- Most days, the skies are quiet over the Szymany airport, a mothballed runway in rural Poland. So the airport director took note when strangers showed up on at least six occasions in 2002 and 2003, offering to pay large sums of cash to land planes from faraway places such as Afghanistan.

When the chartered civilian planes arrived, they followed the same secretive drill, Mariola Przewlocka, former director of the airport, told investigators from the European Parliament last week. To avoid prying eyes, she said, the aircraft would sit at the end of the runway and wait for unmarked minivans to arrive. In the dark, it was hard to tell whether people got on or off. But in at least one case, a flight took off with several passengers for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, records show. "More money was being paid for these landings than any other landings," Przewlocka told the investigators, adding that the people who brought the money spoke excellent Polish but that the invoices indicated the jet owners were from the United States. "The landings of these aircraft were part of the work of secret services, as we understood it," she recalled.

Details of the flights and testimony from airport employees constitute "serious circumstantial evidence" that Szymany was the transfer point for a nearby secret prison run by the CIA, according to a report released Tuesday by a European Parliament committee that is investigating CIA counterterrorism operations in Europe.

John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, called the European Parliament report "hysterical in its hyperbole." He said the committee was leaping to conclusions about the missions of the CIA flights and improperly assuming that they all had a "nefarious" intent.

"There are numerous, numerous reasons for CIA flights to Europe," he said in a telephone interview. "By and large, they are a symbol of cooperation between our countries and the sharing of information, not illegal activity."

The committee said that it had found records of 1,245 CIA-operated flights landing at European airports or passing through European airspace, though it found evidence of only a handful of cases in which prisoners were transported.

The investigative committee said it suspected that the prison held captured al-Qaeda leaders and that it was housed in a nearby Polish intelligence training center at Stare Kiejkuty, in northeastern Poland. Although the committee acknowledged that it lacked proof, it cited testimony of airport employees that they were kept away from the mysterious flights by Polish military officials and were prohibited from conducting passenger checks or customs inspections.

The CIA declined to comment Tuesday on the parliamentary findings. The government of Poland has repeatedly denied allowing the CIA to operate a prison on its territory.

"The committee's report, from what we know so far, is not based on any strong proof but only commonly repeated assumptions, suspicions and probabilities," Krzysztof Lapinski, spokesman for Poland's minister for special services, told the Associated Press in Warsaw.

The European Parliament accused Poland of blocking the probe, saying that high-ranking Polish officials refused to meet with the panel. It also accused the Polish government of withholding or destroying flight logs pertaining to CIA flights at Szymany and other airports.

Also Tuesday, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that international flight logs showed that a single Gulfstream jet used by the CIA landed five times in Warsaw, the capital, and once at Szymany between February and July 2003. Four of the flights originated in Afghanistan, the paper reported.

In November 2005, The Washington Post first reported the presence of clandestine CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. The Post withheld the exact locations at the request of the White House, which argued that divulging such details could jeopardize active counterterrorism operations and subject the host countries to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers.

In September, President Bush acknowledged the existence of the CIA's overseas prison network for the first time. He said that 14 inmates had been transferred to the U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay and that the "black sites" had been emptied, although he did not rule out using them again.

No European country has admitted allowing the CIA to run secret prisons on its territory. But the parliamentary committee said it had obtained records describing an "informal" Dec. 7, 2005, meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and NATO "confirming that member states had knowledge" of the secret prisons. The meeting was attended by Rice and other U.S. officials, according to the report.

"The decision has been to keep mum and shroud decisions in secrecy," said Giovanni Claudio Fava, an Italian member of the European Parliament who led the investigation. "Many of our governments have cooperated actively and passively."

The committee report also cited evidence that the CIA may have operated a prison in Romania and said it "cannot exclude," based on testimony by Romanian officials, "the possibility that US secret services have operated in Romania on a clandestine basis."

The panel said it "expresses serious concern" about 21 stopovers by CIA-operated aircraft landing in Romania, including a crash landing by a Gulfstream jet in Bucharest on Dec. 6, 2004.

Although no one was reported injured, seven passengers on board the flight "disappeared" after the accident, and Romanian air transport investigators never learned their identities, according to the report. The plane had started its journey at Bagram air base, the site of a U.S. prison in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — A new report by the European Parliament bluntly rejected the assertions by several European countries that they were unaware of a C.I.A. program to secretly abduct, transport and detain terrorist suspects.

“Many governments cooperated passively or actively” with the Central Intelligence Agency, said Giovanni Claudio Fava, who led a special inquiry. “They knew.” The report said that 11 European countries, including Britain, Italy and Germany, knew of the agency’s activities.

The report, issued Tuesday in Brussels, offered new confirmation of the United States’ practice of so-called extraordinary renditions, in which suspects were abducted, then transported, with European complicity, to third countries where they might face harsh interrogation methods.

Mr. Fava’s report followed an inquiry conducted for the Council of Europe, the European human rights watchdog organization. That report, written by Dick Marty, a member of the Swiss Parliament, described what the council called a “reprehensible network” created by the C.I.A., one that was allowed to exist through the “intentional or grossly negligent collusion of the European partners.”

Mr. Marty’s report was based largely on news reports, legal proceedings and other public information. But Mr. Fava asserted that his committee had obtained, from a confidential source, records of an informal meeting of European Union and NATO foreign ministers on Dec. 7, 2005, “confirming that member states had knowledge of the program of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was among the participants, it said.

President Bush confirmed on Sept. 6 that the C.I.A. had been operating a secret detention program, and said 14 prisoners held abroad were being sent to the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The European Union-NATO meeting came just over a month after The Washington Post reported that the C.I.A. had been holding its “most important Al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.” It did not identify the country involved, though the group Human Rights Watch subsequently named Poland and Romania as leading possibilities.

Mr. Fava’s draft report asserted that at least 1,245 C.I.A.-operated flights passed through Europe’s airspace or stopped at its airports, and listed Poland as among the countries least cooperative with its inquiry.

The committee said that when it asked the Polish authorities for copies of the flight logs of 11 C.I.A.-operated flights, it was told that these were “said not to have been retained, then said to have been faxed and destroyed, and finally said to have been saved in an unspecified place.” The report quoted Szymany airport employees as describing what it said transpired there in 2002 and 2003, when six Gulfstream jets with civilian registration numbers parked at the edge of the airport, not entering customs clearance.

Quoting a former senior airport official, it said that the authorities had been directly ordered not to approach the aircraft and that vehicles, bearing military registration numbers associated with the intelligence training base in nearby Stare Kiejkuty, would await each aircraft.

Zbigniew Gniatkowski, a spokesman for the Polish mission to the European Union, said Tuesday that Poland stood by its previous denials of any involvement.

MILAN -- A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA station chief in Rome paid a visit to the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, Adm. Gianfranco Battelli, to float a proposal: Would the Italian secret services help the CIA kidnap terrorism suspects and fly them out of the country?

The CIA man did not identify which targets he had in mind but was "expressly referring to the possibility of picking up a suspected terrorist in Italy, bringing him to an airport and sending him from there to a foreign country," Battelli, now retired, recalled in a deposition.

This initial secret contact and others that followed, disclosed in newly released documents, show the speed and breadth with which the CIA applied in post-9/11 Europe a tactic it had long reserved for the Third World -- "extraordinary rendition," the extrajudicial abduction of Islamic radicals overseas for interrogation in friendly countries.

A year after the first contact, the CIA officer held another meeting with his Italian counterparts, this time sharing a list of more than 10 "dangerous people" the agency was tracking in Italy, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands, according to a deposition from Gen. Gustavo Pignero, another high-ranking Italian military intelligence official. "It was clear that this was an aggressive search project, that their willingness to employ illicit means was clear," Pignero said, adding that the list was later destroyed and he could not recall the names.

U.S. spies drew up suspect lists with the help of European intelligence agencies and chased some of the men around the globe before putting a brake on the operations in early 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, according to documents unearthed in criminal investigations, lawsuits and parliamentary inquiries.

All told, the U.S. agency took part in the seizure of at least 10 European citizens or legal immigrants, some of them from countries not cited in that list of "dangerous people" received by the Italian spies. Four renditions occurred on European soil: in Sweden, Macedonia and Italy. Six operations targeted people who were traveling abroad or who had been captured in Pakistan; European intelligence agencies provided direct assistance to the CIA in at least five of those cases, records show.

Each prisoner was then secretly handed over to intelligence services in the Middle East or Africa with histories of human rights abuses. Some remain imprisoned in those countries; others have been taken to the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One man was later released after being taken from the Balkans to Afghanistan, the victim of an apparent case of mistaken identity.

In the early stages, the CIA had prepared even more ambitious plans, according to the depositions from the Italian intelligence officials, who testified last summer during a criminal investigation into a CIA-sponsored kidnapping of a radical Islamic cleric in Milan.

For example, Pignero said in his deposition that the CIA's Rome station chief had offered in 2002 to abduct a fugitive leader of the Red Brigades -- a Marxist network blamed for dozens of assassinations in Italy -- who had found refuge in South America. "The Americans would capture him and turn him over to us, and we in return would have to 'extradite' him to Italy without any legal proceedings," Pignero said.

In exchange, the CIA wanted help in abducting Islamic radicals living in the Italian cities of Turin, Vercelli and Naples, Pignero said. Italian intelligence officials rejected the offer, he added, because it was "contrary to international laws."

Reports of clandestine CIA operations have fueled deep public anger in Europe, where many people regard renditions as a blatant violation of national sovereignty and international law. Since last year, prosecutors have opened four separate criminal investigations into CIA activities in Europe. A dozen countries have conducted legislative inquiries into whether local spy agencies were involved.

Last month, a European Parliament committee investigating CIA operations in Europe condemned the practice of rendition "as an illegal and systematic instrument used by the United States" and called it "counterproductive in the fight against terrorism."

"I think that after the 11th of September, the CIA thought that all the ways useful to capture their enemies, the alleged terrorists, were now possible," Giovanni Claudio Fava, an Italian legislator who led the parliamentary probe, said in an interview in Brussels. "They wanted to clean Europe of all these dangerous, alleged terrorists. They didn't have faith in the quality and capacity of our own security controls and our justice system."

In the past year, U.S. officials have sought to repair the diplomatic damage. They have met repeatedly with their European counterparts to defuse opposition to renditions, the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo and the disclosure in November 2005 that the CIA had set up secret prisons for terrorism suspects in Eastern Europe.

John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said U.S. diplomats have made some headway. But he added that ongoing political disputes have "undermined cooperation and intelligence activities."

"I'd say that many European government officials and academics acknowledge now that there is a legal murkiness that applies to international terrorism," he said in a telephone interview from Washington. "On the negative side of the ledger, we do continue to have these hysterical, inflated allegations denouncing the United States that unfortunately do fan the flames of suspicion and anti-Americanism." The CIA declined to comment.

'He Was Too Loud'
The most detailed disclosures about the CIA's European rendition project have emerged from Milan, where Italian prosecutors have spent two years investigating the disappearance of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a militant Egyptian-born cleric known as Abu Omar.

When Nasr vanished in February 2003, police and prosecutors in Milan thought at first that he had slipped out of the country on his own, perhaps to join resistance forces in Iraq in advance of the U.S.-led invasion. The CIA lent credence to their suspicions a few months later, when it delivered an intelligence bulletin to Rome stating that Nasr had been seen in the Balkans.

In fact, prosecutors later discovered, Nasr had been grabbed on the street in Milan as he was walking to a mosque and stuffed into a white van, which sped to Aviano Air Base, a joint U.S.-Italian military installation. From there, he was put on a plane to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and onward to Cairo, where Nasr claims he was tortured for months with electric shocks and sexually abused.

Prosecutors in Milan have since issued arrest warrants on kidnapping charges for 25 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force officer, alleging that they conspired with Italian secret service agents to abduct Nasr. Although none of the Americans is likely to be extradited to Italy, prosecutors have served notice that they intend to try them in absentia and asked a judge last month to formally indict the defendants.

Senior Italian intelligence officials have also been charged in the case, including Gen. Nicolo Pollari, director of the Italian military intelligence agency known as Sismi. Pignero, his former deputy, was arrested in June, shortly after he gave his deposition to prosecutors. He died of cancer three months later, on Sept. 11.

European investigators are still examining other mysterious cases of missing or detained people. Among them is the disappearance a few weeks before Nasr's kidnapping of another Egyptian-born Islamic fundamentalist. Gamal al-Menshawi, a physician and occasional mosque preacher who knew Nasr personally, had left his home in Graz, Austria, bound for the Islamic holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. His wife was waiting for him there, but he never arrived, according to Egyptian exiles in Austria and Italy who know him.

Menshawi's trail vanished after he arrived in Amman, Jordan, for a flight connection. He later surfaced in Egypt. European Parliament investigators have concluded he was detained there for two years without facing charges.

He was released in 2005 and is living in Alexandria, Egypt, according to Austrian journalists. He has severed contact with friends and colleagues in Europe, who strongly suspect he was subjected to a rendition, although they lack proof or direct evidence of U.S. involvement.

Arman Ahmed al-Hissini, imam of the Viale Jenner mosque in Milan and an acquaintance of Menshawi and Nasr, said both have been silenced by the Egyptian security services. "The Arab secret services, they give names to the CIA of people who they want, people who are on the outside, such as Europe," said Hissini, an Egyptian native known locally as Abu Imad. "They give the names to the CIA, because the CIA can go to work in these countries." There is also little doubt about Menshawi's fate among those who knew him in Austria's Islamic community.

"I see the American government as being primarily responsible," said Mohamed Mahmoud, chairman of a group called Islamic Group of Austria. "This is not the first time someone has disappeared." "The Americans look around in Europe for who is being loud, who is speaking out, and then those people are kidnapped," he added. "He was very vocal; he was too loud for them. He talked openly about Egypt's government, about the U.S. government, about the Islamic community in Austria."

'They Needed Information'
About the same time, another Islamic militant from Austria disappeared during a stopover at the Amman airport. Masaad Omer Behari, a Sudanese citizen who had lived in Austria for more than a decade, has said he was arrested by Jordanian secret service agents on Jan. 12, 2003, as he was traveling home to Vienna from a trip to Sudan.

Behari told European Parliament investigators in October that he was held for three months in a Jordanian prison, where he was interrogated about Islamic militants in Austria and elsewhere in Europe. "On the first day I was in prison, they told me they did not think I was a terrorist, but that they needed information about the Islamic scene in Vienna," he said.

Documents obtained by the investigators show that Behari had been under surveillance by Austria's domestic intelligence service since 1998, when he was interrogated about an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. Behari said he was innocent and never faced charges, but was pressured by Austrian secret service agents to leave the country after the Sept. 11 hijackings.

"I have experienced hard times because I did not cooperate with the security authorities in Europe and with the Americans," Behari said, according to a transcript of his testimony. The Austrians "threatened me that they would cause me problems. I thought it was only 'blah-blah,' but it was the truth."

Austrian authorities said they have not opened official inquiries into the disappearances of Menshawi or Behari, in part because neither is an Austrian citizen. "Since the alleged abductions did not take place on Austrian soil, in an Austrian airplane or on an Austrian ship, we see no need for action," said Rudolf Gollia, spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry.

TORONTO, Dec. 15 -- Maher Arar, the Canadian Muslim who was whisked by U.S. agents from a New York airport to imprisonment and torture in Syria, remains on the U.S. "watch list" despite an exhaustive Canadian inquiry that found he is an innocent man, the U.S. ambassador to Canada said Friday.

Ambassador David Wilkins said in an interview with CBC Radio that Arar "is on the watch list and has been since he was deported" in 2002 to Syria, where he was held for 10 months, much of it in a coffin-like dungeon.

His transfer to Syria, part of a series of U.S. clandestine "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects for interrogation in foreign countries, created a scandal in Canada.

The head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police resigned last week after a two-year judicial inquiry found his officers gave U.S. agents false information to cast suspicion on Arar.

The Canadian Parliament has apologized to Arar, now 36, and the Canadian government is preparing compensation for the engineer.

But the United States has never acknowledged any mistake in the matter, and Wilkins's disclosure Friday indicates Arar might again be detained by the United States if he were to enter the country.

His removal to Syria "was based on information from a variety of sources, as is his current watch list status," Wilkins said in a statement he issued later Friday. U.S. officials have made "our own independent assessment of the threat to the United States," he said.

"That the United States would have the gall to keep Maher on a watch list, implying that he poses a threat to this country, is outrageous," said one of Arar's attorneys, Maria LaHood, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. The nonprofit group filed a suit on Arar's behalf against the U.S. government, but it was dismissed.

"This administration is unwilling to admit its mistakes and still tries to conceal them," she said.

In Ottawa, New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said the Canadian government should demand that the United States remove Arar's name from the list. "Otherwise, it sends a message the Canadian government will not stand behind its own citizens," he told reporters.

LAST WEEK a federal court in Washington threw out the lawsuit of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whose successful challenge to the Bush administration's proposed military trials for accused terrorists led to a landmark Supreme Court decision earlier this year. The dismissal of the case is an ironic consequence of Mr. Hamdan's victory before the high court. The justices' decision forced Congress finally to take action to create a legal structure for the war on terrorism. But one of the actions Congress took in the hastily passed Military Commissions Act was to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over such lawsuits, including those, like Mr. Hamdan's, that were already pending. Under the act, many other important cases will probably have to be dismissed -- which is why Congress should promptly amend the law when it reconvenes in January.

While the Supreme Court's rulings on this subject have been muddy, U.S. District Judge James Robertson may well have been legally correct in dismissing the case. The fault here lies with Congress, not with any judge. Judge Robertson held that the legislature had unambiguously stripped the courts of jurisdiction over all lawsuits challenging detentions at Guantanamo Bay -- so-called habeas corpus lawsuits. And he ruled as well that Congress had the power under the Constitution to do so -- at least for aliens held beyond American shores. But saying that Congress acted lawfully is not the same as saying it acted wisely.

Stripping the courts of habeas jurisdiction over Guantanamo was a profoundly foolish step to stop judicial review of an administration whose behavior has repeatedly illustrated the crucial importance of such oversight. Virtually every step the administration has taken toward a fairer and more open system for the detention and prosecution of enemy combatants has come as the result of pressure, direct and indirect, of litigation. The decision to respond to the Supreme Court's rebuke by, among other things, sharply limiting judicial review disabled the one mechanism that has consistently pushed policy in a constructive direction. Congress badly needs to reconsider.

Fortunately, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee is committed to doing just that. Incoming Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking Republican Arlen Specter (Pa.) are pushing legislation to reestablish habeas jurisdiction for these cases. The new Congress would do a service if it acted swiftly to correct its error.

On his last day in CIA custody, Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster, was stripped naked, seated in a chair and videotaped by agency officers. Afterward, he was shackled and blindfolded, headphones were put over his ears, and he was given an injection that made him groggy. Jabour, 30, was laid down in the back of a van, driven to an airstrip and put on a plane with at least one other prisoner.

His release from a secret facility in Afghanistan on June 30, 2006, was a surprise to Jabour -- and came just after the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's assertion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners like him.

Jabour had spent two years in "black sites" -- a network of secret internment facilities the CIA operated around the world. His account of life in that system, which he described in three interviews with The Washington Post, offers an inside view of a clandestine world that held far more prisoners than the 14 men President Bush acknowledged and had transferred out of CIA custody in September.

"There are now no terrorists in the CIA program," the president said, adding that after the prisoners held were determined to have "little or no additional intelligence value, many of them have been returned to their home countries for prosecution or detention by their governments."

But Jabour's experience -- also chronicled by Human Rights Watch, which yesterday issued a report on the fate of former "black site" detainees -- often does not accord with the portrait the administration has offered of the CIA system, such as the number of people it held and the threat detainees posed. Although 14 detainees were publicly moved from CIA custody to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, scores more have not been publicly identified by the U.S. government, and their whereabouts remain secret. Nor has the administration acknowledged that detainees such as Jabour, considered so dangerous and valuable that their detentions were kept secret, were freed.

After 28 months of incarceration, Jabour -- who was described by a counterterrorism official in the U.S. government as "a committed jihadist and a hard-core terrorist who was intent on doing harm to innocent people, including Americans" -- was released eight months ago. U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials confirmed his incarceration and that he was held in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They would not discuss conditions inside black sites or the treatment of any detainee.

By Jabour's account, and that of U.S. intelligence officials, his entrance into the black-sites program began in May 2004. In interviews, he said he was muscled out of a car as it pulled inside the gates of a secluded villa in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

In the week before his arrival, Jabour said, Pakistani intelligence officers had beaten, abused and burned him at a jailhouse in Lahore, where he was arrested. There two female American interrogators also questioned him and told him he would be rich if he cooperated and would vanish for life if he refused. He said he was later blindfolded and driven four hours north to the villa in a wealthy residential neighborhood.

The house in Islamabad, which U.S. intelligence officials say was jointly run by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence, had been outfitted with jail cells. When Jabour arrived, he saw as many as 20 other detainees, including the 16-year-old son of an Egyptian sheik, who had been captured in Pakistan. Dozens of al-Qaeda suspects swept up in the years after Sept. 11, 2001, have been through the house, according to accounts by former prisoners and U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of the facility.

Jabour spent five weeks there, chained to a wall and prevented from sleeping more than a few hours at a time. He said he was beaten nightly by Pakistani guards after hours of questions from U.S. interrogators. Then he and others were whisked off to CIA-run sites. Some sites were in Eastern Europe; Jabour went to one in Afghanistan. Interrogators -- whom he described as Americans in their late 20s and early 30s -- told Jabour he would never see his three children again.

Human Rights Watch has identified 38 people who may have been held by the CIA and remain unaccounted for. Intelligence officials told The Post that the number of detainees held in such facilities over nearly five years remains classified but is higher than 60. Their whereabouts have not been publicly disclosed.

"The practice of disappearing people -- keeping them in secret detention without any legal process -- is fundamentally illegal under international law," said Joanne Mariner, director of the terrorism program at Human Rights Watch in New York. "The kind of physical mistreatment Jabour described is also illegal." Mariner interviewed Jabour separately as part of the organization's investigation.

The CIA said it would not comment directly on Jabour. "The agency does not, as a rule, publicly discuss specific rendition cases from the war on terror," said Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the CIA. But, he said, renditions "are a key, lawful tool in the fight against terror, and have helped save lives by taking terrorists off the street. They are conducted with care, they are closely reviewed, and they have produced valuable intelligence that has allowed the United States and other nations to foil terrorist plots."

John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, plans to investigate the fate of the missing detainees as part of a larger examination into the CIA's operation of secret prisons and its rendition program.

In interviews with The Post from his parents' home in the Gaza Strip, Jabour acknowledged helping al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who fled Afghanistan as the U.S. military hunted for the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Jabour was born to Palestinian parents in Jordan, raised in Saudi Arabia and educated in Pakistan. In 1998, he said, he became drawn to the plight of Muslims in Chechnya living under Russian rule. He crossed the border into Afghanistan so he could train in jihadist camps, then planned to join up with Chechen separatists.

"In Afghanistan, I met other people who believed in the Islamic state, where it was safe to practice Islam the way they wanted," Jabour said in a recent conversation. "I became friends with other Arabs who felt like me, Palestinians and Jordanians, but after three months of training I was told there was no chance to go to Chechnya."

Jabour returned to Pakistan in 1999. Two years later, after the U.S. military offensive in Afghanistan, those he lived and trained with came calling for help.

"Some of their children were injured, some of their women were wounded. From that moment, they came to our home and we helped them," he said.

Using funds from al-Qaeda financiers, Jabour said, he arranged for food, medical treatment and travel documents for several dozen people and arranged for others, including two African men who fought for al-Qaeda, to slip out of Pakistan. He did not return to Afghanistan to fight, and he said he had no interest in attacking Americans.

The U.S. counterterrorism official who discussed aspects of Jabour's classified file did not call him a member of al-Qaeda. But the official said that in Pakistan, Jabour "was in direct touch with top al-Qaeda operations figures," including Hamza Rabia, who briefly served as one of Osama bin Laden's lieutenants before a missile from a CIA predator drone killed him in December 2005. In interviews, Jabour said he met with Rabia on two occasions.

The official said Jabour "provided the money and means for other jihadists to move from Afghanistan to Pakistan" and provided funds that went to an al-Qaeda bioweapons lab. "He's an all-around bad guy," the official said. No charges were brought against Jabour, however, and the official would not say why he is free today.

On June 16, 2004, after weeks in the villa, Jabour was drugged, blindfolded and put on a plane. Counterterrorism officials did not dispute that he was taken to a black site in Afghanistan. Jabour said the facility was run by Americans in civilian clothes and guarded by masked men who wore black uniforms and gloves.

He said he does not know where the facility is located, and counterterrorism officials would not say whether Jabour was held at two known detention sites in Afghanistan -- one run by the U.S. military at Bagram air base, the other operated by the CIA outside Kabul.

Jabour said he was often naked during his first three months at the Afghan site, which he spent in a concrete cell furnished with two blankets and a bucket. The lights were kept on 24 hours a day, as were two cameras and a microphone inside the cell. Sometimes loud music blasted through speakers in the cells. The rest of the time, the low buzz of white noise whizzed in the background, possibly to muffle any communication by prisoners through cell walls.

Daily interrogations were conducted by a variety of Americans. Over two years, Jabour said he encountered about 45 interrogators, plus medical staff and psychologists. He was threatened with physical abuse but was never beaten.

Once, he was shown a small wooden crate his interrogators called a "dog box" and was told he would be put in it if he didn't cooperate. He was told that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who was among the 14 moved to Guantanamo Bay last year, became cooperative after he had been put in the box. But Jabour said he was not subjected to the crate.

He was, however, chained up and left for hours in painful positions more than 20 times and deprived of sleep for long periods. Sometimes he would have one hand chained to a section of his cell wall, making it impossible to stand or sit.

About six weeks into his stay, he was issued a pair of pants. Later he was given a T-shirt, then shoes, a Koran and finally a mattress. Jabour said prison conditions slowly improved: Air conditioning was installed; a library was built and stocked with books in Arabic, Urdu and English. Well-behaved detainees were rewarded with movie nights, in which such Hollywood blockbusters as "Titanic" were screened. A deputy director of the facility taught Jabour how to play chess and gave him pencils and paper. Jabour used to draw pictures of trees and grass, which he hung in his windowless cell.

Jabour recalled with fondness the prison director, a man named Charlie. "He told me, 'Marwan, we need information -- if you cooperate, that is good.' I told him I wasn't hiding anything and was not a dangerous man. He told me that they didn't want to use force but would if they had to. I told him I wouldn't lie to him."

Jabour began to receive better food, including pizza and Snickers and Kit-Kat bars.

On Dec. 18, 2004, six months after his arrival, Jabour was transferred to a larger cell. Under the sink he found a small inscription that read: "Majid Khan, 15 December, 2004, American-Pakistani." Khan, whose family lives outside Baltimore, was arrested in March 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan, and was among the group transferred to Guantanamo five months ago. The U.S. government has not divulged where Khan was held during his first 3 1/2 years of incarceration.

Jabour met only one other prisoner during his time there. That was an Algerian named Yassir al-Jazeeri, a suspected high-level al-Qaeda operative who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003. Their visits were arranged by the facility director, who told Jabour they were rewards for good behavior.

During interrogations, Jabour was often shown hundreds of photographs of wanted or captured suspects. One photo appears to have been that of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a British-Pakistani who was arrested in Pakistan in July 2004.

Noor Khan, a suspected al-Qaeda operative, was thought to be involved in the planning of a disrupted 2004 attack on U.S. and British financial institutions. Babar Awan, a Pakistani lawyer hired by Noor Khan's family, said he has "heard nothing from the government authorities or any other authorities about where Noor Khan is."

There is no public U.S. government record available that states the CIA ever held Jabour, al-Jazeeri or Noor Khan.

Last April, John D. Negroponte, who was then director of national intelligence, told Time magazine that he did not know what would be the "endgame for the three dozen or so high-value detainees" in CIA custody at that time.

Jabour's odyssey ended with a secret flight to Amman, Jordan, where he woke to find himself in an office staring at government wall portraits of King Abdullah and his dead father, King Hussein. "I don't know why they released me, but I told them everything I knew . . .," Jabour said. "You have to tell them the truth and that was no problem for me. They are smart people," he said of his American captors.

The Jordanians called the International Committee for the Red Cross, which sent a representative to interview Jabour and to contact his family. He remained in Jordanian custody for six weeks, was interrogated and was then handed over to Israel's security services.

The Israelis treated him better than his other captors, he said. They got Jabour his first lawyer, an Israeli Arab named Nizar Mahajna, who said in an interview that the Israelis had held Jabour in a prison near Haifa for two months. He was not mistreated, blindfolded or shackled, the lawyer said.

Israeli authorities had considered charging Jabour with fighting for an enemy of the Jewish state. But, Mahajna said, Jabour's training in Afghanistan had occurred more than eight years earlier, he was not a member of al-Qaeda and he had never lived in the Palestinian territories.

"The Israelis were given secret information on Marwan, which they got from the Americans. It wasn't shared with me but whatever it says, the central fact remained that the Pakistanis and the Americans had let him go. Why should Israel keep him?" Mahajna said.

The Israeli government dropped the case and transferred Jabour to Gaza. Prison guards drove him to the Erez border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. "Good luck," one of them said to Jabour as he crossed into Gaza, where his parents awaited.

You mean you would believe the word of a terrorist over the United States Government? How the hell else do you get info from terrorists? Do you sit down over a cup of tea? Why is it that you reporters are so quick to bash your own government over something like this when it is for the security of your country and children? Why is it that you that you are not critical of the governments of other countries who practice far worse torture against there own citizens? As innocent civilians, or military soldiers are beheaded and beaten, where is your outrage? This article should be rewritten to give the utmost praise to the CIA and the U.S military for great job they did interogating the confessed terrorist!!
By ntthom | Feb 27, 2007 11:06:37 PM | Request Removal

Washington Post is showing their leftist, hate POTUS lose the war at any cost agenda. Daffy and Julie are doing what they were brainwashed to do, back in college. Liberalism is a mental disorder. Wallbight
By nigrough | Feb 27, 2007 11:33:58 PM | Request Removal

This is all well and good, however, where is Washington Posts detailed, hard-hitting report concerning that ACLU leader, caught with illegal child porn? Wallbight
By nigrough | Feb 27, 2007 11:38:11 PM | Request Removal

Wow. A Muslim who says the Israelis treated him better.
By retmlt | Feb 28, 2007 12:03:38 AM | Request Removal

A few years ago the U.S. apologized for its treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. I see America having to repeat a similar apology 50 years from now to Muslims around the world. It is funny watching American sinking into the same filth as the Gestapo, the Stasi and the KGB. The sooner America finishes bleeding/pissing away all its power and wealth, the better off the world will be.
By john.f.titor | Feb 28, 2007 12:07:36 AM | Request Removal

I, for one, would believe the word of ANYONE over the United States government. They are proven liars, ten times over. Everybody else gets the benefit of the doubt.
By thrh | Feb 28, 2007 12:31:13 AM | Request Removal

An insight into the Nazi mind in the US.
By thrh | Feb 28, 2007 12:32:52 AM | Request Removal

retmit: *Wow. A Muslim who says the Israelis treated him better.* Why do you think the Israelis are the devil?
By thrh | Feb 28, 2007 12:36:18 AM | Request Removal

*This article should be rewritten to give the utmost praise to the CIA and the U.S military for great job they did interogating the confessed terrorist!!* How dumb do they make them?? Should we have beheaded him? Just because your enemy does evil deeds, does that give us the license to do them too? I for one am ashamed that the US would stoop to the level described in the article. You apparently arent. That pretty much tells us all we need to know about your morals and ethics. FOR SHAME!
By thrh | Feb 28, 2007 12:39:27 AM | Request Removal

Whoever ordered these crimes against humanity must be held accountable or there is no justice in this world anymore, and it will also send a message to future leaders that they can get away with war crimes.
By patsfan555 | Feb 28, 2007 12:56:43 AM | Request Removal

Hey, wait a minute! I thought I was reading an article about Saddam and his torture camps. What a relief to find that its about the U.S. and its war against torturers, injustice, inhumanity, and out-of-control fascist regimes that suspend civil rights in the name of national security.
By mikeasr | Feb 28, 2007 1:08:15 AM | Request Removal

The next time I hear the Republican National Anthem - *Im Proud To Be An American* by Lee Greenwood - Ill keep this in mind.
By smokinmike | Feb 28, 2007 1:13:00 AM | Request Removal

Awesome! Its about time we were feared by our enemies! YES! Now that they fear us maybe they will respect the fact that we love peace.
By friendswithpaul | Feb 28, 2007 1:33:45 AM | Request Removal

If this story is actually fact based journalism, it would be the first in years, why is there no citation of the CIA and other government officials? The only citation made is to a confessed terrorist. And I am really curious about the crime agains humanity, is this a reference to several thousand people killed by terrorists or the one self professed terrorists whining about the treatment he received while being a prisoner? Morals and values??? What happened to pride and patriotism? There was a comment made about setting examples for future leaders that makes a very good point. We need to set the example of being humane in any situation, assuring that criminals from other countries are to receive the same if not more civil rights that US citizens receive. And let us definitely make it clear that you can come to our country and bomb us, killing several innocent women, children and men, citizens, without consequence that might possibley violate some civl right. All the while, former leaders of the ACLU must maintain the right to graphic and violent pre pubesent child pornography. We have become such a tolerant country that we have cut off our own balls and are more than happy to serve them up on a silver platter! What is wrong with everyone?
By bananaturner | Feb 28, 2007 1:41:35 AM | Request Removal

This proves that Pakistan and the USA are terrorist states. How can you justify kidnapping anyone without charging them in a court of law? Only terririst states do that. What happended to law and order? Gone with the war on terror .
By judystanton | Feb 28, 2007 2:07:04 AM | Request Removal

According to previous reporting by the WaPo, if my memory serves me correctly, Khalid Shiek Mohammed [broke] only after being [water boarded] but in this article, it is claimed that he broke after being subjected to the Dog Box. It is also interesting that the facility director, a man known as Charlie, was viewed by this former detainee as a fairly decent human being under the circumstances of the contact[s]. Possibly a reason for his release. So long as radical Islam continues to promise suicide bombers and other expendable individuals 72 virgins [though it remains UNCLEAR to me at least, if these are actual virgins who had lives on Earth at some time, or if they are specially created for the pleasures of martyrs in the afterlife], so long it seems a challenge difficult to overcome in the midst of poverty and hopelessness. Heaven forbid if Christian and Jewish martyrs get green cards to visit each other as well as the Islamic martyrs and overstay their visas.
By brucerealtor | Feb 28, 2007 2:23:17 AM | Request Removal

Right, America has put itselfs public on top of the list of terrorist-countries. It has always been a terroristcountry starting with the masacre of the indians. But when you have to choose between two very bad options you choose for example usa instead of ussr. But eventually the western hemisphere should stick together, there is no alternative and there probably never will be one.
By jw.holtkamp | Feb 28, 2007 2:32:24 AM | Request Removal

That this detainee was well treated by Israel, suggest just how low a level detainee he actually must have been by that period of his detention. If those interrogating detainees get as confused from their statements as apparently two reporters from the WaPo re what caused Khalid Shiek Mohammed to finally break in detention have, well ....
By brucerealtor | Feb 28, 2007 2:33:40 AM | Request Removal

You people never cease to amaze me. As usual, you are ever so much more concerned about treatment of a cold-blooded terrorist than American civilians or American troops. I applaud ANYTHNG our guys do to STOP these murderous fanatics.
By noteman | Feb 28, 2007 2:41:28 AM | Request Removal

It is a shame what America has become under George Bush. From a country admired and respected in most of the world to this. I am optimistic we can turn things around, but its going to take a lot of years... and even then it will never be the same. W = Worst Ever. -chrisco WhiteHouseMafia.com
By skibumcolo | Feb 28, 2007 2:43:08 AM | Request Removal

So, noteman, will you still be applauding if you or one of your relatives were mistaken for a terrorist, taken to secret camps to be beaten and tortured for days on end? Remember, you do not have to look like one to be mistaken for one. All that is required is a name or a phone number similar to yours to turn up in their address book. Interestingly enough, this so-called *terrorist* was released even by Israel. So you applaud the use of torture where it is known to not work ? If the government had anything to charge him with, they would have done so rather than torture him. As usual, this method of extraction did not produce anything and they were forced to turn him over. You are a sick, twisted example of what once decent people in the USA have turned into - hateful, brainwashed individuals hellbent on destroying anything that does not conform with your sick sense of values.
By kamyar.jalali | Feb 28, 2007 3:04:52 AM | Request Removal

I agree to all those who agree with the polices of the US government!! You should Kidnap the everyone and keep in secret place, naming everyone a terrorist you may wish, forget about the courts and law or human rights as well. I ask a simple question! He was a terrorist or not I am not to question this, I only wish one be named as terrorist after a process in the court room. As a free man I owe to every single person in Guantanama or any other place without a charge or a court room process to fight for thier right to have the legal immunities they have. May I ask every one including Mr. Bush, will he like to be declared a terrorist by any state, not being given a process of law, torturtered, mistreatedl. I do not answer the question, I leave it to your honesty to answer it. Do you do same to a murderer in US? I wish everyone who supports Guantanmo or disappearnace without a trace must answer.
By ur_rahman | Feb 28, 2007 4:23:22 AM | Request Removal

It amazes me that people still condone the behaviour of this Government under the reason they are doing this to protect you from those bad people. Be happy and keep quiet. As Kamyar pointed out, how would you feel if one of your own relatives or yourself was held for no reason and tortured? It is so strange to see them making excuses for the bad behavior of their own government while at the same time bad mouthing anybody else who does the same. Remember it does not matter how bad the mistreatment is. The issue at hand is that it was done at all by a country which claims to have the highest moral standard in the world! Simple example and please think carefully before taking a position. Lets say the Chinese government captured an American tourist, kept him for over two years, did not inform the American embassy or his relatives, chained him, deprived him of his sleep, and quietly released him one day with no explanations. Would you say, the Chinese Gov did it to protect their citizens from a possible American spy, and say good work?
By nanda_ramesh | Feb 28, 2007 4:42:35 AM | Request Removal

I think someone should swear out an international arrest warrant for the President and others involved in these war crimes and gross violations of human rights.
By ferd666 | Feb 28, 2007 5:21:54 AM | Request Removal

ntthom - Sort of missing the point, are`nt you, ntthom? [How the hell else do you get info from terrorists? .... Why is it that you that you are not critical of the governments of other countries who practice far worse torture against there own citizens?] 1. You would confess that I was your mother if YOU were tortured, and you would probably also be amazed that anybody would believe anything you said under such interrogation. 2. How bad does torture have to be to be *far worse* than this article describes? Most of us ARE every bit as critical of the governments of other countries which practise torture, but the USA has always pretended to be better than they are. This is called hypocrisy in civilized societies. You tell me if you know of a way the USA can qualify as *civilized* without following some sort of international convention as to what that word means.
By rikkisimm | Feb 28, 2007 5:51:31 AM | Request Removal

noteman - Same goes for you, noteman. This article must have touched a nerve for so many Nazis to creep out of the woodwork.
By rikkisimm | Feb 28, 2007 5:54:08 AM | Request Removal

Will someone just take a 1.8 second look at that skelatoid figure of U.S. security and tell me that it all is not right in plain view? In other words, the U.S. has come a long way baby and has done a pretty good job mimicing what we perceive as Hitlerian style, even the look. Having been born in Geneva, I can tell you that I would not believe ONE word said by this lying Administration. Truly, they need to be castigated and punished and hold on to your seats as we know of mock bird flu and dirty bomb drills throughout the U.S. These are happening now! try rbnlive com for archieved and live words for truthseekers as they are not in the mits of corporatist. www confidentialsources com eye for eye, brain for brain, tooth for yours.
By abroadventure | Feb 28, 2007 6:33:29 AM | Request Removal

TO nanda_ramesh--One would have to know what it is like to be falsely accused and punished through a system I would not call a justice system, but they might. One would have to know the pain and agony of being punished and hurt for something they never did. These people that talk about things in abstract do not understand one thing about this position and do not have the mental intelect to even imagine or emphathize such condition and those that shake-it-off as sorry for the temporary inconvenience do NOT realize that the memory and the retaliation structure of pay-back is enduring. These people ought to find themselves in this position so they can re-adjust their thinking. They should be so fortunate. Open your mind folks------------OPEN YOUR MIND--learn-imagine-live it-know it-write it.
By abroadventure | Feb 28, 2007 6:41:18 AM | Request Removal

Just suppose the TV series 24 showed Pres. Bush being taken by Canada under claims of Extraordinary Rendition, a legal act and swept away in a secret jet, drugged, stripped naked, shackled, denied food and water, subjected to electrical shocks, not allowed to contact a lawyer or our embassy, and hidden away from not only the country, but family and loved ones. Does that sound acceptable to you ? That is what we are asking the World swallow as ok just because we are the United States and we should be trusted. Once upon a time the word Extraordinary meant just that, during that same time the practice of rendition was used in a sparing manner for and only for extraordinary reasons. When the USA decidered to do it in a wholesale manner we lost the trust that the world on a whole had given us. To make sure we have gotten that point Italy and Germany has issued warrants for the arrest and trial of members of the CIA and even Donald Rumsfeld. Two countrys all too familiar with Nuremberg and its ramifications. When Chavez or some other leader begins to act like this Admin. we wont have a leg to stand on. Mark my words, some day we will see this unless we arrest and try our own criminals first.
By OneCrankyDom | Feb 28, 2007 6:47:08 AM | Request Removal

A thought plays over and over in my mind when I read these accounts.... Would Bush or Cheney freely hand their daughters over to the CIA for interrogation, without a whisper of doubt that theyd be well treated during their questioning? For all of the we dont torture rhetoric, would they accept the treatment they describe as humane if it were applied to their daughters.... Just a hanging question that plays over and over in my mind.... Oh, and another. When someone one is described as a suspected terrorist, why do so many people later refer to them as terrorists -- dropping the critical word suspected. Who is the Suspector, and how does one appeal to the Suspector when he/she retains such successful anonymity....
By tbrucia | Feb 28, 2007 7:04:00 AM | Request Removal

The practice of disappearing people by governments is not only grounds for impeachment, it is grounds for execution. If the spineless Dems can not stop Bush, the free world must.
By boating | Feb 28, 2007 7:33:08 AM | Request Removal

Why does the MSM continue to use the word *detainees* when they actually should be using *prisoners*? The practice of replacing words to make something bad seem benign is right out of the Karl Rove playbook. To this day the media does not challenge them on this kind of thing...
By john65001 | Feb 28, 2007 7:34:53 AM | Request Removal

If the American people do not respond to the clear and present danger to our democracy presented by the Bush/Cheney administration, and think that this kind of thing can only happen to so - called terrorists, then all of us could be sitting naked and chained in a secret prison one day soon. Why did all the talk about impeachment hearings disappear the day after the Democrats won the election? How many times in history have cowardly opposition leaders enabled a country to preserve its endangered democracy? I cannot think of even one example.
By algaselex | Feb 28, 2007 8:00:24 AM | Request Removal

You Americans have obviously a criminal government. And you cannot do anything about it. Stuck with a two parties democracy, of which both parties are bought by the one big military industrial complex. I pity you, and never ever will I visit the USA again. It has become a police state.
By sjoerd | Feb 28, 2007 8:13:53 AM | Request Removal

George Bush has come a long way from just blowing up frogs. Hes a big-time sadist now.
By krob0507 | Feb 28, 2007 8:31:12 AM | Request Removal

The way the US treats muslims is far above and beyond the way their own clerics and government treats them. [note the Wapo doesnt cover muslim executions of their gays brothers]. How about we continue to seek vengence for the 3000 innocent US civilians murdered on 9/11 - by muslims. So easy to forget when swayed by the media, isnt it?
By rumraisin | Feb 28, 2007 8:41:49 AM | Request Removal

Those who claim the US is a bunch of terrorists, or bad guys, please, no really PLEASE, feel free to leave. There are enough proud patriots to write the checks for your one-way ticket to France. Oh wait - French Foreign Legion is working, ehem, wonders, in Africa. Guess theyre a terrorist country too. Damn. Perhaps Japan. Oh wait. They murder dolphins and whales. Darn. Canada? Oooppps. They club seals. Perhaps Zimbabwe? Things are grand there.
By rumraisin | Feb 28, 2007 8:45:31 AM | Request Removal

For the folks claiming -what if this happened to you - how about you make a semblance of effort to denounce terrorists and stand up for the US instead of your terrorist-related clergy? I never hear about the hard working folks getting picked up and flown off as you say. I think the Feds make a pretty clear investigation and back it up with tremendous evidence before making a pickup. Stop the fear mongering already. Have there been any attacks on US soil since? In the UK? Yes. Spain? Yes. Bali? Yes. Accept the facts.
By rumraisin | Feb 28, 2007 8:49:17 AM | Request Removal

A generation from now, or perhaps two generations, our children and grandchildren will look back on special renditions, black sites, dog crates and waterboarding and wonder how it was that we Americans came to temporarily lose our moral compasses. Well, I certainly hope that my use of the word temporarily is correct, that we Americans have not already crossed a moral divide from which there is no return.
By bill | Feb 28, 2007 9:15:40 AM | Request Removal

Noteman lives in some world of fear and buys-into the crap spouted by this lying Administration. Heh Noteman, just because they say something, you do not have to believe it. Perhaps, you have not been burned yet. If so, sorry! Put new batteries in your detection equipment. Get something a little more advanced to pick-up low grade effect. Tune your UNIT. Calibrate your mind. I pray that someone accuses you of something that you did NOT do and they use their power to give you the hardest time you have ever imagined--then YOU might get it! www confidentialsources com equal/equal/right-left paradigm/CFR-sovereignity loss via NAU in USA?/evian spelled backwards IAM
By abroadventure | Feb 28, 2007 9:19:56 AM | Request Removal

hearts and minds, bush-style.
By gompa | Feb 28, 2007 9:27:57 AM | Request Removal

RUMRAISIN-- they are going to get around to a couple more false flag operations right prior to the --CHAOS-- goal of NWO. Time to show that the NRA is more important than the globalist and Israel, IMHO.
By abroadventure | Feb 28, 2007 9:28:59 AM | Request Removal

Rumraisin - you are one frightened little American. So frightened that you would dump democracy, the rule of law, high ethical standards and all the rest of it, to fight a miniscule enemy who frightens the pants off you. That is why the world puts the US on a moral par with its enemies. If you do not understand that equation then you need to return to school with your ruler George Bush.
By harkadahl | Feb 28, 2007 9:29:23 AM | Request Removal

Whenever I hear someone defending torture, I instantaneously want to see it exercised upon them.
By absolutkt | Feb 28, 2007 9:29:49 AM | Request Removal

Embrace Democracy or we will kidnap you, send you to a more hellish corner of the universe than Crawford Texas and waterboard you and shock your genitals until you are as impotent as Shotgun Dick who shoots double O buckshot seeds of death at anything not wrapped in the flag...
By braultrl | Feb 28, 2007 9:30:17 AM | Request Removal

Maybe Karen Hughes can open up a driving school with a handful of convertible 1964 and1/2 Mustangs.. this to GOMPA
By abroadventure | Feb 28, 2007 9:31:07 AM | Request Removal

The actions of the Itialian government in prosecuting -- or trying to prosecute -- 25 CIA agents who were involved in the extraordinary rendition of a suspect to Egypt are an indication that light is beginning to shine on the **dark sites.** This article is another indicator, so please reporters, keep digging, and keep up the good work. We need to know about this!
By larsene | Feb 28, 2007 9:32:23 AM | Request Removal

Pizza, Kit Kat and Snickers are not better food, they are junk food that contribute to the obesity Americans are so well known for around the world. The CIA was simply continuing to torture this man. On another note, why is the concentration camp located on the British island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, not investigated like Gitmo?
By thw2006 | Feb 28, 2007 9:37:48 AM | Request Removal

ntthom noteman and your ilk-let the CIA get a hold of you and I will bet you will become a `confessed terrorist` too
By DROSE | Feb 28, 2007 9:45:31 AM | Request Removal

I think the Post should run a daily column on the treatment people get in the countries where the terrorists come from. Forget about terrorists or traitors in those countries - ordinary people expressing one complaint against their government are exposed to torture, violence, or brutality. Seems like paradise here in the US but people still complain to no end on how bad we have it.
By ssd17 | Feb 28, 2007 9:50:25 AM | Request Removal

I cant wait until Bush and those who are taking part in these programs are disappeared to courts in Italy, Germany, The Hague....
By scotterL | Feb 28, 2007 9:56:38 AM | Request Removal

This article did not make me feel sorry for this gentleman. He admitted that he was out to collaborate with Al-Qaeda, an organization responsible for mass murder of men, women and children of all races, religions and nationalities not just in America, but in Indonesia, Spain, London, America, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia and every other corner of the world. If you think that keeping him under lights 24 hours a day is torture, you dont even have an idea of what real torture is. If any of you think that clandestine activities like this are not performed by every country on earth, you need to climb back up the tree you are hugging. America does what needs to be done to protect its citizens, the same that every other country does. Im sad to see such vitriolic, anti-American comments coming from Americans. I wonder if you people have ever lived in other countries? Maybe you should venture out. You may realize that despite some warts, America is a great country. And if you dont come to that conclusion, you are FREE to leave, thanks to those people you are so disgusted by.
By radioactivepete | Feb 28, 2007 10:00:10 AM | Request Removal

Well considering the aided AL Quaeda and admits he was trained for Jihad, I think it was important that he was held and information gotten from him. Now we know how some escaped from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hopefully he is now so thoroughly frightened that he will never get involved with Al Quaeda again. Sorry but I have no sympathy for him or for the pro-terrorist organizations like HRW and AI that scream about it and want to expose US Secret Intelligence to the world. I am ashamed of WAPO for printing this story. It is of no interest and should not be printed as it goes to sources and methods. Al Quaeda can read this and better prepare their leaders and follower to evade telling the truth when they are captured. Sen. Rockerfeller should NOT HOLD HEARINGS!!!
By judyweller | Feb 28, 2007 10:02:45 AM | Request Removal

As long as the majority of Americans keep showing indifference, after having learned how the CIA under their President is treating their detainees, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE CO-RESPONSIBLE TOGETHER WITH BUSH AND THE CIA, SINCE THEY ARE TACITLY CONDONING THEIR GOVERNMENT´S ACTIONS.
By chriswuth | Feb 28, 2007 10:10:36 AM | Request Removal

to tbrucia: I read all the comments so far posted. I want to thank you, tbrucia, for providing a bit of sanity in the midst of so many belligerent immature inanities. The means we choose will form us in the end, and our own embrace of immoral means will eventually harm our children and their children, if not our own generation.
By rolf10 | Feb 28, 2007 10:22:31 AM | Request Removal

Judy, if you lived in Berlin in the early 1940s would you have been ashamed if a German paper exposed the so called sources and methods of of the SS? Your and the Bushs ends justifies the means mentality have no place in a democracy that is built on the rule of law. As you might remember, the sources and methods that the SS used outside the country were also used inside the country. The world will demand that we bring the Bush administration and those who did their bidding to justice or we WILL never regain our standing in the world and will be trapped in Bushs self fulfilling generations-long war on terror.
By scotterL | Feb 28, 2007 10:23:47 AM | Request Removal

This article mentioned that well-behaved detainees--or in plain English told the interrogators what they wanted to hear, were rewarded. If the moral dilemmas arent problematic enough, the Senate reports on what went wrong on Iraq pointed to just that. Those wrongfully detained told those who were would be interrogating them what they wanted to hear: e.g. that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and got better treatment. This is Is it any wonder the intelligence system has broken down?
By lieb666 | Feb 28, 2007 10:29:10 AM | Request Removal

Rum raisin, didnt you read about the Canadian citizen we kidnapped? The story broke a few months back, turns out that after we kidnapped and tortured him he wasnt a terrorist at all, but just a Canadian citizen who was muslim. Im sure the CIA thinks they are protecting the US from terrorists, but mistakes _do_ happen and when the process isnt accountable to judicial review innocent people get hurt. Not to mention the irreparable damage this does to our image overseas. Essentially, we are trading the moral high ground for a dubious process of information gathering at best. Thats just a terrible policy.
By jhmil2 | Feb 28, 2007 10:33:28 AM | Request Removal

We have sunk lower than our enemies- Way to go George and Dick
By roy.secondchance | Feb 28, 2007 10:38:41 AM | Request Removal

Terrorist - takes one to know one.
By HadhratKhadija | Feb 28, 2007 10:44:04 AM | Request Removal

*On his last day in CIA custody, Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster, was stripped naked, seated in a chair and videotaped by agency officers. Afterward, he was shackled and blindfolded, headphones were put over his ears, and he was given an injection that made him groggy. Jabour, 30, was laid down in the back of a van, driven to an airstrip and put on a plane with at least one other prisoner.* I hope whoever did this ends up accountable-they are a terrorist too or a nut to have the mindset to torture someone . I have worked in more than one maximum security prison with CONVICTED inmates-I was fair with everybody. They were not good little children some had killed and raped. I worked with boys aged 12-21-but for Gods sake-NEVER would we have treated another human being like this. What kind of American who believes our in justice system COULD??
By theprissypatriot | Feb 28, 2007 10:47:56 AM | Request Removal

Japanese-Americans were illegally incarcerated by their own government inside the US itself. These muslim detainees are not US citizens. There is a wide difference in the circumstances. I dont think either situation is effective for the US.
By rottenorange767 | Feb 28, 2007 10:54:17 AM | Request Removal

Worse than animals, this administration. - At least an animal has no choice but to be the animal type it is. Even a rat would be a total freak if it acted like a cute teddy bear. The USA used to claim high moral ground by virtue of the fact that it could say, `We know better than our enemies and choose the better way.` Now it is only possible to say, `We know better than our enemies, but we have decided to sink to the lowest standards anyway.` Thank you very much for a remorseless slide into ignominy, Mr. President. I hope you will soon be very alone. Vermin has few friends. If your God is still talking to you, pay close attention. You are misunderstanding something important here.
By rikkisimm | Feb 28, 2007 11:13:59 AM | Request Removal

Not much interest in this article, is there?
By rikkisimm | Feb 28, 2007 11:16:06 AM | Request Removal

If an innocent guy is tortured and abused by this judicial runaway train, can anybody imagine what others less innocent might be going through at the hands of, supposedly, a democracy? Why the court system does not interfere in the commission of war crimes? Is the supreme court afraid of being labeled terrorists, anti-patriotics? Are they supposed to oversee the executive branch? This looks more like the twilight zone, where evil is king. Doesnt this make the supreme court guilty of abetting war crimes? Welcome to the old USSR.
By jigomez0441 | Feb 28, 2007 11:27:07 AM | Request Removal

The stand out sentence in this article reads The practice of disappearing people -- keeping them in secret detention without any legal process -- is fundamentally illegal under international law. The United States is not above international law, and while once we were a shining example of the standard of conduct for all nations, we are now setting the opposite kind of example, which will no doubt be followed by other nations in the future. Military members and families should keep this in mind what we reap is what we sow. This administration has put the entire country to shame and lowered the bar of acceptable behavior.
By jvlem | Feb 28, 2007 11:27:36 AM | Request Removal

Jabour was either a terrorist supporter or innocent. If the former he should have been charged under the law of whichever state has jurisdiction or if the latter, set free. Ultimately it seems that the latter is the case and the US administration and CIA are guilty of various crimes in contravention of international law. That is why Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld were so keen not to recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, they KNOW that their actions are CRIMINAL.
By rbingham | Feb 28, 2007 11:56:51 AM | Request Removal

MIKEASR,Yes it does sound a little like Saddams torture camps doesnt it,only worse,but some people doesnt know the half of it yet,but they will,nothing can be kept secret forever.Who attacked the wtc? wasnt any other country.Who is going to attack Iran? even if they have to use Israel to get it started? Do you think they care about our troops? or just using them as a means to an end,like the oil in Iraq and Iran,then maybe replacing them with Iraqi refugees to use as slave labor? sure would put more money in their oily pockets,wouldnt it? America needs help,Our troops need help or theyre going to be murdered,along with the other countries innocent people.Weve got an evil leadership.
By maryelizabeth_61 | Feb 28, 2007 11:58:23 AM | Request Removal

It is in genes culture. Poor George can not help it.
By prkshah | Feb 28, 2007 11:59:15 AM | Request Removal

Our government has admitted that they have beendisappearing people, and transferring them to nations that we KNOW use torture. This is not about believing a terrorist vs the US administration. This is about the US having HIGHER STANDARDS, and following the Geneva Conventions that we are part of. I do not believe that we must choose between immoral behavior or allowing terrorism freedom to do as they wish. We CAN follow laws and still protect ourselves. Why do not many people seem to think it is OK to act as immoral as the terrorists?????
By kimoconnor | Feb 28, 2007 12:00:09 PM | Request Removal

There is no solution to all this than to incarcerate the criminals at the top of the US Govt. that willfully deceived the American people while perpetrating crimes on their orders in our name. INTELLIGENCE was the totally missing ingredient in our bureaucratic quest for Brownie points in a dark bureaucracy that proved totally intelligence blind, language deaf and culture dumb. And, by handing these people over to the very corrupt Arab regimes we support for torture on our behalf, is a real compounding of the crime. As a refugee from Communism, I almost found myself a refugee from Bushism. Yet, I am a Republican who in 2000 worked for his election and a survivor of the World Trade Center on 9/11. We owe it to our children to leave as clean a slate as possible for them by properly prosecuting THE TOP that so criminally mishandled our enemies. Our humanity was our strength. It was not meant to crumble at the first moment of fear. We must show that we Americans are NOT moral cowards by prosecuting the leaders who committed vile crimes against humanity in our name but kept secret from us through lies and classification. They are NOT heroes who save America they are criminal minds that must be duly processed so the world can see that, even when afraid, America still holds high its moral standards. Anything less will leave our children a moral legacy that I would not wish on anyone. The East Europe I came from processed its communists humanely and justly. We should establish the historic character of our Republic by duly prosecuting the top of the command chain that made such criminality possible. I am the protector of the American people is no excuse and I am the decider is a damning self-indictment. The rest is up to Congress and the courts.
By danieleteodoru | Feb 28, 2007 12:05:08 PM | Request Removal

Insurgents, terrorists, patriots, freedom fighters... I guess it all depends on one*s perspective and experiences does it not? If I am outraged over the covert and illegal detention and torture of a *suspected terrorist,* does this mean I am supportive of the al Qaeda cause and methods? Definitely not! If, however, I support illegal detentions and torture of *suspected terrorists* it does mean that I am supportive of al Qaeda methods if I think the cause is right. Somehow, the words of the rumraisins who commented to this article sound eerily similar to the words of the bin ladens. Just replace a select *infidel* with *terrorist,* *jihad* with *protect our way of life*... Torture is not right sometimes. Illegal detentions are not acceptable because 9/11 has happened. And a terrorist is a terrorist because of what he does, not because of the cause, or nation he follows.
By halifar59 | Feb 28, 2007 12:07:10 PM | Request Removal

The treatment of terrorists is a concern because anyone could be treated that way by the govt. Anyone who thinks that in the US we have the right to keep and bear arms should be outraged against this treatment of prisoners. After all they are being treated this way to protect America. That is the same reason some want to ban firearms.
By Pensfans | Feb 28, 2007 12:07:28 PM | Request Removal

Where are the headlines that Canada did away with all of their post nine-eleven *patriot* acts and other civil liberty quashers, and have now returned to pre nine-eleven life? Think America will ever get there someday?
By mellowyellow | Feb 28, 2007 12:18:39 PM | Request Removal

***We have met the enemy and they are us*** POGO
By kparc | Feb 28, 2007 12:32:55 PM | Request Removal

Every case of abuse of human rights has a price to be paid by the perpetrators, sooner or later. That is the law of Kharma, that knows of no exception.
By robertlrose21 | Feb 28, 2007 12:49:42 PM | Request Removal

Bush is in fact worse than Hilter.
By deathmuzeta | Feb 28, 2007 12:52:13 PM | Request Removal

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former member of the board of Chevron, itself no innocent bystander in the future CHEVRON deal. Rice made an impression on her old colleagues at Chevron. The company has named one of their supertankers the SS Condoleezza Rice. CHENEY CLOSED THAT DEAL FOR CHEVRON....afghanistan is about the money too... and your blood and United States Economny are going to hell, so that a few fat white business men get riche selling you patriotism....
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 12:58:00 PM | Request Removal

The obvious, and woefully underreported, interfaces between the Bush administration, UNOCAL, the CIA, the Taliban, Enron, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, the groundwork for which was laid when the Bush Oil team was on the sidelines during the Clinton administration, is making the Republicans worried. Vanquished vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman is in the ironic position of being the senator who will chair the Senate Government Affairs Committee hearings on the collapse of Enron. The roads from Enron also lead to Afghanistan and murky Bush oil politics.
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 12:59:47 PM | Request Removal

When one peers beyond all of the rhetoric of the White House and Pentagon concerning the Taliban, a clear pattern emerges showing that construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline was a top priority of the Bush administration from the outset. Although UNOCAL claims it abandoned the pipeline project in December 1998, the series of meetings held between U.S., Pakistani, and Taliban officials after 1998, indicates the project was never off the table. Quite to the contrary, recent meetings between U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain and that countrys oil minister Usman Aminuddin indicate the pipeline project is international Project Number One for the Bush administration. Chamberlain, who maintains close ties to the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan a one-time chief money conduit for the Taliban, has been pushing Pakistan to begin work on its Arabian Sea oil terminus for the pipeline. Meanwhile, President Bush says that U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan for the long haul. Far from being engaged in Afghan peacekeeping -- the Europeans are doing much of that -- our troops will effectively be guarding pipeline construction personnel that will soon be flooding into the country.
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 1:01:01 PM | Request Removal

In December 1997, the Taliban visited UNOCALs Houston refinery operations. Interestingly, the chief Taliban leader based in Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Omar, now on Americas international Most Wanted List, was firmly in the UNOCAL camp. His rival Taliban leader in Kabul, Mullah Mohammed Rabbani not to be confused with the head of the Northern Alliance Burhanuddin Rabbani, favored Bridas, an Argentine oil company, for the pipeline project. But Mullah Omar knew UNOCAL had pumped large sums of money to the Taliban hierarchy in Kandahar and its expatriate Afghan supporters in the United States. Some of those supporters were also close to the Bush campaign and administration. And Kandahar was the city near which the CentGas pipeline was to pass, a lucrative deal for the otherwise desert outpost. While Clintons State Department omitted Afghanistan from the top foreign policy priority list, the Bush administration, beholden to the oil interests that pumped millions of dollars into the 2000 campaign, restored Afghanistan to the top of the list, but for all the wrong reasons. After Bushs accession to the presidency, various Taliban envoys were received at the State Department, CIA, and National Security Council. The CIA, which appears, more than ever, to be a virtual extended family of the Bush oil interests, facilitated a renewed approach to the Taliban.
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 1:02:14 PM | Request Removal

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former member of the board of Chevron, itself no innocent bystander in the future CentGas deal. Rice made an impression on her old colleagues at Chevron. The company has named one of their supertankers the SS Condoleezza Rice.
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 1:03:19 PM | Request Removal

deathmuzeta - If we want to hear the voice of reason being taken seriously on these pages, we have to avoid exaggeration, death. Hitler reached the bottom. You can`t go lower, although I will grant you that Bush is still digging.
By rikkisimm | Feb 28, 2007 1:03:21 PM | Request Removal

Torture is still torture no matter how much you try to sugarcoat it. No amount of Orwellian Doublespeak from Rove/Goebbels or smiley-faced-Gonzo can change that.
By TempCFO | Feb 28, 2007 1:10:06 PM | Request Removal

This is torture...Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the American military spokesman, said the remains of what are believed to be two American soldiers were found near a power plant in the vicinity of Yusefiya, about three miles from the site where they had been captured by insurgents. Gen. Cadwell declined to speak in detail about the phyisical condition of those who had been found, but said the cause of death could not be determined. He said the remains of the men would be sent to the United States for DNA testing to determine definitely their identidies. That seemed to suggest that the tow Americans had been tortured beyond recognition. We couldnt identify them, the American officiel in Baghdad said...
By veteranUSA | Feb 28, 2007 1:11:36 PM | Request Removal

It appears that over the period in question, the prisoner gave valuable information without torture, but under threat. In the interview, he spewaksa of his active participatio in sheltering and supporting Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. I would imagine that he identified somwe of them as well. It is unclear to me why his rendition and eventual eelease are not appropriate in this kind of war. I thinbk they ARE appropriate. RThe comparisoins with the Gulag and the Nazis are ignorant. thios man is alive, healthy, and released. That is not the record of either the USSR or the Third reich in dealing with guerillas or ophers they identified as enemies of the state. The danger of this kind of process is the rendition and imprisonment of apparently harmless men, like the Canadian grabbed by the FBI and hustled off to Egypt. Even there, he WAS released eventually. The pressure for release came from Canada, and acquiescence from the US. The Nazi and USSR solution to those instances was to kill the prisoner so there would be no record of the mistake. Thge equation of these situations and the US/CIA treatment of prisoners to the USSR and the Third Reich is factually mistaken, and trivializes the enormity of those regimes and their wholesale slaughter of opponents and innocents.
By lgkuttner | Feb 28, 2007 1:18:07 PM | Request Removal

I see our spinner are hard at work making torture an acceptable family value.
By katman13 | Feb 28, 2007 1:30:15 PM | Request Removal

THIS IS WHEN PNAC WAS FORMED IN 1997...while Clinton was in office... The obvious, and woefully underreported, interfaces between the Bush administration, UNOCAL, the CIA, the Taliban, Enron, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, the groundwork for which was laid when the Bush Oil team was on the sidelines during the Clinton administration.... its called a coup, its a gainst th elaw....it is punishable by execution by firing squad.... read up on it.... electoral fraud... vote fixing , Diebold , Katherine Harris , JINSA/PNAC/AEI/UCP search on those acronyms know your subersives roots...it makes it easier to connect the dots....
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 1:34:34 PM | Request Removal

so what is bush/cheney/rice/rumsfeld/PNAC ? against the law ... what is the Patriot ACT? an _illegal_ document , nullifying the Bill of Rights... what is the current Corrupt Executive Branch doing? _illegally_ occupying the whitehouse as it defrauds the American peoples and bankrupts and sells Americans properties to foreign interests.... got any Royal Banks in your neighborhood?
By amonster | Feb 28, 2007 1:38:31 PM | Request Removal

monster: Ever heard of Occidental Petoleum? Look into these guys if you want to talk about corruption on this thread.
By veteranUSA | Feb 28, 2007 1:58:56 PM | Request Removal

Its a shame that men havent yet learned how to treat and relate to each other. The whole race of males should be wiped from the face of the earth.
By ivangroznii | Feb 28, 2007 1:59:52 PM | Request Removal

I continue to be stunned, saddened and ashamed that the country I love, whose ideals I honor, and once upon on a time, when I was an officer in the United States Navy, for which I would have given my life, could stoop to such shameful practices. We are better people than this, we Americans. This torture practiced and lied about, repeatedly by the Bush administration degrades and humiliates us. These shameful practices are not consistent with American ideals - they are the practices of the kind of two-bit petty dictators Ive thought all my life that the United States of America stood against. Sadly, tragically, we Americans now have become the torturers, liars, and deniers of justice that always have found dark niches in places of tyranny. God forgive us all.
By jlcoyle | Feb 28, 2007 2:13:15 PM | Request Removal

NO SURPRISES HERE! THIS IS STILL AN INSTITUTIONALLY AND A SYSTEMICALLY RACIST PLACE!
By aisha_jackson-muhammad | Feb 28, 2007 2:20:03 PM | Request Removal

WITH ALL THE DEBATE THAT SOME CAUCASIANS WANT TO GIVE ON THIS TOPIC!...AMERICA IS RACIST! THERE HAS BEEN MAJOR CHANGE OVER THE LAST 38 YEARS OR SO BUT SYSTEMICALLY ......... THINGS ARE QUITE THE SAME! THERE IN LIES THE MYTH AND LIE THAT IS AMERIKKKA!
By aisha_jackson-muhammad | Feb 28, 2007 2:21:48 PM | Request Removal

WHITE FOLKS TALK ABOUT TERROR ACCEPT NO ONE REALLY WANTS TO HAVE THE DIALOG TRULY ABOUT THE IMPACT OF SLAVERY AND THAT IT WAS ONE OF THE EARTHS, HUMANITIES MOST UGLY PERIODS! ITS NOT MUCH THAT CAN TOP THE MIDDLE PASSAGE AND THE TREATMENT OF BLACK PEOPLE! EVEN TO THIS DATE!
By aisha_jackson-muhammad | Feb 28, 2007 2:23:31 PM | Request Removal

Poor man. Very sorry this happened to you. But the hornets can be dangerous, when attacked. Should have gone to Chechnya. The Russians would have treated you better, were you caught there. It us níce that there is a happy ending. Released, at home again, apparently without lasting damage. Nice too, that the Israelis treated you better than the Americans or the Pakistanis. Suggest that you keep your head down and stay out of harms way, in future.
By michael.daly | Feb 28, 2007 2:27:31 PM | Request Removal

Marwan Jabour made out a lot better than Danny Pearl and Nick Berg who were beheaded and had their executions played and re-played on the internet and Mideast TV.They went home to their families too... in multiple pieces.WAPO-Spare us any more of these nonsensical sob pieces!
By bowspray | Feb 28, 2007 2:53:15 PM | Request Removal

I wonder if those detainees are really missing or are they dead and i hope the truth comes out whichever way it is.
By smorrow | Feb 28, 2007 3:05:42 PM | Request Removal

other then the beatings from the Pakastanie guards, sounds like he got the same treatment as Hannabil Lecter. All good for me, and this guy saw a lot of faces of Terrorist leaving Afganistan and for that reason alone he did have intelegence value.
By jbreed31 | Feb 28, 2007 3:23:44 PM | Request Removal

So let me see if I have this straight. It is okay for the US, and only the US, to use any methods they choose to kidnap, detain, torture, and hold people indefinitely without any rights to a hearing or court of law in their battle against terrorism. What would the US administration and their supporters say if a country like, say China, was attacked by some looney-tunes who just happened to have American passports and were christians? Then China decides to perform renditions on any christian Americans it can find, detain, torture etc.etc., in THEIR battle against terrorism? The whole point is that if the United States of America refuses to adhere to the principles of the Geneva convention, i.e. basic HUMAN rights and the right to a fair trial, then I fear the old saying, yea shall reap what thy sow.

Atten: Dafna Linza: These allegations of Black Sites and torture are awful, if true. I believe that an immediate investigation should be launched, and, if the allegations are true, punitive measures should be instituted against the perpetrators. This country should never condone the conduct outlined in the report identified as Black Sites. Sincerely yours:Kenneth B. Smith, P.E.
By Cyrano | Feb 28, 2007 3:49:59 PM | Request Removal

It is not what the terrorists did but rather what we do and how we respond that counts and therefore, I must agree with Kennie B.
By katman13 | Feb 28, 2007 3:55:53 PM | Request Removal

Go katman. That says it.
By rikkisimm | Feb 28, 2007 4:23:57 PM | Request Removal

The reason we are fighting these guys is that we believe we are better. We are better because we dont do the things they do. If we do the things they do they have won and it doesnt matter who wins as the world really loses as the human race takes a step back from civilization.
By Pensfans | Feb 28, 2007 4:26:01 PM | Request Removal

As long as the USA continues to make enemies there will be no true security. There will always be those who seek to attack and do harm to the USA so long as the USA participates in violence like in the case of CIA Blacksites and engages in destructive imperialist ventures like the occupation of Iraq. Global military and economic hegemony, or dominance, are no longer feasible goals in a world that has increasing access to information. Democracy is rising, and the USA had better wake up and realize the futility in its drive for global dominance. It wont work.
By robert11 | Feb 28, 2007 5:45:42 PM | Request Removal

What ever happened to the *American Torturers Gone Wild in Iraq* videos? They have been around for at least two years. Its time they saw the light of day regardless of whom they embolden, including the Democrats in Congress.
By kevinschmidt | Feb 28, 2007 5:57:02 PM | Request Removal

Pensfans | Feb 28, 2007 4:26:01 PM Actually, the reason we are illegally occupying and committing genocide in Iraq is to steal their oil. Here is the proof, democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/20/1523250
By kevinschmidt | Feb 28, 2007 5:59:46 PM | Request Removal

I am very saddened to see so many people here defending the illegal actions of our government. I can only wonder if you would feel the same way if the shoe was on the other foot, and someone in your family happened to be from a Muslim nation and just disappeared off the face of the earth, thanks to the US government. PEOPLE, we can be SAFE and Law ABIDING it is not an either or proposition. And I am SICK of hearing the defense of the administrations actions by saying but they do worse things! are you adults or children? Or are you so scared you have lost your sense of reason?
By kimoconnor | Feb 28, 2007 6:15:28 PM | Request Removal

I am more afraid of the war on terror than of the terrorists. It is terrifying to think that anyone can be accused - you or I - and held without trial and tortured, all in secret. I prefer terrorist bombs.
By James_B_Cole | Feb 28, 2007 7:58:39 PM | Request Removal

The practice of disappearing people -- keeping them in secret detention without any legal process -- is fundamentally illegal under international law, said Joanne Mariner, director of the terrorism program at Human Rights Watch in New York. The kind of physical mistreatment Jabour described is also illegal. Mariner interviewed Jabour separately as part of the organizations investigation. And what will be done about it........nothin.
By maryheicher | Feb 28, 2007 11:41:23 PM | Request Removal

This article was an incredibly rich and insightful portrayal of the people who are in these black sites and what practices are used against them. I could be a sap, but overall, this mans story had a definite air of credibility to it. It had a balance to it that could only be described as human. His crimes, which, while we can certainly view them as dangerous in the context of the 2001 war against the Taliban and the War on Terror, seem to have a level of human compassion as their genesis. While I can certainly understand our government interrogating such a person who had definite contact with important figures in Al-Qaeda, the initial conditions are unforgiveable and evoke echoes of The Gulag Archipelago. It should be acknowledged that threats of physical beating and the Dog Box were eventually unsubstantiated, but nevertheless these aptly-named black sites emphasize the depths that some will go to to protect what they hold dear and the human values that still sometimes shine through. I think that those readers who are either condemning the governments actions or overwhelmingly approving of its actions against a terrorist which I would hesitate to label this man did not read the article carefully enough. This article reveals the gray areas of morality that spring up on the fringes of civilization. What lengths are we willing to go to as a civilization in our efforts to combat individuals who for all intensive purposes do not belong to civilization and do not observe its rules of conduct? The detainee was not a hardened terrorist, and the interrogators were not the icy Orwellian agents of our nightmares. These were human beings in severe situations, and I think that this article is worth careful reflection and consideration. What would you do in the position of any of the actors?
By cscheineson | Mar 1, 2007 12:26:08 AM | Request Removal

Once the champion of human rights our reputation is very tarnished.That first step can easily slide into treatment of our own citizens.That first step is the road to a slippery slope. Placid
By mbfreedom1 | Mar 1, 2007 3:46:38 AM | Request Removal

The president has been told countless times, by a secretary of state, by members of Congress, by heads of friendly governments — and by the American public — that the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has profoundly damaged this nation’s credibility as a champion of justice and human rights. But Mr. Bush ignored those voices — and now it seems he has done the same to his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, the man Mr. Bush brought in to clean up Donald Rumsfeld’s mess.

Thom Shanker and David Sanger reported in Friday’s Times that in his first weeks on the job, Mr. Gates told Mr. Bush that the world would never consider trials at Guantánamo to be legitimate. He said that the camp should be shut, and that inmates who should stand trial should be brought to the United States and taken to real military courts.

Mr. Bush rejected that sound advice, heeding instead the chief enablers of his worst instincts, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Their opposition was no surprise. The Guantánamo operation was central to Mr. Cheney’s drive to expand the powers of the presidency at the expense of Congress and the courts, and Mr. Gonzales was one of the chief architects of the policies underpinning the detainee system. Mr. Bush and his inner circle are clearly afraid that if Guantánamo detainees are tried under the actual rule of law, many of the cases will collapse because they are based on illegal detention, torture and abuse — or that American officials could someday be held criminally liable for their mistreatment of detainees.

It was distressing to see that the president has retreated so far into his alternative reality that he would not listen to Mr. Gates — even when he was backed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who, like her predecessor, Colin Powell, had urged Mr. Bush to close Guantánamo. It seems clear that when he brought in Mr. Gates, Mr. Bush didn’t want to fix Mr. Rumsfeld’s disaster; he just wanted everyone to stop talking about it.

If Mr. Bush would not listen to reason from inside his cabinet, he might at least listen to what Americans are telling him about the damage to this country’s credibility, and its cost. When Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — for all appearances a truly evil and dangerous man — confessed to a long list of heinous crimes, including planning the 9/11 attacks, many Americans reacted with skepticism and even derision. The confession became the butt of editorial cartoons, like one that showed the prisoner confessing to betting on the Cincinnati Reds, and fodder for the late-night comedians.

What stood out the most from the transcript of Mr. Mohammed’s hearing at Guantánamo Bay was how the military detention and court system has been debased for terrorist suspects. The hearing was a combatant status review tribunal — a process that is supposed to determine whether a prisoner is an illegal enemy combatant and thus not entitled in Mr. Bush’s world to rudimentary legal rights. But the tribunals are kangaroo courts, admitting evidence that was coerced or obtained through abuse or outright torture. They are intended to confirm a decision that was already made, and to feed detainees into the military commissions created by Congress last year.

The omissions from the record of Mr. Mohammed’s hearing were chilling. The United States government deleted his claims to have been tortured during years of illegal detention at camps run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Government officials who are opposed to the administration’s lawless policy on prisoners have said in numerous news reports that Mr. Mohammed was indeed tortured, including through waterboarding, which simulates drowning and violates every civilized standard of behavior toward a prisoner, even one as awful as this one. And he is hardly the only prisoner who has made claims of abuse and torture. Some were released after it was proved that they never had any connection at all to terrorism.

Still, the Bush administration says no prisoner should be allowed to take torture claims to court, including the innocents who were tortured and released. The administration’s argument is that how prisoners are treated is a state secret and cannot be discussed openly. If that sounds nonsensical, it is. It’s also not the real reason behind the administration’s denying these prisoners the most basic rights of due process.

The Bush administration has so badly subverted American norms of justice in handling these cases that they would not stand up to scrutiny in a real court of law. It is a clear case of justice denied.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, March 30 -- A high-level al-Qaeda suspect who was in CIA custody for more than four years has alleged that his American captors tortured him into making false confessions about terrorist attacks in the Middle East, according to newly released Pentagon transcripts of a March 14 military tribunal hearing here.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who U.S. officials believe was involved in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and who allegedly organized the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, told a panel of military officers that he was repeatedly tortured during his imprisonment and that he admitted taking part in numerous terrorism plots because of the mistreatment.

"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Nashiri's representative read to the tribunal, according to the transcript. "Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop."

Nashiri's allegations came just days after Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, also alleged abuse during a similar hearing before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) at this island detention facility, though his claims were submitted on paper and have not been released.

It is impossible to confirm or evaluate Nashiri's allegations regarding his interrogation by the CIA. U.S. government officials often caution that terrorists are trained to allege abuse at the hands of their captors, and portions of the 36-page transcript that appeared to detail the locations and methods of the alleged abuse were redacted. But such allegations could call into question the veracity of Nashiri's interrogations and those of other detainees previously held at secret CIA prisons, and could make trying the men at military commissions difficult if the alleged coercion elicited misleading information.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the CIA cited "national security concerns" regarding the locations of detention facilities, interrogation techniques and operational details as rationale for the redactions.

Abuse allegations are generally referred to the CIA inspector general's office, which investigates from within. Defense Department and intelligence officials said Friday that allegations made during the CSRT process will be forwarded to the government agency being accused of abuse.

"I'm not going to respond to those sorts of allegations other than to emphasize that the CIA's terrorist interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt terrorist plots and save lives," said Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman.

Nashiri, a Saudi national, is one of 14 detainees who were confined secretly for years and are undergoing a process to determine whether they are enemy combatants against the United States and whether they should be held indefinitely in maximum security at Guantanamo Bay. A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has interviewed all of the detainees, declined to discuss Nashiri's case.

U.S. officials allege that Nashiri is responsible for assisting the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and for taking a lead role in the Cole bombing. The report of the Sept. 11 commission identified him as "the mastermind of the Cole Bombing and the eventual head of Al Qaeda Operations in the Arabian Peninsula." In addition, Nashiri was named in a New York court as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cole bombing and was sentenced to death in absentia in Yemen for his role in the bombing.

But Nashiri said he "confessed under torture" to those attacks. "From the time I was arrested . . . they have been torturing me," he said through an interpreter in answers to the tribunal officers' questions. "One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way."

Nashiri said, according to the transcript, that he "invented" some information just to "make people happy" during his interrogations. One of those statements was that Osama bin Laden, whom he had met numerous times, had procured a nuclear weapon.

"They were extremely happy because of this news," he said, according to the transcript.

It has long been publicly known that the CIA used controversial interrogation techniques that went beyond those used by the military after the Sept. 11 attacks, including waterboarding (which simulates the sensation of drowning), exposure to extreme temperatures and prolonged forced standing. Detainees who think they have been in secret CIA detention facilities have reported serious abuse there.

John Sifton, a senior terrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch, decried the secrecy and said there is ample evidence that the CIA has used illegal tactics on detainees and is trying to hide it.

"It's a bit disingenuous for the CIA to refer allegations to the inspector general" after the agency itself approved questionable techniques, he said.

Nashiri acknowledged connections to the Cole bombers but said that he was involved in a fishing business with them and that he was unaware of the plot to attack a U.S. Navy warship. He said that he sent money to the men who carried out the bombing for a fishing "project" and that he is "not responsible for them or what they have in their heads."

"The cards are stacked against al-Nashiri," said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst. "There is too much testimony and evidence suggesting his long-standing role as an al-Qaeda operative and recruiter. Many people involved in the USS Cole have been interrogated, and everyone . . . has implicated Nashiri."

Nashiri said he made himself a millionaire by the age of 19 as a merchant and periodically went to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. He also said he traveled to battlefields throughout the Middle East "to help people by gathering information."

Nashiri denied being a member of al-Qaeda and said he is not an enemy of the United States, though he criticized U.S. foreign policy.

"If you think that anybody who wants the Americans to get out of the Gulf as your enemy, then you will catch about 10 million peoples in Saudi Arabia that have same opinion," Nashiri said, according to the transcript.

Tyson reported from Washington. Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

When the Pentagon needed someone to prosecute a Guantanamo Bay prisoner linked to 9/11, it turned to Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch. A Marine Corps pilot and veteran prosecutor, Col. Couch brought a personal connection to the job: His old Marine buddy, Michael "Rocks" Horrocks, was co-pilot on United 175, the second plane to strike the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The prisoner in question, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, had already been suspected of terrorist activity. After the attacks, he was fingered by a senior al Qaeda operative for helping assemble the so-called Hamburg cell, which included the hijacker who piloted United 175 into the South Tower. To Col. Couch, Mr. Slahi seemed a likely candidate for the death penalty. "Of the cases I had seen, he was the one with the most blood on his hands," Col. Couch says.

But, nine months later, in what he calls the toughest decision of his military career, Col. Couch refused to proceed with the Slahi prosecution. The reason: He concluded that Mr. Slahi's incriminating statements -- the core of the government's case -- had been taken through torture, rendering them inadmissible under U.S. and international law.

The Slahi case marks a rare instance of a military prosecutor refusing to bring charges because he thought evidence was tainted by torture. For Col. Couch, it also represented a wrenching personal challenge. Laid out starkly before him was a collision between the government's objectives and his moral compass.

These kinds of concerns will likely become more prevalent as other high-level al Qaeda detainees come before military commissions set up by the Bush administration. Guantanamo prosecutors estimate that at least 90% of cases depend on statements taken from prisoners, making the credibility of such evidence critical to any convictions. In Mr. Slahi's case, Col. Couch would uncover evidence the prisoner had been beaten and exposed to psychological torture, including death threats and intimations that his mother would be raped in custody unless he cooperated.

ON THE TRAIL OF SLAHI
Mohamedou Ould Slahi attracted the attention of U.S. intelligence as early as 1998, years before he would be suspected of indirectly helping to round up future hijackers for the 9/11 attacks. Raised in Asheboro, N.C., Col. Couch, now 41 years old, was an Eagle Scout, a graduate of Duke and commander of his Naval ROTC battalion. An Anglican, Col. Couch says he counts among his heroes two men known for making a public commitment to their faith: C.S. Lewis, the academic and book author, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor hanged by the Nazis in 1945.

In 1987, Col. Couch joined the Marines to be a pilot before an assignment on the squadron's legal desk inspired him to enroll in law school. After graduating from Campbell University, Buies Creek, N.C., he was assigned to the team prosecuting a flight crew for a 1998 incident in Aviano, Italy, where a Marine Prowler clipped a ski gondola cable, killing 20. He still keeps in touch with relatives of the accident's victims.

Col. Couch left active duty but found private practice boring. After 9/11, he asked to return to the military. When President Bush issued his Nov. 13, 2001 order creating the first iteration of military commissions, he volunteered.

"I did that to get a crack at the guys who attacked the United States," he says. "I wanted to do what I could do with the skill set that I had."

Col. Couch began his assignment at the Office of Military Commissions in August 2003. Soon after arriving at the commissions' offices in Crystal City, Arlington, Va., he was handed files on several Guantanamo prisoners. The Slahi file stood out as the one directly connected to 9/11.

Mr. Slahi, now 37, is the eighth of 12 children born to a Mauritanian camel herder, according to his lawyers. He studied electrical engineering in Germany and later ran an Internet cafe. Before 9/11, U.S. authorities tried unsuccessfully to link him to the so-called Millennium Plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. Mauritanian authorities picked him up after Sept. 11, and shipped him to Jordan, according to testimony he gave to a Guantanamo detention board.

The U.S. got a break one year later, when Ramzi Binalshibh, a top al Qaeda operative, was captured in Pakistan. He told the CIA that in 1999, Mr. Slahi sent him and three future 9/11 hijackers -- Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi -- from Germany to Pakistan, and then to al Qaeda headquarters in Afghanistan. There, according to the 9/11 Commission, Mr. bin Laden assigned them to the 9/11 operation. But beyond Mr. Binalshibh's uncorroborated statements, Col. Couch had little additional evidence.

In Crystal City, morale was sinking. Several junior officers complained that, in its rush to win convictions, the office was proceeding with shaky cases, overlooking allegations of abuse and failing to protect exculpatory evidence. Allegations of torture at places such as Abu Ghraib had not yet surfaced, but some officers were starting to express their unease in private. A handful of prosecutors would later quit rather than take part in trials they considered rigged.

Subsequent internal reviews found no criminal wrongdoing, but prompted a shake-up in which the then-chief military commissions prosecutor was ousted. Col. Couch had his own misgivings. On his first visit to Guantanamo in October 2003, he recalls preparing to watch an interrogation of a detainee when he was distracted by heavy-metal music. Accompanied by an escort, he saw a prisoner shackled to a cell floor, rocking back and forth, mumbling as strobe lights flashed. Two men in civilian dress shut the cell door and told Col. Couch to move along.

"Did you see that?" he asked his escort. The escort replied: "Yeah, it's approved," Col. Couch says. The treatment resembled the abuse he had been trained to resist if captured; he never expected Americans would be the ones employing it. The incident "started keeping me up at night," he says. "I couldn't stop thinking about it."

Col. Couch contacted a senior Marine lawyer who had been an informal mentor. The officer said: "I know there's a lot of stuff going on, and that's why we need people like yourself in this situation," Col. Couch recalls. "You're shirking your responsibility if you've got issues and you're not willing to do something about it."

"He was looking for a sanity check, asking: 'Am I crazy or does this smell bad to you?'" the Marine lawyer, now a retired brigadier general recalls. "My response was, 'yeah, this is a problem and you need to work this problem.'"

Col Couch's wife, Kim, a nurse, says her husband began to rue each coming week. "I called it the Sunday Night Blues," she says. "It got worse and worse."

Under the Pentagon structure, Col. Couch had no direct contact with his potential defendants, but received instead summaries of their statements. In late 2003, Mr. Slahi suddenly started corroborating the Binalshibh allegations.

"After a while, I just couldn't keep up with him because things were coming out every day," Col. Couch says. "He was giving like a "Who's Who" of al Qaeda in Germany and all of Europe."

The sanitized reports reaching Col. Couch made no mention of what spurred this cooperation. Intelligence agencies refused to share all the information they had on the prisoner.

A colleague let on that Mr. Slahi had begun the "varsity program" -- an informal name for the Special Interrogation Plan authorized by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the most recalcitrant Guantanamo prisoners.

Col. Couch says he and his case investigator, an agent detailed from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, began an "under the table" effort to find out what made Mr. Slahi break. Col. Couch says he was suspicious about the sudden change, and felt he needed to know all the circumstances before bringing the case to trial. "It was like Hansel and Gretel, following bread crumbs," Col. Couch says. The agent spoke to intelligence officers and others with more direct knowledge, pursued documents with details of the interrogations, and passed his findings on to the prosecutor. What emerged, Col. Couch believed, was torture.

Initially, Mr. Slahi said he was pleased to be taken to Guantanamo. "I thought, this is America, not Jordan, and they are not going to beat you," he told his detention hearing. But after Mr. Binalshibh named him as a top al Qaeda member, "my life...changed dramatically," Mr. Slahi said.

The account of Mr. Slahi's treatment has been pieced together from interviews with government officials, official reports and testimony, as well as Mr. Slahi's attorneys and Col. Couch. Col. Couch wouldn't discuss classified information, including aspects of the Slahi interrogation involving the CIA.

Initially, Mr. Slahi denied having al Qaeda connections, frustrating his interrogators. On May 22, 2003, a Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogator said, "this was our last session; he told me that I was not going to enjoy the time to come."

In the following weeks, Mr. Slahi said, he was placed in isolation, subjected to extreme temperatures, beaten and sexually humiliated. The detention-board transcript states that at this point, "the recording equipment began to malfunction." It summarizes Mr. Slahi's missing testimony as discussing "how he was tortured while here at GTMO by several individuals."

Mr. Slahi was put under more intense interrogation. On July 17, 2003, a masked interrogator told Mr. Slahi he had dreamed of watching detainees dig a grave, according to a 2005 Pentagon report into detainee abuse at Guantanamo, headed by Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt and Army Brig. Gen. John Furlow. (Gen. Furlow later testified that Mr. Slahi was "the highest
value detainee" at Guantanamo, "the key orchestrator of the al Qaeda cell in Europe.") [Bob Swann]

The interrogator said he saw "a plain, pine casket with [Mr. Slahi's] identification number painted in orange lowered into the ground." Three days later, the interrogator told Mr. Slahi "that his family was 'incarcerated,'" the report said.

On Aug. 2, an interrogation chief visited the prisoner posing as a White House representative named "Navy Capt. Collins," the report said. He gave the prisoner a forged memorandum indicating that Mr. Slahi's mother was being shipped to Guantanamo, and that officials had concerns about her safety as the only woman amid hundreds of male prisoners, according a person
familiar with the matter.

"Capt. Collins" told Mr. Slahi "that if he wanted to help his family he should tell them everything they wanted to know," the report continued.

The same day, an interrogator made a "death threat" to Mr. Slahi, Gen. Schmidt said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to records cited by the report, the interrogator advised Mr. Slahi "to use his imagination to think of the worst possible scenario he could end up in."

In his detention-board testimony, Mr. Slahi provided further details, as did other people familiar with the matter. Two men took a shackled, blindfolded Mr. Slahi to a boat for a journey into the waters of Guantanamo Bay. The hour-long trip apparently led Mr. Slahi to think he was to be killed and, in fear, he urinated in his pants.

After making land, "two Arab guys" took him away, beat him and turned him over to a "doctor who was not a regular doctor [but] part of the team," Mr. Slahi said. The doctor "was cursing me and telling me very bad things. He gave me a lot of medication to make me sleep," Mr. Slahi said. After two or three weeks, Mr. Slahi said, he broke, "because they said to me, either I am going to talk or they will continue to do this."

On Sept. 8, 2003, according to the Pentagon report, Mr. Slahi asked to see "Capt. Collins." Mr. Slahi corroborated the account of Mr. Binalshibh and provided an extensive list of other al Qaeda names.

In later testimony to the Army Inspector General, Gen. Schmidt said he concluded that the interrogation chief "was a rogue guy," a "zealot" who "essentially was having a ball." A Pentagon spokesman says the interrogation chief, who invoked his right against self-incrimination and didn't testify, was not court-martialed. The spokesman declines to say what discipline he received.

Military and law-enforcement officials started warning the Bush administration in 2002 that its unorthodox interrogation practices, which the president has called "tough" and "necessary," were hurting the ability of prosecutors to bring cases to court. Officials expect the concern to arise in particular with 14 "high-value" al Qaeda suspects transferred to Guantanamo in September after years of secret CIA interrogation. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who claimed responsibility for planning 9/11. Some detainees, including Mr. Mohammed, have alleged they were tortured. Pentagon reviews documented cruel and degrading treatment, while declining to classify such abuse as torture.

"There's a serious question of whether they will ever be able to legitimately prosecute those individuals," if necessary evidence was produced through torture, says retired Maj. Gen. Thomas Romig, who served as the Army's top uniformed lawyer, the judge advocate general, from 2001 to 2005.

Gen. Romig, recently appointed dean at Washburn University law school, Topeka, Kan., says within the government "there was a view that we have got to get intelligence out of these guys, and we don't care we if we prosecute them or not."

The military commissions trying the cases of foreign terrorists don't hew to the rules that govern civilian courts or courts-martial. The 2006 Military Commissions Act permits use of evidence obtained before Dec. 30, 2005, through "cruel, inhuman or degrading" methods, although it bars any obtained by torture.

Top U.S. government officials won't specify which practices cross the line beyond stating that prisoners should be treated "humanely." Such ambiguity has forced decision-making down the chain of command. Even Guantanamo's chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Moe Davis, says he's still not sure how the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment applies to military commissions.

A report into abuses at Guantanamo concluded that the "threats" made to Mr. Slahi "do not rise to the level of torture as defined under U.S. law" but did violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the conduct of the armed forces. The Pentagon won't say how the report reached that conclusion.

By May 2004, Col. Couch had most of the picture relating to Mr. Slahi's treatment, and faced a painful dilemma: Could he seek a conviction based on statements he thought were taken through torture, as permitted by President Bush's November 2001 military commission order citing a "state of emergency?" Or was he nonetheless bound by the Torture Convention, which
bars using statements taken "as a result of torture...as evidence in any proceedings."

The convention says "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever" can be cited to justify torture, which it defines broadly. The 1994 federal statute implementing the treaty contains additional definitions, including the "threat of imminent death" or "severe physical pain or suffering," as well as the actual or threatened use of "mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."

Col. Couch was uneasy over interfering with plans to try Mr. Slahi, given the detainee's history. He turned to others with his dilemma, including Marine lawyers he knew and his wife's two brothers -- one a Protestant theologian, the other a retired Marine infantry officer. Because of the classified nature of the information, Col. Couch didn't give them specifics about the case, and spoke only in generalities. Their advice conflicted.

"He wanted to be a good solider and yet on the other hand felt his duty to his God to be the greatest duty that he had," recalls Bill Wilder, director of educational ministries at the Center for Christian Study, Charlottesville, Va. "He said more than once to me that human beings are created in the image of God and as a result we owe them a certain amount of dignity."

Mr. Wilder says he agreed with Col. Couch's concerns. "Stuart, you need to pray about this," Mr. Wilder says he advised.

Briant Wilder, the other brother and a former Marine lieutenant, urged Col. Couch to instead consider the context of the war on terrorism, where obtaining intelligence could be crucial to protecting innocent lives.

"I have to also say that I don't agree with everybody's definition of torture," Mr. Wilder says. "If some of the things that people say are torture were torture, then I was tortured at Officer Candidate School at Quantico. And so was he."

In May 2004, attending a baptism at Virginia's Falls Church, Col. Couch joined the congregation in reciting the liturgy. The reading concluded, as is typical, with the priest asking if congregants will "respect the dignity of every human being."

"When I heard that, I knew I gotta get off the fence," Col. Couch says. "Here was somebody I felt was connected to 9/11, but in our zeal to get information, we had compromised our ability to prosecute him." He says, in retrospect, the tipping point came with the forged letter about Mr. Slahi's mother. "For me, that was just, enough is enough. I had seen enough, I had heard enough, I had read enough. I said: 'That's it.' "

In May 2004, at a meeting with the then-chief prosecutor, Army Col. Bob Swann, Col. Couch dropped his bombshell. He told Col. Swann that in addition to legal reasons, he was "morally opposed" to the interrogation techniques "and for that reason alone refused to participate in [the Slahi] prosecution in any manner."

Col. Swann was indignant, Col. Couch says, replying: "What makes you think you're so much better than the rest of us around here?" Col. Couch says he slammed his hand on Col. Swann's desk and replied: "That's not the issue at all, that's not the point!"

An impassioned debate followed, the prosecutor recalls. Col. Swann said the Torture Convention didn't apply to military commissions. Col. Couch asked his superior to cite legal precedent that would allow the president to disregard a treaty. The meeting ended when Col. Swann asked the prosecutor to turn over the Slahi files so the case could be reassigned, Col. Couch
recalls.

Through a spokesman, Col. Swann declined to comment for this article. Col. Swann retired from the Army in 2005. He continues, as a civilian employee, to serve as deputy chief prosecutor, playing a major role in commission operations.

Other trial prosecutors in the office say they respected Col. Couch's decision. "I thought his conduct was perfectly appropriate and I agreed with his approach," says retired Navy Cmdr. Scott Lang, now a state prosecutor in Virginia.

A week later, Col. Couch put his position in writing and asked that his concerns be raised with the Pentagon's general counsel, William J. Haynes II. The legal adviser to the military commissions office, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, says: "Mr. Haynes was not informed of the issues raised by Lt. Col. Couch nor did he expect to be told about all internal operations within the Office of Military Commissions."

Gen. Hemingway says Col. Swann "was aware the interrogation techniques used were under investigation at the time Lt. Col. Couch expressed misgivings about the information he had received. Col. Swann removed Lt. Col. Couch from the case to assuage his concerns."

In a written statement, the Defense Department says it "cannot comment on Mohamedou Ould Slahi because he is under investigation. It would be inappropriate for us to discuss ongoing cases that are pending prosecution."

In March 2005, Col. Couch considered quitting, frustrated by how the office was run. Lt. Col. Daniel Daugherty, one of Col. Couch's best friends, urged him in an email to reconsider. "Personally I would rather be fired than quit," Col. Daugherty wrote. "Being fired for your ethics is (in my view) better than walking away."

With the Slahi prosecution on ice, Col. Couch continued work on other cases -- including another "varsity program" prisoner, Mohammmed al-Qahtani, who, according to army report overseen by Gens. Schmidt and Furlow, had been made to wear women's underwear, leashed, forced to perform dog tricks and berated as a homosexual. Col. Couch refused to use statements obtained during these interrogations. But he determined the prosecution could continue based on a separate source of evidence compiled by the FBI before Mr. Qahtani's Guantanamo interrogation.

He was also one of the prosecutors who worked on the case of Salim Hamdan, Mr. bin Laden's former driver. Mr. Hamdan's case would eventually go to the Supreme Court, which used the case to strike down the administration's first attempt to create a military commissions system. Col. Davis, the Guantanamo chief prosecutor, says Mr. Slahi remains among the 75 or so prisoners potentially eligible for trial. He says no one is assigned to the case and that it's unclear when Mr. Slahi will be charged, due to Col. Couch's concerns and a staff shortage.

Today, Mr. Slahi is detained in private quarters at Guantanamo Bay, with a television, a computer and a tomato patch to tend, according to people familiar with the matter. "Since 2004, I really have no complaints," Mr. Slahi told a military detention board.

He has asked to be resettled in the U.S., an option Pentagon officials have not ruled out. Col. Davis declines to comment on plea negotiations. A lawyer representing Mr. Slahi, Nancy Hollander, says that if charged with a crime, Mr. Slahi would plead not guilty.

In a September 2006 letter to his attorneys, Mr. Slahi joked about their request that he detail his discussions with interrogators. "Are you out of your mind! How can I render uninterrupted interrogation that has been lasting the last 7 years. That's like asking Charlie Sheen how many women he dated," Mr. Slahi writes. He divided his time into pre- and post-torture eras. In the latter, he wrote, "I yessed every accusation my interrogators made."

Col. Couch had been assigned to the prosecutor's office for a three year stint. When it came to an end, Col. Couch decided not to renew his assignment. He says there was no attempt to remove him from office.

After he left, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld awarded Col. Couch the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his work on Guantanamo prosecutions as is typical when officers move on to new assignments. The citation describes him as "steady in faith, possessed by moral courage and relentless in the pursuit of excellence."

In August 2006, he took on a new assignment as a judge on the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals.

Col. Couch says he's still frustrated that the actions of the U.S. government helped ruin the case against Mr. Slahi. "I'm hoping there's some non-tainted evidence out there that can put the guy in the hole," he says.

March 31, 2007Mohamedou Ould Slahi attracted the attention of U.S. intelligence as early as 1998. He was living in Germany at the time and was heard on intercepts of a satellite telephonethat had been traced to Osama bin Laden. A Slahi relative was a top advisor to Mr. bin Laden. In later questioning, Mr. Slahi admitted traveling to Afghanistan in the early 1990sto wage jihad against its Soviet-installed regime.In 1999, U.S. authorities tried to link Mr. Slahi to the so-called Millennium Plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. The would-be bomber, Ahmed Ressam, hadattended a Montreal mosque where the Mr. Slahi, a Mauritanian, had been installed as prayer leader. U.S. officials suggested Mr. Slahi had come to activate a terrorist cell.Canadian authorities put Mr. Slahi under surveillance but lacked grounds to arrest him.The following month, Mr. Slahi left for Mauritania, where he was questioned repeatedly by local authorities and the U.S. During three weeks in custody, Mr. Slahi deniedknowledge of the Millennium Plot, and the Americans gave up, according to news reports and his own later testimony.After 9/11, Washington again pushed the Mauritanians to move against Mr. Slahi. He was taken in for questioning several times through November 2001, when theMauritanians, at what Mr. Slahi said he was told was American instruction, sent him to Jordan."Then, man, what happened to me there is beyond description," he told a detention board reviewing his incarceration at Guantanamo Bay. He said he was beaten, underfed andthreatened with torture unless he confessed to the Millennium Plot. In July 2002, he said, he was transferred to U.S. custody and eventually taken to Guantanamo.A break for the U.S. came exactly one year after 9/11, when Ramzi Binalshibh, a top al Qaeda lieutenant, was captured in Pakistan. According to U.S. intelligence summaries, Mr.Binalshibh told interrogators that in 1999, a chance encounter led him and some confederates to Mr. Slahi. The men, then living in Hamburg, Germany , wanted to wage jihad.They heard that Mr. Slahi could help them get to Chechnya, where Islamist rebels were fighting Russian troops.When they met, Mr. Binalshibh said, Mr. Slahi persuaded them to head instead for Afghanistan, where they could obtain training for jihad. Following Mr. Slahi's instructions,they made their way to a Taliban office in Pakistan, from whence they were taken to al Qaeda headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan. There, they impressed Mr. bin Laden, who assigned them to the 9/11 operation, according to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission. The menincluded three future 9/11 hijackers -- Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were more military officers who took their obligations and oaths seriously like this man? There ARE people whose moral compasses still function: Lt. Ehren Watada, Sgt. Carlos Lazo, Lt. James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo, to name the first ones who come to mind. There are others coming forward every day, but not enough and not soon enough, but they are setting a positive example of both conscience and of consciousness.

It seems to me that the Bush administration functions on the basis of too many old Western movies where the mob was hurriedly called to action, saying "Let's Give 'em a fair trial and string 'em up."

What the Bush administration has done, with the complicity of many elected officials and the media, makes it hard to be proud to be a citizen of the United States of America. From time to time I like to refer to my native country as "Disnelyandia" because of the cultural weirdness which so predominates in the country of my birth. Here's someone every person can and should try to learn from and, in our own ways, to emulate.

In March, Mariane Pearl, the widow of the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, received a phone call from Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General. At the time, Gonzales’s role in the controversial dismissal of eight United States Attorneys had just been exposed, and the story was becoming a scandal in Washington. Gonzales informed Pearl that the Justice Department was about to announce some good news: a terrorist in U.S. custody—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader who was the primary architect of the September 11th attacks—had confessed to killing her husband. (Pearl was abducted and beheaded five and a half years ago in Pakistan, by unidentified Islamic militants.) The Administration planned to release a transcript in which Mohammed boasted, “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”

Pearl was taken aback. In 2003, she had received a call from Condoleezza Rice, who was then President Bush’s national-security adviser, informing her of the same news. But Rice’s revelation had been secret. Gonzales’s announcement seemed like a publicity stunt. Pearl asked him if he had proof that Mohammed’s confession was truthful; Gonzales claimed to have corroborating evidence but wouldn’t share it. “It’s not enough for officials to call me and say they believe it,” Pearl said. “You need evidence.” (Gonzales did not respond to requests for comment.)

The circumstances surrounding the confession of Mohammed, whom law-enforcement officials refer to as K.S.M., were perplexing. He had no lawyer. After his capture in Pakistan, in March of 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency had detained him in undisclosed locations for more than two years; last fall, he was transferred to military custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There were no named witnesses to his initial confession, and no solid information about what form of interrogation might have prodded him to talk, although reports had been published, in the Times and elsewhere, suggesting that C.I.A. officers had tortured him. At a hearing held at Guantánamo, Mohammed said that his testimony was freely given, but he also indicated that he had been abused by the C.I.A. (The Pentagon had classified as “top secret” a statement he had written detailing the alleged mistreatment.) And although Mohammed said that there were photographs confirming his guilt, U.S. authorities had found none. Instead, they had a copy of the video that had been released on the Internet, which showed the killer’s arms but offered no other clues to his identity.

Further confusing matters, a Pakistani named Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had already been convicted of the abduction and murder, in 2002. A British-educated terrorist who had a history of staging kidnappings, he had been sentenced to death in Pakistan for the crime. But the Pakistani government, not known for its leniency, had stayed his execution. Indeed, hearings on the matter had been delayed a remarkable number of times—at least thirty—possibly because of his reported ties to the Pakistani intelligence service, which may have helped free him after he was imprisoned for terrorist activities in India. Mohammed’s confession would delay the execution further, since, under Pakistani law, any new evidence is grounds for appeal.

A surprising number of people close to the case are dubious of Mohammed’s confession. A longtime friend of Pearl’s, the former Journal reporter Asra Nomani, said, “The release of the confession came right in the midst of the U.S. Attorney scandal. There was a drumbeat for Gonzales’s resignation. It seemed like a calculated strategy to change the subject. Why now? They’d had the confession for years.” Mariane and Daniel Pearl were staying in Nomani’s Karachi house at the time of his murder, and Nomani has followed the case meticulously; this fall, she plans to teach a course on the topic at Georgetown University. She said, “I don’t think this confession resolves the case. You can’t have justice from one person’s confession, especially under such unusual circumstances. To me, it’s not convincing.” She added, “I called all the investigators. They weren’t just skeptical—they didn’t believe it.”

Special Agent Randall Bennett, the head of security for the U.S. consulate in Karachi when Pearl was killed—and whose lead role investigating the murder was featured in the recent film “A Mighty Heart”—said that he has interviewed all the convicted accomplices who are now in custody in Pakistan, and that none of them named Mohammed as playing a role. “K.S.M.’s name never came up,” he said. Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. officer, said, “My old colleagues say with one-hundred-per-cent certainty that it was not K.S.M. who killed Pearl.” A government official involved in the case said, “The fear is that K.S.M. is covering up for others, and that these people will be released.” And Judea Pearl, Daniel’s father, said, “Something is fishy. There are a lot of unanswered questions. K.S.M. can say he killed Jesus—he has nothing to lose.”

Mariane Pearl, who is relying on the Bush Administration to bring justice in her husband’s case, spoke carefully about the investigation. “You need a procedure that will get the truth,” she said. “An intelligence agency is not supposed to be above the law.”

Mohammed’s interrogation was part of a secret C.I.A. program, initiated after September 11th, in which terrorist suspects such as Mohammed were detained in “black sites”—secret prisons outside the United States—and subjected to unusually harsh treatment. The program was effectively suspended last fall, when President Bush announced that he was emptying the C.I.A.’s prisons and transferring the detainees to military custody in Guantánamo. This move followed a Supreme Court ruling, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which found that all detainees—including those held by the C.I.A.—had to be treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions. These treaties, adopted in 1949, bar cruel treatment, degradation, and torture. In late July, the White House issued an executive order promising that the C.I.A. would adjust its methods in order to meet the Geneva standards. At the same time, Bush’s order pointedly did not disavow the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” that would likely be found illegal if used by officials inside the United States. The executive order means that the agency can once again hold foreign terror suspects indefinitely, and without charges, in black sites, without notifying their families or local authorities, or offering access to legal counsel.

The C.I.A.’s director, General Michael Hayden, has said that the program, which is designed to extract intelligence from suspects quickly, is an “irreplaceable” tool for combatting terrorism. And President Bush has said that “this program has given us information that has saved innocent lives, by helping us stop new attacks.” He claims that it has contributed to the disruption of at least ten serious Al Qaeda plots since September 11th, three of them inside the United States.

According to the Bush Administration, Mohammed divulged information of tremendous value during his detention. He is said to have helped point the way to the capture of Hambali, the Indonesian terrorist responsible for the 2002 bombings of night clubs in Bali. He also provided information on an Al Qaeda leader in England. Michael Sheehan, a former counterterrorism official at the State Department, said, “K.S.M. is the poster boy for using tough but legal tactics. He’s the reason these techniques exist. You can save lives with the kind of information he could give up.” Yet Mohammed’s confessions may also have muddled some key investigations. Perhaps under duress, he claimed involvement in thirty-one criminal plots—an improbable number, even for a high-level terrorist. Critics say that Mohammed’s case illustrates the cost of the C.I.A.’s desire for swift intelligence. Colonel Dwight Sullivan, the top defense lawyer at the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, which is expected eventually to try Mohammed for war crimes, called his serial confessions “a textbook example of why we shouldn’t allow coercive methods.”

The Bush Administration has gone to great lengths to keep secret the treatment of the hundred or so “high-value detainees” whom the C.I.A. has confined, at one point or another, since September 11th. The program has been extraordinarily “compartmentalized,” in the nomenclature of the intelligence world. By design, there has been virtually no access for outsiders to the C.I.A.’s prisoners. The utter isolation of these detainees has been described as essential to America’s national security. The Justice Department argued this point explicitly last November, in the case of a Baltimore-area resident named Majid Khan, who was held for more than three years by the C.I.A. Khan, the government said, had to be prohibited from access to a lawyer specifically because he might describe the “alternative interrogation methods” that the agency had used when questioning him. These methods amounted to a state secret, the government argued, and disclosure of them could “reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage.” (The case has not yet been decided.)

Given this level of secrecy, the public and all but a few members of Congress who have been sworn to silence have had to take on faith President Bush’s assurances that the C.I.A.’s internment program has been humane and legal, and has yielded crucial intelligence. Representative Alcee Hastings, a Democratic member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “We talk to the authorities about these detainees, but, of course, they’re not going to come out and tell us that they beat the living daylights out of someone.” He recalled learning in 2003 that Mohammed had been captured. “It was good news,” he said. “So I tried to find out: Where is this guy? And how is he being treated?” For more than three years, Hastings said, “I could never pinpoint anything.” Finally, he received some classified briefings on the Mohammed interrogation. Hastings said that he “can’t go into details” about what he found out, but, speaking of Mohammed’s treatment, he said that even if it wasn’t torture, as the Administration claims, “it ain’t right, either. Something went wrong.”

Since the drafting of the Geneva Conventions, the International Committee of the Red Cross has played a special role in safeguarding the rights of prisoners of war. For decades, governments have allowed officials from the organization to report on the treatment of detainees, to insure that standards set by international treaties are being maintained. The Red Cross, however, was unable to get access to the C.I.A.’s prisoners for five years. Finally, last year, Red Cross officials were allowed to interview fifteen detainees, after they had been transferred to Guantánamo. One of the prisoners was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. What the Red Cross learned has been kept from the public. The committee believes that its continued access to prisoners worldwide is contingent upon confidentiality, and therefore it addresses violations privately with the authorities directly responsible for prisoner treatment and detention. For this reason, Simon Schorno, a Red Cross spokesman in Washington, said, “The I.C.R.C. does not comment on its findings publicly. Its work is confidential.”

The public-affairs office at the C.I.A. and officials at the congressional intelligence-oversight committees would not even acknowledge the existence of the report. Among the few people who are believed to have seen it are Condoleezza Rice, now the Secretary of State; Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser; John Bellinger III, the Secretary of State’s legal adviser; Hayden; and John Rizzo, the agency’s acting general counsel. Some members of the Senate and House intelligence-oversight committees are also believed to have had limited access to the report.

Confidentiality may be particularly stringent in this case. Congressional and other Washington sources familiar with the report said that it harshly criticized the C.I.A.’s practices. One of the sources said that the Red Cross described the agency’s detention and interrogation methods as tantamount to torture, and declared that American officials responsible for the abusive treatment could have committed serious crimes. The source said the report warned that these officials may have committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions, and may have violated the U.S. Torture Act, which Congress passed in 1994. The conclusions of the Red Cross, which is known for its credibility and caution, could have potentially devastating legal ramifications.

Concern about the legality of the C.I.A.’s program reached a previously unreported breaking point last week when Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the intelligence committee, quietly put a “hold” on the confirmation of John Rizzo, who as acting general counsel was deeply involved in establishing the agency’s interrogation and detention policies. Wyden’s maneuver essentially stops the nomination from going forward. “I question if there’s been adequate legal oversight,” Wyden told me. He said that after studying a classified addendum to President Bush’s new executive order, which specifies permissible treatment of detainees, “I am not convinced that all of these techniques are either effective or legal. I don’t want to see well-intentioned C.I.A. officers breaking the law because of shaky legal guidance.”

A former C.I.A. officer, who supports the agency’s detention and interrogation policies, said he worried that, if the full story of the C.I.A. program ever surfaced, agency personnel could face criminal prosecution. Within the agency, he said, there is a “high level of anxiety about political retribution” for the interrogation program. If congressional hearings begin, he said, “several guys expect to be thrown under the bus.” He noted that a number of C.I.A. officers have taken out professional liability insurance, to help with potential legal fees.

Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the C.I.A., denied any legal impropriety, stressing that “the agency’s terrorist-detention program has been implemented lawfully. And torture is illegal under U.S. law. The people who have been part of this important effort are well-trained, seasoned professionals.” This spring, the Associated Press published an article quoting the chairman of the House intelligence committee, Silvestre Reyes, who said that Hayden, the C.I.A. director, “vehemently denied” the Red Cross’s conclusions. A U.S. official dismissed the Red Cross report as a mere compilation of allegations made by terrorists. And Robert Grenier, a former head of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, said that “the C.I.A.’s interrogations were nothing like Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo. They were very, very regimented. Very meticulous.” He said, “The program is very careful. It’s completely legal.”

Accurately or not, Bush Administration officials have described the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo as the unauthorized actions of ill-trained personnel, eleven of whom have been convicted of crimes. By contrast, the treatment of high-value detainees has been directly, and repeatedly, approved by President Bush. The program is monitored closely by C.I.A. lawyers, and supervised by the agency’s director and his subordinates at the Counterterrorism Center. While Mohammed was being held by the agency, detailed dossiers on the treatment of detainees were regularly available to the former C.I.A. director George Tenet, according to informed sources inside and outside the agency. Through a spokesperson, Tenet denied making day-to-day decisions about the treatment of individual detainees. But, according to a former agency official, “Every single plan is drawn up by interrogators, and then submitted for approval to the highest possible level—meaning the director of the C.I.A. Any change in the plan—even if an extra day of a certain treatment was added—was signed off by the C.I.A. director.”

On September 17, 2001, President Bush signed a secret Presidential finding authorizing the C.I.A. to create paramilitary teams to hunt, capture, detain, or kill designated terrorists almost anywhere in the world. Yet the C.I.A. had virtually no trained interrogators. A former C.I.A. officer involved in fighting terrorism said that, at first, the agency was crippled by its lack of expertise. “It began right away, in Afghanistan, on the fly,” he recalled. “They invented the program of interrogation with people who had no understanding of Al Qaeda or the Arab world.” The former officer said that the pressure from the White House, in particular from Vice-President Dick Cheney, was intense: “They were pushing us: ‘Get information! Do not let us get hit again!’ ” In the scramble, he said, he searched the C.I.A.’s archives, to see what interrogation techniques had worked in the past. He was particularly impressed with the Phoenix Program, from the Vietnam War. Critics, including military historians, have described it as a program of state-sanctioned torture and murder. A Pentagon-contract study found that, between 1970 and 1971, ninety-seven per cent of the Vietcong targeted by the Phoenix Program were of negligible importance. But, after September 11th, some C.I.A. officials viewed the program as a useful model. A. B. Krongard, who was the executive director of the C.I.A. from 2001 to 2004, said that the agency turned to “everyone we could, including our friends in Arab cultures,” for interrogation advice, among them those in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all of which the State Department regularly criticizes for human-rights abuses.

The C.I.A. knew even less about running prisons than it did about hostile interrogations. Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of European operations at the C.I.A., and the author of a recent book, “On the Brink: How the White House Compromised U.S. Intelligence,” said, “The agency had no experience in detention. Never. But they insisted on arresting and detaining people in this program. It was a mistake, in my opinion. You can’t mix intelligence and police work. But the White House was really pushing. They wanted someone to do it. So the C.I.A. said, ‘We’ll try.’ George Tenet came out of politics, not intelligence. His whole modus operandi was to please the principal. We got stuck with all sorts of things. This is really the legacy of a director who never said no to anybody.”

Many officials inside the C.I.A. had misgivings. “A lot of us knew this would be a can of worms,” the former officer said. “We warned them, It’s going to become an atrocious mess.” The problem from the start, he said, was that no one had thought through what he called “the disposal plan.” He continued, “What are you going to do with these people? The utility of someone like K.S.M. is, at most, six months to a year. You exhaust them. Then what? It would have been better if we had executed them.”

The C.I.A. program’s first important detainee was Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaeda operative, who was captured by Pakistani forces in March of 2002. Lacking in-house specialists on interrogation, the agency hired a group of outside contractors, who implemented a regime of techniques that one well-informed former adviser to the American intelligence community described as “a ‘Clockwork Orange’ kind of approach.” The experts were retired military psychologists, and their backgrounds were in training Special Forces soldiers how to survive torture, should they ever be captured by enemy states. The program, known as SERE—an acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—was created at the end of the Korean War. It subjected trainees to simulated torture, including waterboarding (simulated drowning), sleep deprivation, isolation, exposure to temperature extremes, enclosure in tiny spaces, bombardment with agonizing sounds, and religious and sexual humiliation. The SERE program was designed strictly for defense against torture regimes, but the C.I.A.’s new team used its expertise to help interrogators inflict abuse. “They were very arrogant, and pro-torture,” a European official knowledgeable about the program said. “They sought to render the detainees vulnerable—to break down all of their senses. It takes a psychologist trained in this to understand these rupturing experiences.”

The use of psychologists was also considered a way for C.I.A. officials to skirt measures such as the Convention Against Torture. The former adviser to the intelligence community said, “Clearly, some senior people felt they needed a theory to justify what they were doing. You can’t just say, ‘We want to do what Egypt’s doing.’ When the lawyers asked what their basis was, they could say, ‘We have Ph.D.s who have these theories.’ ” He said that, inside the C.I.A., where a number of scientists work, there was strong internal opposition to the new techniques. “Behavioral scientists said, ‘Don’t even think about this!’ They thought officers could be prosecuted.”

Nevertheless, the SERE experts’ theories were apparently put into practice with Zubaydah’s interrogation. Zubaydah told the Red Cross that he was not only waterboarded, as has been previously reported; he was also kept for a prolonged period in a cage, known as a “dog box,” which was so small that he could not stand. According to an eyewitness, one psychologist advising on the treatment of Zubaydah, James Mitchell, argued that he needed to be reduced to a state of “learned helplessness.” (Mitchell disputes this characterization.)

Steve Kleinman, a reserve Air Force colonel and an experienced interrogator who has known Mitchell professionally for years, said that “learned helplessness was his whole paradigm.” Mitchell, he said, “draws a diagram showing what he says is the whole cycle. It starts with isolation. Then they eliminate the prisoners’ ability to forecast the future—when their next meal is, when they can go to the bathroom. It creates dread and dependency. It was the K.G.B. model. But the K.G.B. used it to get people who had turned against the state to confess falsely. The K.G.B. wasn’t after intelligence.”

As the C.I.A. captured and interrogated other Al Qaeda figures, it established a protocol of psychological coercion. The program tied together many strands of the agency’s secret history of Cold War-era experiments in behavioral science. (In June, the C.I.A. declassified long-held secret documents known as the Family Jewels, which shed light on C.I.A. drug experiments on rats and monkeys, and on the infamous case of Frank R. Olson, an agency employee who leaped to his death from a hotel window in 1953, nine days after he was unwittingly drugged with LSD.) The C.I.A.’s most useful research focussed on the surprisingly powerful effects of psychological manipulations, such as extreme sensory deprivation. According to Alfred McCoy, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, who has written a history of the C.I.A.’s experiments in coercing subjects, the agency learned that “if subjects are confined without light, odors, sound, or any fixed references of time and place, very deep breakdowns can be provoked.”

Agency scientists found that in just a few hours some subjects suspended in water tanks—or confined in isolated rooms wearing blacked-out goggles and earmuffs—regressed to semi-psychotic states. Moreover, McCoy said, detainees become so desperate for human interaction that “they bond with the interrogator like a father, or like a drowning man having a lifesaver thrown at him. If you deprive people of all their senses, they’ll turn to you like their daddy.” McCoy added that “after the Cold War we put away those tools. There was bipartisan reform. We backed away from those dark days. Then, under the pressure of the war on terror, they didn’t just bring back the old psychological techniques—they perfected them.”

The C.I.A.’s interrogation program is remarkable for its mechanistic aura. “It’s one of the most sophisticated, refined programs of torture ever,” an outside expert familiar with the protocol said. “At every stage, there was a rigid attention to detail. Procedure was adhered to almost to the letter. There was top-down quality control, and such a set routine that you get to the point where you know what each detainee is going to say, because you’ve heard it before. It was almost automated. People were utterly dehumanized. People fell apart. It was the intentional and systematic infliction of great suffering masquerading as a legal process. It is just chilling.”

The U.S. government first began tracking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 1993, shortly after his nephew Ramzi Yousef blew a gaping hole in the World Trade Center. Mohammed, officials learned, had transferred money to Yousef. Mohammed, born in either 1964 or 1965, was raised in a religious Sunni Muslim family in Kuwait, where his family had migrated from the Baluchistan region of Pakistan. In the mid-eighties, he was trained as a mechanical engineer in the U.S., attending two colleges in North Carolina.

As a teen-ager, Mohammed had been drawn to militant, and increasingly violent, Muslim causes. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of sixteen, and, after his graduation from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, in Greensboro—where he was remembered as a class clown, but religious enough to forgo meat when eating at Burger King—he signed on with the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, receiving military training and establishing ties with Islamist terrorists. By all accounts, his animus toward the U.S. was rooted in a hatred of Israel.

In 1994, Mohammed, who was impressed by Yousef’s notoriety after the first World Trade Center bombing, joined him in scheming to blow up twelve U.S. jumbo jets over two days. The so-called Bojinka plot was disrupted in 1995, when Philippine police broke into an apartment that Yousef and other terrorists were sharing in Manila, which was filled with bomb-making materials. At the time of the raid, Mohammed was working in Doha, Qatar, at a government job. The following year, he narrowly escaped capture by F.B.I. officers and slipped into the global jihadist network, where he eventually joined forces with Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan. Along the way, he married and had children.

Many journalistic accounts have presented Mohammed as a charismatic, swashbuckling figure: in the Philippines, he was said to have flown a helicopter close enough to a girlfriend’s office window so that she could see him; in Pakistan, he supposedly posed as an anonymous bystander and gave interviews to news reporters about his nephew’s arrest. Neither story is true. But Mohammed did seem to enjoy taunting authorities after the September 11th attacks, which, in his eventual confession, he claimed to have orchestrated “from A to Z.” In April, 2002, Mohammed arranged to be interviewed on Al Jazeera by its London bureau chief, Yosri Fouda, and took personal credit for the atrocities. “I am the head of the Al Qaeda military committee,” he said. “And yes, we did it.” Fouda, who conducted the interview at an Al Qaeda safe house in Karachi, said that he was astounded not only by Mohammed’s boasting but also by his seeming imperviousness to the danger of being caught. Mohammed permitted Al Jazeera to reveal that he was hiding out in the Karachi area. When Fouda left the apartment, Mohammed, apparently unarmed, walked him downstairs and out into the street.

In the early months of 2003, U.S. authorities reportedly paid a twenty-five-million-dollar reward for information that led to Mohammed’s arrest. U.S. officials closed in on him, at 4 A.M. on March 1st, waking him up in a borrowed apartment in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The officials hung back as Pakistani authorities handcuffed and hooded him, and took him to a safe house. Reportedly, for the first two days, Mohammed robotically recited Koranic verses and refused to divulge much more than his name. A videotape obtained by “60 Minutes” shows Mohammed at the end of this episode, complaining of a head cold; an American voice can be heard in the background. This was the last image of Mohammed to be seen by the public. By March 4th, he was in C.I.A. custody.

Captured along with Mohammed, according to some accounts, was a letter from bin Laden, which may have led officials to think that he knew where the Al Qaeda founder was hiding. If Mohammed did have this crucial information, it was time sensitive—bin Laden never stayed in one place for long—and officials needed to extract it quickly. At the time, many American intelligence officials still feared a “second wave” of Al Qaeda attacks, ratcheting the pressure further.

According to George Tenet’s recent memoir, “At the Center of the Storm,” Mohammed told his captors that he wouldn’t talk until he was given a lawyer in New York, where he assumed he would be taken. (He had been indicted there in connection with the Bojinka plot.) Tenet writes, “Had that happened, I am confident that we would have obtained none of the information he had in his head about imminent threats against the American people.” Opponents of the C.I.A.’s approach, however, note that Ramzi Yousef gave a voluminous confession after being read his Miranda rights. “These guys are egomaniacs,” a former federal prosecutor said. “They love to talk!”

A complete picture of Mohammed’s time in secret detention remains elusive. But a partial narrative has emerged through interviews with European and American sources in intelligence, government, and legal circles, as well as with former detainees who have been released from C.I.A. custody. People familiar with Mohammed’s allegations about his interrogation, and interrogations of other high-value detainees, describe the accounts as remarkably consistent.

Soon after Mohammed’s arrest, sources say, his American captors told him, “We’re not going to kill you. But we’re going to take you to the very brink of your death and back.” He was first taken to a secret U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan. According to a Human Rights Watch report released two years ago, there was a C.I.A.-affiliated black site in Afghanistan by 2002: an underground prison near Kabul International Airport. Distinctive for its absolute lack of light, it was referred to by detainees as the Dark Prison. Another detention facility was reportedly a former brick factory, just north of Kabul, known as the Salt Pit. The latter became infamous for the 2002 death of a detainee, reportedly from hypothermia, after prison officials stripped him naked and chained him to the floor of his concrete cell, in freezing temperatures.

In all likelihood, Mohammed was transported from Pakistan to one of the Afghan sites by a team of black-masked commandos attached to the C.I.A.’s paramilitary Special Activities Division. According to a report adopted in June by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, titled “Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees,” detainees were “taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes.” (Some personnel reportedly wore black clothes made from specially woven synthetic fabric that couldn’t be ripped or torn.) A former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the “takeout” of prisoners as a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location.

A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories during the takeout of detainees, likened the treatment to “sodomy.” He said, “It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability. The interrogation became a process not just of getting information but of utterly subordinating the detainee through humiliation.” The former C.I.A. officer confirmed that the agency frequently photographed the prisoners naked, “because it’s demoralizing.” The person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry said that photos were also part of the C.I.A.’s quality-control process. They were passed back to case officers for review.

A secret government document, dated December 10, 2002, detailing “SERE Interrogation Standard Operating Procedure,” outlines the advantages of stripping detainees. “In addition to degradation of the detainee, stripping can be used to demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor or to debilitate the detainee.” The document advises interrogators to “tear clothing from detainees by firmly pulling downward against buttoned buttons and seams. Tearing motions shall be downward to prevent pulling the detainee off balance.” The memo also advocates the “Shoulder Slap,” “Stomach Slap,” “Hooding,” “Manhandling,” “Walling,” and a variety of “Stress Positions,” including one called “Worship the Gods.”

In the process of being transported, C.I.A. detainees such as Mohammed were screened by medical experts, who checked their vital signs, took blood samples, and marked a chart with a diagram of a human body, noting scars, wounds, and other imperfections. As the person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry put it, “It’s like when you hire a motor vehicle, circling where the scratches are on the rearview mirror. Each detainee was continually assessed, physically and psychologically.”

According to sources, Mohammed said that, while in C.I.A. custody, he was placed in his own cell, where he remained naked for several days. He was questioned by an unusual number of female handlers, perhaps as an additional humiliation. He has alleged that he was attached to a dog leash, and yanked in such a way that he was propelled into the walls of his cell. Sources say that he also claimed to have been suspended from the ceiling by his arms, his toes barely touching the ground. The pressure on his wrists evidently became exceedingly painful.

Ramzi Kassem, who teaches at Yale Law School, said that a Yemeni client of his, Sanad al-Kazimi, who is now in Guantánamo, alleged that he had received similar treatment in the Dark Prison, the facility near Kabul. Kazimi claimed to have been suspended by his arms for long periods, causing his legs to swell painfully. “It’s so traumatic, he can barely speak of it,” Kassem said. “He breaks down in tears.” Kazimi also claimed that, while hanging, he was beaten with electric cables.

According to sources familiar with interrogation techniques, the hanging position is designed, in part, to prevent detainees from being able to sleep. The former C.I.A. officer, who is knowledgeable about the interrogation program, explained that “sleep deprivation works. Your electrolyte balance changes. You lose all balance and ability to think rationally. Stuff comes out.” Sleep deprivation has been recognized as an effective form of coercion since the Middle Ages, when it was called tormentum insomniae. It was also recognized for decades in the United States as an illegal form of torture. An American Bar Association report, published in 1930, which was cited in a later U.S. Supreme Court decision, said, “It has been known since 1500 at least that deprivation of sleep is the most effective torture and certain to produce any confession desired.”

Under President Bush’s new executive order, C.I.A. detainees must receive the “basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care.” Sleep, according to the order, is not among the basic necessities.

In addition to keeping a prisoner awake, the simple act of remaining upright can over time cause significant pain. McCoy, the historian, noted that “longtime standing” was a common K.G.B. interrogation technique. In his 2006 book, “A Question of Torture,” he writes that the Soviets found that making a victim stand for eighteen to twenty-four hours can produce “excruciating pain, as ankles double in size, skin becomes tense and intensely painful, blisters erupt oozing watery serum, heart rates soar, kidneys shut down, and delusions deepen.”

Mohammed is said to have described being chained naked to a metal ring in his cell wall for prolonged periods in a painful crouch. (Several other detainees who say that they were confined in the Dark Prison have described identical treatment.) He also claimed that he was kept alternately in suffocating heat and in a painfully cold room, where he was doused with ice water. The practice, which can cause hypothermia, violates the Geneva Conventions, and President Bush’s new executive order arguably bans it.

Some detainees held by the C.I.A. claimed that their cells were bombarded with deafening sound twenty-fours hours a day for weeks, and even months. One detainee, Binyam Mohamed, who is now in Guantánamo, told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, that speakers blared music into his cell while he was handcuffed. Detainees recalled the sound as ranging from ghoulish laughter, “like the soundtrack from a horror film,” to ear-splitting rap anthems. Stafford Smith said that his client found the psychological torture more intolerable than the physical abuse that he said he had been previously subjected to in Morocco, where, he said, local intelligence agents had sliced him with a razor blade. “The C.I.A. worked people day and night for months,” Stafford Smith quoted Binyam Mohamed as saying. “Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and doors, screaming their heads off.”

Professor Kassem said his Yemeni client, Kazimi, had told him that, during his incarceration in the Dark Prison, he attempted suicide three times, by ramming his head into the walls. “He did it until he lost consciousness,” Kassem said. “Then they stitched him back up. So he did it again. The next time, he woke up, he was chained, and they’d given him tranquillizers. He asked to go to the bathroom, and then he did it again.” This last time, Kazimi was given more tranquillizers, and chained in a more confining manner.

The case of Khaled el-Masri, another detainee, has received wide attention. He is the German car salesman whom the C.I.A. captured in 2003 and dispatched to Afghanistan, based on erroneous intelligence; he was released in 2004, and Condoleezza Rice reportedly conceded the mistake to the German chancellor. Masri is considered one of the more credible sources on the black-site program, because Germany has confirmed that he has no connections to terrorism. He has also described inmates bashing their heads against the walls. Much of his account appeared on the front page of the Times. But, during a visit to America last fall, he became tearful as he recalled the plight of a Tanzanian in a neighboring cell. The man seemed “psychologically at the end,” he said. “I could hear him ramming his head against the wall in despair. I tried to calm him down. I asked the doctor, ‘Will you take care of this human being?’ ” But the doctor, whom Masri described as American, refused to help. Masri also said that he was told that guards had “locked the Tanzanian in a suitcase for long periods of time—a foul-smelling suitcase that made him vomit.” (Masri did not witness such abuse.)

Masri described his prison in Afghanistan as a filthy hole, with walls scribbled on in Pashtun and Arabic. He was given no bed, only a coarse blanket on the floor. At night, it was too cold to sleep. He said, “The water was putrid. If you took a sip, you could taste it for hours. You could smell a foul smell from it three metres away.” The Salt Pit, he said, “was managed and run by the Americans. It was not a secret. They introduced themselves as Americans.” He added, “When anything came up, they said they couldn’t make a decision. They said, ‘We will have to pass it on to Washington.’ ” The interrogation room at the Salt Pit, he said, was overseen by a half-dozen English-speaking masked men, who shoved him and shouted at him, saying, “You’re in a country where there’s no rule of law. You might be buried here.”

According to two former C.I.A. officers, an interrogator of Mohammed told them that the Pakistani was kept in a cell over which a sign was placed: “The Proud Murderer of 3,000 Americans.” (Another source calls this apocryphal.) One of these former officers defends the C.I.A.’s program by noting that “there was absolutely nothing done to K.S.M. that wasn’t done to the interrogators themselves”—a reference to SERE-like training. Yet the Red Cross report emphasizes that it was the simultaneous use of several techniques for extended periods that made the treatment “especially abusive.” Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has been a prominent critic of the Administration’s embrace of harsh interrogation techniques, said that, particularly with sensory deprivation, “there’s a point where it’s torture. You can put someone in a refrigerator and it’s torture. Everything is a matter of degree.”

One day, Mohammed was apparently transferred to a specially designated prison for high-value detainees in Poland. Such transfers were so secretive, according to the report by the Council of Europe, that the C.I.A. filed dummy flight plans, indicating that the planes were heading elsewhere. Once Polish air space was entered, the Polish aviation authority would secretly shepherd the flight, leaving no public documentation. The Council of Europe report notes that the Polish authorities would file a one-way flight plan out of the country, creating a false paper trail. (The Polish government has strongly denied that any black sites were established in the country.)

No more than a dozen high-value detainees were held at the Polish black site, and none have been released from government custody; accordingly, no first-hand accounts of conditions there have emerged. But, according to well-informed sources, it was a far more high-tech facility than the prisons in Afghanistan. The cells had hydraulic doors and air-conditioning. Multiple cameras in each cell provided video surveillance of the detainees. In some ways, the circumstances were better: the detainees were given bottled water. Without confirming the existence of any black sites, Robert Grenier, the former C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, said, “The agency’s techniques became less aggressive as they learned the art of interrogation,” which, he added, “is an art.”

Mohammed was kept in a prolonged state of sensory deprivation, during which every point of reference was erased. The Council on Europe’s report describes a four-month isolation regime as typical. The prisoners had no exposure to natural light, making it impossible for them to tell if it was night or day. They interacted only with masked, silent guards. (A detainee held at what was most likely an Eastern European black site, Mohammed al-Asad, told me that white noise was piped in constantly, although during electrical outages he could hear people crying.) According to a source familiar with the Red Cross report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed that he was shackled and kept naked, except for a pair of goggles and earmuffs. (Some prisoners were kept naked for as long as forty days.) He had no idea where he was, although, at one point, he apparently glimpsed Polish writing on a water bottle.

In the C.I.A.’s program, meals were delivered sporadically, to insure that the prisoners remained temporally disoriented. The food was largely tasteless, and barely enough to live on. Mohammed, who upon his capture in Rawalpindi was photographed looking flabby and unkempt, was now described as being slim. Experts on the C.I.A. program say that the administering of food is part of its psychological arsenal. Sometimes portions were smaller than the day before, for no apparent reason. “It was all part of the conditioning,” the person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry said. “It’s all calibrated to develop dependency.”

The inquiry source said that most of the Poland detainees were waterboarded, including Mohammed. According to the sources familiar with the Red Cross report, Mohammed claimed to have been waterboarded five times. Two former C.I.A. officers who are friends with one of Mohammed’s interrogators called this bravado, insisting that he was waterboarded only once. According to one of the officers, Mohammed needed only to be shown the drowning equipment again before he “broke.”

“Waterboarding works,” the former officer said. “Drowning is a baseline fear. So is falling. People dream about it. It’s human nature. Suffocation is a very scary thing. When you’re waterboarded, you’re inverted, so it exacerbates the fear. It’s not painful, but it scares the shit out of you.” (The former officer was waterboarded himself in a training course.) Mohammed, he claimed, “didn’t resist. He sang right away. He cracked real quick.” He said, “A lot of them want to talk. Their egos are unimaginable. K.S.M. was just a little doughboy. He couldn’t stand toe to toe and fight it out.”

The former officer said that the C.I.A. kept a doctor standing by during interrogations. He insisted that the method was safe and effective, but said that it could cause lasting psychic damage to the interrogators. During interrogations, the former agency official said, officers worked in teams, watching each other behind two-way mirrors. Even with this group support, the friend said, Mohammed’s interrogator “has horrible nightmares.” He went on, “When you cross over that line of darkness, it’s hard to come back. You lose your soul. You can do your best to justify it, but it’s well outside the norm. You can’t go to that dark a place without it changing you.” He said of his friend, “He’s a good guy. It really haunts him. You are inflicting something really evil and horrible on somebody.”

Among the few C.I.A. officials who knew the details of the detention and interrogation program, there was a tense debate about where to draw the line in terms of treatment. John Brennan, Tenet’s former chief of staff, said, “It all comes down to individual moral barometers.” Waterboarding, in particular, troubled many officials, from both a moral and a legal perspective. Until 2002, when Bush Administration lawyers asserted that waterboarding was a permissible interrogation technique for “enemy combatants,” it was classified as a form of torture, and treated as a serious criminal offense. American soldiers were court-martialled for waterboarding captives as recently as the Vietnam War.

A C.I.A. source said that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding only after interrogators determined that he was hiding information from them. But Mohammed has apparently said that, even after he started coöperating, he was waterboarded. Footnotes to the 9/11 Commission report indicate that by April 17, 2003—a month and a half after he was captured—Mohammed had already started providing substantial information on Al Qaeda. Nonetheless, according to the person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, he was kept in isolation for years. During this time, Mohammed supplied intelligence on the history of the September 11th plot, and on the structure and operations of Al Qaeda. He also described plots still in a preliminary phase of development, such as a plan to bomb targets on America’s West Coast.

Ultimately, however, Mohammed claimed responsibility for so many crimes that his testimony became to seem inherently dubious. In addition to confessing to the Pearl murder, he said that he had hatched plans to assassinate President Clinton, President Carter, and Pope John Paul II. Bruce Riedel, who was a C.I.A. analyst for twenty-nine years, and who now works at the Brookings Institution, said, “It’s difficult to give credence to any particular area of this large a charge sheet that he confessed to, considering the situation he found himself in. K.S.M. has no prospect of ever seeing freedom again, so his only gratification in life is to portray himself as the James Bond of jihadism.”

By 2004, there were growing calls within the C.I.A. to transfer to military custody the high-value detainees who had told interrogators what they knew, and to afford them some kind of due process. But Donald Rumsfeld, then the Defense Secretary, who had been heavily criticized for the abusive conditions at military prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, refused to take on the agency’s detainees, a former top C.I.A. official said. “Rumsfeld’s attitude was, You’ve got a real problem.” Rumsfeld, the official said, “was the third most powerful person in the U.S. government, but he only looked out for the interests of his department—not the whole Administration.” (A spokesperson for Rumsfeld said that he had no comment.)

C.I.A. officials were stymied until the Supreme Court’s Hamdan ruling, which prompted the Administration to send what it said were its last high-value detainees to Cuba. Robert Grenier, like many people in the C.I.A., was relieved. “There has to be some sense of due process,” he said. “We can’t just make people disappear.” Still, he added, “The most important source of intelligence we had after 9/11 came from the interrogations of high-value detainees.” And he said that Mohammed was “the most valuable of the high-value detainees, because he had operational knowledge.” He went on, “I can respect people who oppose aggressive interrogations, but they should admit that their principles may be putting American lives at risk.”

Yet Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and later the State Department’s top counsellor, under Rice, is not convinced that eliciting information from detainees justifies “physical torment.” After leaving the government last year, he gave a speech in Houston, in which he said, “The question would not be, Did you get information that proved useful? Instead it would be, Did you get information that could have been usefully gained only from these methods?” He concluded, “My own view is that the cool, carefully considered, methodical, prolonged, and repeated subjection of captives to physical torment, and the accompanying psychological terror, is immoral.”

Without more transparency, the value of the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program is impossible to evaluate. Setting aside the moral, ethical, and legal issues, even supporters, such as John Brennan, acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces is unreliable. As he put it, “All these methods produced useful information, but there was also a lot that was bogus.” When pressed, one former top agency official estimated that “ninety per cent of the information was unreliable.” Cables carrying Mohammed’s interrogation transcripts back to Washington reportedly were prefaced with the warning that “the detainee has been known to withhold information or deliberately mislead.” Mohammed, like virtually all the top Al Qaeda prisoners held by the C.I.A., has claimed that, while under coercion, he lied to please his captors.

In theory, a military commission could sort out which parts of Mohammed’s confession are true and which are lies, and obtain a conviction. Colonel Morris D. Davis, the chief prosecutor at the Office of Military Commissions, said that he expects to bring charges against Mohammed “in a number of months.” He added, “I’d be shocked if the defense didn’t try to make K.S.M.’s treatment a problem for me, but I don’t think it will be insurmountable.”

Critics of the Administration fear that the unorthodox nature of the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program will make it impossible to prosecute the entire top echelon of Al Qaeda leaders in captivity. Already, according to the Wall Street Journal, credible allegations of torture have caused a Marine Corps prosecutor reluctantly to decline to bring charges against Mohamedou Ould Slahi, an alleged Al Qaeda leader held in Guantánamo. Bruce Riedel, the former C.I.A. analyst, asked, “What are you going to do with K.S.M. in the long run? It’s a very good question. I don’t think anyone has an answer. If you took him to any real American court, I think any judge would say there is no admissible evidence. It would be thrown out.”

The problems with Mohammed’s coerced confessions are especially glaring in the Daniel Pearl case. It may be that Mohammed killed Pearl, but contradictory evidence and opinion continue to surface. Yosri Fouda, the Al Jazeera reporter who interviewed Mohammed in Karachi, said that although Mohammed handed him a package of propaganda items, including an unedited video of the Pearl murder, he never identified himself as playing a role in the killing, which occurred in the same city just two months earlier. And a federal official involved in Mohammed’s case said, “He has no history of killing with his own hands, although he’s proved happy to commit mass murder from afar.” Al Qaeda’s leadership had increasingly focussed on symbolic political targets. “For him, it’s not personal,” the official said. “It’s business.”

Ordinarily, the U.S. legal system is known for resolving such mysteries with painstaking care. But the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program, Senator Levin said, has undermined the public’s trust in American justice, both here and abroad. “A guy as dangerous as K.S.M. is, and half the world wonders if they can believe him—is that what we want?” he asked. “Statements that can’t be believed, because people think they rely on torture?”

Asra Nomani, the Pearls’ friend, said of the Mohammed confession, “I’m not interested in unfair justice, even for bad people.” She went on, “Danny was such a person of conscience. I don’t think he would have wanted all of this dirty business. I don’t think he would have wanted someone being tortured. He would have been repulsed. This is the kind of story that Danny would have investigated. He really believed in American principles.”

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.

Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Wednesday that he would not comment on any legal opinion related to interrogations. Mr. Fratto added, “We have gone to great lengths, including statutory efforts and the recent executive order, to make it clear that the intelligence community and our practices fall within U.S. law” and international agreements.

More than two dozen current and former officials involved in counterterrorism were interviewed over the past three months about the opinions and the deliberations on interrogation policy. Most officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the documents and the C.I.A. detention operations they govern.

When he stepped down as attorney general in September after widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and withering attacks on his credibility, Mr. Gonzales talked proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was “a place of inspiration” that had balanced the necessary flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to uphold the law.

Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney’s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department’s independence.

The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office’s tradition of avoiding political advocacy.

Mr. Bradbury defended the work of his office as the government’s most authoritative interpreter of the law. “In my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion should come out,” he said in an interview. “The White House has accepted and respected our opinions, even when they didn’t like the advice being given.”

The debate over how terrorist suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees.

The policies set off bruising internal battles, pitting administration moderates against hard-liners, military lawyers against Pentagon chiefs and, most surprising, a handful of conservative lawyers at the Justice Department against the White House in the stunning mutiny of 2004. But under Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Bradbury, the Justice Department was wrenched back into line with the White House.

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

Douglas W. Kmiec, who headed that office under President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush and wrote a book about it, said he believed the intense pressures of the campaign against terrorism have warped the office’s proper role.

“The office was designed to insulate against any need to be an advocate,” said Mr. Kmiec, now a conservative scholar at Pepperdine University law school. But at times in recent years, Mr. Kmiec said, the office, headed by William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia before they served on the Supreme Court, “lost its ability to say no.”

“The approach changed dramatically with opinions on the war on terror,” Mr. Kmiec said. “The office became an advocate for the president’s policies.”

From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where C.I.A. teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture?

The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.

“We were getting asked about combinations — ‘Can we do this and this at the same time?’” recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003.

Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: “These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature — can they be combined?” Or “Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?”

The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills.

That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. Kelbaugh said. “You think you’re making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, ‘Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,’” he recalled. “We couldn’t tell them, ‘Do the best you can,’ because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury.”

Mr. Kelbaugh said the questions were sometimes close calls that required consultation with the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest tactics.

That opinion, which would become infamous as “the torture memo” after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. His broad views of presidential power were shared by Mr. Addington, the vice president’s adviser. Their close alliance provoked John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to refer privately to Mr. Yoo as Dr. Yes for his seeming eagerness to give the White House whatever legal justifications it desired, a Justice Department official recalled.

Mr. Yoo’s memorandum said no interrogation practices were illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or “even death.” A second memo produced at the same time spelled out the approved practices and how often or how long they could be used.

Despite that guidance, in March 2003, when the C.I.A. caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, interrogators were again haunted by uncertainty. Former intelligence officials, for the first time, disclosed that a variety of tough interrogation tactics were used about 100 times over two weeks on Mr. Mohammed. Agency officials then ordered a halt, fearing the combined assault might have amounted to illegal torture. A C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, declined to discuss the handling of Mr. Mohammed. Mr. Little said the program “has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review” and “has helped our country disrupt terrorist plots and save innocent lives.”

“The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless terrorists,” Mr. Little added.

Some intelligence officers say that many of Mr. Mohammed’s statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former senior agency official said, was that the C.I.A.’s initial interrogators were not experts on Mr. Mohammed’s background or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert to the secret prison. The former official said many C.I.A. professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure.

Other intelligence officers, including Mr. Kelbaugh, insist that the harsh treatment produced invaluable insights into Al Qaeda’s structure and plans.

“We leaned in pretty hard on K.S.M.,” Mr. Kelbaugh said, referring to Mr. Mohammed. “We were getting good information, and then they were told: ‘Slow it down. It may not be correct. Wait for some legal clarification.’”

The doubts at the C.I.A. proved prophetic. In late 2003, after Mr. Yoo left the Justice Department, the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, began reviewing his work, which he found deeply flawed. Mr. Goldsmith infuriated White House officials, first by rejecting part of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, prompting the threat of mass resignations by top Justice Department officials, including Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey, and a showdown at the attorney general’s hospital bedside.

Then, in June 2004, Mr. Goldsmith formally withdrew the August 2002 Yoo memorandum on interrogation, which he found overreaching and poorly reasoned. Mr. Goldsmith, who left the Justice Department soon afterward, first spoke at length about his dissenting views to The New York Times last month, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Six months later, the Justice Department quietly posted on its Web site a new legal opinion that appeared to end any flirtation with torture, starting with its clarionlike opening: “Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.”

A single footnote — added to reassure the C.I.A. — suggested that the Justice Department was not declaring the agency’s previous actions illegal. But the opinion was unmistakably a retreat. Some White House officials had opposed publicizing the document, but acquiesced to Justice Department officials who argued that doing so would help clear the way for Mr. Gonzales’s confirmation as attorney general.

If President Bush wanted to make sure the Justice Department did not rebel again, Mr. Gonzales was the ideal choice. As White House counsel, he had been a fierce protector of the president’s prerogatives. Deeply loyal to Mr. Bush for championing his career from their days in Texas, Mr. Gonzales would sometimes tell colleagues that he had just one regret about becoming attorney general: He did not see nearly as much of the president as he had in his previous post.

Among his first tasks at the Justice Department was to find a trusted chief for the Office of Legal Counsel. First he informed Daniel Levin, the acting head who had backed Mr. Goldsmith’s dissents and signed the new opinion renouncing torture, that he would not get the job. He encouraged Mr. Levin to take a position at the National Security Council, in effect sidelining him.

Mr. Bradbury soon emerged as the presumed favorite. But White House officials, still smarting from Mr. Goldsmith’s rebuffs, chose to delay his nomination. Harriet E. Miers, the new White House counsel, “decided to watch Bradbury for a month or two. He was sort of on trial,” one Justice Department official recalled.

Mr. Bradbury’s biography had a Horatio Alger element that appealed to a succession of bosses, including Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and Mr. Gonzales, the son of poor immigrants. Mr. Bradbury’s father had died when he was an infant, and his mother took in laundry to support her children. The first in his family to go to college, he attended Stanford and the University of Michigan Law School. He joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he came under the tutelage of Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent prosecutor.

Mr. Bradbury belonged to the same circle as his predecessors: young, conservative lawyers with sterling credentials, often with clerkships for prominent conservative judges and ties to the Federalist Society, a powerhouse of the legal right. Mr. Yoo, in fact, had proposed his old friend Mr. Goldsmith for the Office of Legal Counsel job; Mr. Goldsmith had hired Mr. Bradbury as his top deputy.

“We all grew up together,” said Viet D. Dinh, an assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and very much a member of the club. “You start with a small universe of Supreme Court clerks, and you narrow it down from there.”

But what might have been subtle differences in quieter times now cleaved them into warring camps.

Justice Department colleagues say Mr. Gonzales was soon meeting frequently with Mr. Bradbury on national security issues, a White House priority. Admirers describe Mr. Bradbury as low-key but highly skilled, a conciliator who brought from 10 years of corporate practice a more pragmatic approach to the job than Mr. Yoo and Mr. Goldsmith, both from the academic world.

“As a practicing lawyer, you know how to address real problems,” said Noel J. Francisco, who worked at the Justice Department from 2003 to 2005. “At O.L.C., you’re not writing law review articles and you’re not theorizing. You’re giving a client practical advice on a real problem.”

As he had at the White House, Mr. Gonzales usually said little in meetings with other officials, often deferring to the hard-driving Mr. Addington. Mr. Bradbury also often appeared in accord with the vice president’s lawyer.

Mr. Bradbury appeared to be “fundamentally sympathetic to what the White House and the C.I.A. wanted to do,” recalled Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official. At interagency meetings on detention and interrogation, Mr. Addington was at times “vituperative,” said Mr. Zelikow, but Mr. Bradbury, while taking similar positions, was “professional and collegial.”

While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was in an awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White House wishes could kill his chances.

Charles J. Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan, said he was “very troubled” at the notion of a probationary period.

“If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they should have avoided it,” Mr. Cooper said. “You’re implying that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis to win the job.”

Mr. Bradbury said he made no such concessions. “No one ever suggested to me that my nomination depended on how I ruled on any opinion,” he said. “Every opinion I’ve signed at the Office of Legal Counsel represents my best judgment of what the law requires.”

Scott Horton, an attorney affiliated with Human Rights First who has closely followed the interrogation debate, said any official offering legal advice on the campaign against terror was on treacherous ground.

“For government lawyers, the national security issues they were deciding were like working with nuclear waste — extremely hazardous to their health,” Mr. Horton said.

“If you give the administration what it wants, you’ll lose credibility in the academic community,” he said. “But if you hold back, you’ll be vilified by conservatives and the administration.”

In any case, the White House grew comfortable with Mr. Bradbury’s approach. He helped block the appointment of a liberal Ivy League law professor to a career post in the Office of Legal Counsel. And he signed the opinion approving combined interrogation techniques.

Mr. Comey strongly objected and told associates that he advised Mr. Gonzales not to endorse the opinion. But the attorney general made clear that the White House was adamant about it, and that he would do nothing to resist.

Under Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey’s opposition might have killed the opinion. An imposing former prosecutor and self-described conservative who stands 6-foot-8, he was the rare administration official who was willing to confront Mr. Addington. At one testy 2004 White House meeting, when Mr. Comey stated that “no lawyer” would endorse Mr. Yoo’s justification for the N.S.A. program, Mr. Addington demurred, saying he was a lawyer and found it convincing. Mr. Comey shot back: “No good lawyer,” according to someone present.

But under Mr. Gonzales, and after the departure of Mr. Goldsmith and other allies, the deputy attorney general found himself isolated. His troublemaking on N.S.A. and on interrogation, and in appointing his friend Patrick J. Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, which would lead to the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, had irreparably offended the White House.

“On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,” said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington.

Mr. Comey provided some hints of his thinking about interrogation and related issues in a speech that spring. Speaking at the N.S.A.’s Fort Meade campus on Law Day — a noteworthy setting for the man who had helped lead the dissent a year earlier that forced some changes in the N.S.A. program — Mr. Comey spoke of the “agonizing collisions” of the law and the desire to protect Americans.

“We are likely to hear the words: ‘If we don’t do this, people will die,’” Mr. Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions.

“It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say ‘no’ when it matters most,” he said. “It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.”

Mr. Gonzales’s aides were happy to see Mr. Comey depart in the summer of 2005. That June, President Bush nominated Mr. Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel, which some colleagues viewed as a sign that he had passed a loyalty test.

Soon Mr. Bradbury applied his practical approach to a new challenge to the C.I.A.’s methods.

The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.’s pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by federal law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture — the prohibition on “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment.

Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such treatment.

At the administration’s request, Mr. Bradbury assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any C.I.A. methods, a legal question that had never before been answered by the Justice Department.

At least a few administration officials argued that no reasonable interpretation of “cruel, inhuman or degrading” would permit the most extreme C.I.A. methods, like waterboarding. Mr. Bradbury was placed in a tough spot, said Mr. Zelikow, the State Department counselor, who was working at the time to rein in interrogation policy.

“If Justice says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. standard,” Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, “then they are now saying that officials broke current law.”

In the end, Mr. Bradbury’s opinion delivered what the White House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by Mr. McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in the C.I.A.’s practices, according to officials familiar with the memo.

Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that “shocks the conscience” was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials familiar with the legal finding said.

In a frequent practice, Mr. Bush attached a statement to the new law when he signed it, declaring his authority to set aside the restrictions if they interfered with his constitutional powers. At the same time, though, the administration responded to pressure from Mr. McCain and other lawmakers by reviewing interrogation policy and giving up several C.I.A. techniques.

Since late 2005, Mr. Bradbury has become a linchpin of the administration’s defense of counterterrorism programs, helping to negotiate the Military Commissions Act last year and frequently testifying about the N.S.A. surveillance program. Once he answered questions about administration detention policies for an “Ask the White House” feature on a Web site.

Mr. Kmiec, the former Office of Legal Counsel head now at Pepperdine, called Mr. Bradbury’s public activities a departure for an office that traditionally has shunned any advocacy role.

A senior administration official called Mr. Bradbury’s active role in shaping legislation and speaking to Congress and the press “entirely appropriate” and consistent with past practice. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bradbury “has played a critical role in achieving greater transparency” on the legal basis for detention and surveillance programs.

Though President Bush repeatedly nominated Mr. Bradbury as the Office of Legal Counsel’s assistant attorney general, Democratic senators have blocked the nomination. Senator Durbin said the Justice Department would not turn over copies of his opinions or other evidence of Mr. Bradbury’s role in interrogation policy.

“There are fundamental questions about whether Mr. Bradbury approved interrogation methods that are clearly unacceptable,” Mr. Durbin said.

John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy’s top lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling prisoners.

“I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country’s good, some people will do a lot of it for the country’s better,” Mr. Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future.

“The problem is, once you’ve got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?” he asked.

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper’s front page last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were captured and held in secret. Some of their methods — simulated drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress positions and isolation — had been classified as torture for decades by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.

The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers concocted documents that redefined “torture” to neatly exclude the things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush’s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those acts did not violate the lower standard of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to do it, from any kind of legal accountability.

Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully briefed on his detention policies.

Neither statement was true — at least in what the White House once scorned as the “reality-based community” — and Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be furious. He demanded all of the “opinions of the Justice Department analyzing the legality” of detention and interrogation policies. Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and values.

For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is this really who we are?

Is this the country whose president declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and then managed the collapse of Communism with minimum bloodshed and maximum dignity in the twilight of the 20th century? Or is this a nation that tortures human beings and then concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid accountability before American voters?

Truly banning the use of torture would not jeopardize American lives; experts in these matters generally agree that torture produces false confessions. Restoring the rule of law to Guantánamo Bay would not set terrorists free; the truly guilty could be tried for their crimes in a way that does not mock American values.

Clinging to the administration’s policies will only cause further harm to America’s global image and to our legal system. It also will add immeasurably to the risk facing any man or woman captured while wearing America’s uniform or serving in its intelligence forces.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal filed on behalf of a German citizen of Lebanese descent who claims he was abducted by United States agents and then tortured by them while imprisoned in Afghanistan.

Without comment, the justices let stand an appeals court ruling that the state secrets privilege, a judicially created doctrine that the Bush administration has invoked to win dismissal of lawsuits that touch on issues of national security, protected the government’s actions from court review. In refusing to take up the case, the justices declined a chance to elaborate on the privilege for the first time in more than 50 years.

The case involved Khaled el-Masri, who says he was detained while on vacation in Macedonia in late 2003, transported by the United States to Afghanistan and held there for five months in a secret prison before being taken to Albania and set free, evidently having been mistaken for a terrorism suspect with a similar name.

Mr. Masri says he was tortured while in the prison. After prosecutors in Germany investigated the case, a court there issued arrest warrants in January for 13 agents of the Central Intelligence Agency. The German Parliament is continuing to investigate the episode, which has become a very public example of the United States government’s program of “extraordinary rendition.”

Mr. Masri, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, brought a lawsuit in federal court against George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence from 1997 to 2004; three private airline companies; and 20 people identified only as John Doe. He sought damages for treatment that he said violated both the Constitution and international law.

Shortly after he filed the lawsuit in December 2005, the government intervened to seek its dismissal under the state secrets privilege, asserting that to have to provide evidence in the case would compromise national security. That argument succeeded in the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., which dismissed the case without permitting Mr. Masri’s lawyers to take discovery. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., upheld the dismissal in March.

In their Supreme Court appeal, El-Masri v. United States, No. 06-1613, Mr. Masri’s lawyers argued that these rulings allowed the state secrets doctrine to become “unmoored” from its origins as a rule to be invoked to shield specific evidence in a lawsuit against the government, rather than to dismiss an entire case before any evidence was produced.

The Supreme Court created the doctrine in a 1953 decision, United States v. Reynolds, which began as a lawsuit by survivors of three civilians who had died in the crash of a military aircraft. In pretrial discovery, the plaintiffs sought the official accident report.

But the government, asserting that the report included information about the plane’s secret mission and the equipment that it was testing, refused to reveal it. The Supreme Court upheld the government, ruling that evidence should not be disclosed when “there is a reasonable danger that compulsion of the evidence will expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged.”

Mr. Masri’s lawyers argued that this decision, which the court has occasionally invoked but has not revisited, did not justify dismissing a case before any evidence was requested. Ben Wizner, Mr. Masri’s lawyer at the civil liberties union, said in an interview that the courts had permitted the doctrine to evolve from an evidentiary privilege to a broad grant of immunity, a way for the executive branch to shield itself from judicial scrutiny.

In this case, Solicitor General Paul D. Clement offered to let the justices see, “under appropriate security measures,” the classified declaration that the government filed in the lower courts to support its claim of privilege. The court evidently did not think that step was necessary.

The court will soon have other opportunities to revisit the state secrets issue. Last week the A.C.L.U. filed an appeal that raises the issue as part of a challenge to the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without court warrants.

The Supreme Court exerts leadership over the nation’s justice system, not just through its rulings, but also by its choice of cases — the ones it agrees to hear and the ones it declines. On Tuesday, it led in exactly the wrong direction.

Somehow, the court could not muster the four votes needed to grant review in the case of an innocent German citizen of Lebanese descent who was kidnapped, detained and tortured in a secret overseas prison as part of the Bush administration’s morally, physically and legally abusive anti-terrorism program. The victim, Khaled el-Masri, was denied justice by lower federal courts, which dismissed his civil suit in a reflexive bow to a flimsy government claim that allowing the case to go forward would put national security secrets at risk.

Those rulings, Mr. Masri’s lawyers correctly argued, represented a major distortion of the state secrets doctrine, a rule created by the federal courts that was originally intended to shield specific evidence in a lawsuit filed against the government. It was never designed to dictate dismissal of an entire case before any evidence is produced.

It may well be that one or more justices sensitive to the breathtaking violation of Mr. Masri’s rights, and the evident breaking of American law, refrained from voting to accept his case as a matter of strategy. They may have feared a majority ruling by the Roberts court approving the dangerously expansive view of executive authority inherent in the Bush team’s habitual invocation of the state secrets privilege. In that case, the justices at least could have commented, or offered a dissent, as has happened when the court abdicated its responsibility to hear at least two other recent cases involving national security issues of this kind.

Mr. Masri says he was picked up while vacationing in Macedonia in late 2003 and flown to a squalid prison in Afghanistan. He says he was questioned there about ties to terrorist groups and was beaten by his captors, some of whom were Americans. At the end of May 2004, Mr. Masri was released in a remote part of Albania without having been charged with a crime. Investigations in Europe and news reports in this country have supported his version of events, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged privately to her that Mr. Masri’s abduction was a mistake, an admission that aides to Ms. Rice have denied. The Masri case, in other words, is being actively discussed all over the world. The only place it cannot be discussed, it seems, is in a United States courtroom.

In effect, the Supreme Court has granted the government immunity for subjecting Mr. Masri to “extraordinary rendition,” the morally and legally unsupportable United States practice of transporting foreign nationals to be interrogated in other countries known to use torture and lacking basic legal protections. It’s hard to imagine what, at this point, needs to be kept secret, other than the ways in which the administration behaved irresponsibly, and quite possibly illegally, in the Masri case. And Mr. Masri is not the only innocent man kidnapped by American agents and subjected to abuse and torture in a foreign country. He’s just the only one whose lawsuit got this far.

This unsatisfactory outcome gives rise to new worries about the current Supreme Court’s resolve to perform its crucial oversight role — particularly with other cases related to terrorism in the pipeline and last week’s disclosure of secret 2005 Justice Department memos authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods that just about everyone except the Bush White House thinks of as torture. Instead of a rejection, the Masri case should have occasioned a frank revisiting of the Supreme Court’s 1953 ruling in United States v. Reynolds. That case enshrined the state secrets doctrine that this administration has repeatedly relied upon to avoid judicial scrutiny of its lawless actions.

Indeed, the Reynolds case itself is an object lesson in why courts need to apply a healthy degree of skepticism to state secrets claims. The court denied the widows of three civilians, who had died in the crash of a military aircraft, access to the official accident report, blindly accepting the government’s assertion that sharing the report would hurt national security. When the documents finally became public just a few years ago, it became clear that the government had lied. The papers contained information embarrassing to the government but nothing to warrant top secret treatment or denying American citizens honest adjudication of their lawsuit.

In refusing to consider Mr. Masri’s appeal, the Supreme Court has left an innocent person without any remedy for his wrongful imprisonment and torture. It has damaged America’s standing in the world and established the nation as Supreme Enabler of the Bush administration’s efforts to avoid accountability for its actions. These are not accomplishments to be proud of.

Anyone who has followed CIA scandals will find no historical parallel to this story ["Watchdog of C.I.A. Is Subject of C.I.A. Inquiry", NYT, MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE, Oct 11, 07]. CIA Director Michael Hayden wants to inspect his Inspector General, John L. Helgerson. Helgerson has been looking rather too closely at the CIA's rendition programs.

The Inspector General (or IG) runs the Agency's "internal affairs" department -- in other words, he polices the CIA. Usually, the IG is one of the "old boys," but occasionally the gig goes to someone who plays hardball.

In the current case, it appears that Hayden has asked his close aide Robert Deitz (a man who plays Tonto to Hayden's Lone Ranger) to investigate John Helgerson. The IG has been a thorn in Hayden's side for quite some time...

The inspector general’s office also rankled agency officials when it completed a withering report about the C.I.A’s missteps before the Sept. 11 attack - a report that recommended “accountability boards” to consider disciplinary action against a handful of senior officials.

Did the IG uncover the drug connection?
The argument I'm about to make is, in part, speculative. Each reader must judge whether the speculative sections constitute well-grounded deduction or irresponsible conjecture. (For reasons of brevity, this post will rely heavily on previous articles, which contain the off-site links.)

Let's begin with a simple question. Why is CIA Director Hayden taking unprecedented action? What can the IG reveal about the rendition flights that could possibly be worse than what we already know?

Not just prisoners: In the past, I have argued that the program did not simply transfer prisoners to torture-friendly nations. The flights may also have been used for smuggling. I base that claim on three factors:

1. The sheer number of rendition flights.
2. The odd places visited during those flights.
3. A rather large collection of books, available at any university library, documenting the overlap between spies and the drug trade.

Naturally, any such "rogue" use of CIA-controlled aircraft would have to be kept hidden from the Inspector General -- and, in all likelihood, from the owners of record.

Before you dismiss the idea, please read my earlier piece, "The CIA's airlines: What's in the baggage compartment?" As that article notes, just one Gulfstream IV used by the CIA made 488 flights between 2001 and 2005. That single plane can carry twenty passengers. Many other jets were used in this program.

How many "prisoners" could there have been?
CIA rendition flights have taken off and landed in Spain, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, Portugal, France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Thailand, Uzbekistan and other nations. Although officially civilian, the jets are allowed to land at American military bases. Virtually anything could be shipped without detection on those flights.

We now have no fewer than three major episodes linking CIA aircraft to the drug trade. (To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

The crashed coke jet.
The most recent incident involved a Gulfstream II that went down mysteriously in Mexico, after the pilot and passengers had bailed out. Authorities found over three tons of cocaine on board. (See here and here.)

In the 2003-2005 period, that same aircraft was under the control of -- though not technically owned by -- the CIA-linked firm Richmor aviation. During that time, the jet made a series of "rendition" flights.

Just before the recent coke transport flight, the plane was transferred from one mysterious "owner" to another at a dizzying clip. (This is common. When attempting to track the history of CIA aircraft, one should expect to encounter confusing ownership flips and an endless number of on-paper front companies.)

I would ask readers to note the chronology. Richmor's routine use of the jet for "prisoner" flights stopped after 2005 -- when IG John Helgerson started to look into renditions.

The captured Skyway coke jet.
This blog has devoted quite a few posts to last year's
remarkable capture, on a Mexican tarmac, of a jet laden with five tons of coke. (Here and here and here, and that's for starters.) Although the plane was surrounded by police, the pilot somehow "got away."

(Compare his fate to that of the Gulfstream II pilot: He bailed, was captured, and then tried to bribe his way out of custody. I don't know if the bribe worked; no further news reports have mentioned him.)

The Skyway jet was owned by a noted con artist who, in exchange for protection, allowed "his" plane to be used for various nefarious activities. Although this aircraft underwent the usual rapid ownership transfers just before the bust in Mexico, it still bore the Skyway logo, which strongly resembles the Homeland Security logo.

Skyway was a fake firm associated with In-Q-Tel, a shadowy investment group begun by CIA personnel. Although Skyway head Brent Kovar was a notorious scamster, he has never faced a judge, and his aviation undertaking somehow attracted investment from two very real corporations: The defense giant Titan and Argyll Equities of Boerne, Texas. According to investigator Daniel Hopsicker,

Argyll previously arranged for a $17 million loan to a Mexican businessman, who in turn provided "significant capital" to a “Chilean narcotics trafficker" named Manuel Vicente Losada, arrested in the Chilean capital of Santiago after being “linked to a shipment of five tons of cocaine which U.S. drug enforcement officials in Miami intercepted over six years ago on the vessel Harbour, as it headed toward Guantanamo Bay.”

"Guantanamo Bay"? asks Hopsicker. The implications hang in the air. Hopsicker lists a few other indicators that Argyll may have a shady history. No less a figure than Patrick Fitzgerald investigated allegations that Argyll played a role in a scheme to defraud a hedge fund administered by the mother of actor Vince Vaughn.

That, I fear, is a tale for another time. Right now, let us stay focused on the eye-popping allegation that cocaine headed toward Gitmo.

Is Guantanamo being used as a drug transshipment point?
Consider: The recently-crashed Gulfstream II made a number of trips to Gitmo. Why? To transport prisoners? No: News accounts have made clear that the prisoners there were brought in via military craft.

Evergreen. Evergreen airlines is the most famous CIA-linked aviation company; indeed, it is difficult to say where Evergreen stops and the Agency begins. Oddly enough, Evergreen had employed Russell DeFreitas, who was arrested last June for an alleged attempt to blow up JFK airport.

In an earlier post, I argued that DeFreitas was involved with a drug ring while he worked at JFK airport. News accounts link him with the Triniad-based nationalist organization Jamaat Al Muslimeen, which controls much of the organized crime in that part of the world.

Do you believe that Evergreen -- which is to say, the CIA -- would accidentally hire a man connected to a criminal syndicate? Evergreen is a major player in the "rendition" scandal. Evergreen aircraft were used to transport "prisoners." And perhaps not just prisoners.

Based on the above, I posit -- but cannot prove -- that Inspector General John Helgerson has been looking into the links between "renditions" and smuggling.

The pattern is difficult to explain away: In each of the three episodes listed above, the scenarios changed after 2005 -- after the IG began to investigate renditions. After 2005, the Gulfstream II underwent a series of weird and hard-to-follow ownership transfers. So did the Skyway jet. DeFreitas left Evergreen to work as a "baggage handler" at JFK (where Evergreen has a presence) -- an interesting gig for someone associated with drug thugs and spooks.

# posted by Deighved H Stern MD : 11:58 PM
I caught wind of this over at Lisa's site, and came immediately over here to let you know about it. (Then I sent a message to C&L). I'm looking for a link to tell people how to find and contact their Representatives and Senators in Congress about this, but have not found it yet. (I know I have it in here somewhere.) If ever urgent action was needed, this is that time...

# posted by dr. elsewhere : 7:54 AM
great work, as ever, joe! we've talked about the smuggling thing before, and we know it's true. we just need the smoking gun, so maybe this is it and the IG is getting too close. it simply amazes me that this unbelieveably illegal and immoral scam could have operated for so long with so many people involved. i guess when you get to that level of corruption, nothing stands in your way. hence we have the deaths of spc. durkin in afghanistan, and others - who know how many? and is it worth speculating that pat tillman's greater crime than rejecting the iraq invasion was to know too much about the us connection to drugs in that region? that's also bugged me. smugglers will kill to keep their booty. so i guess i've answered my own question; folks are dying when they find out about this stuff. i wonder if helgerson is taking this as a warning?

# posted by gary : 8:24 AM
"In-Q-Tel, a shadowy investment group which some consider a CIA front." In-Q-Tell is the CIA's venture capital company. If you take a look at their website you will find that they openly acknowledge this.

# posted by dqueue : 8:36 AM
Dr. Elsewhere, you raise an important point, folks are dying when they learn about this stuff. Whose deaths tie to the stories that are presently in play? I wonder if its the agency, as a whole? Or is it a subset of corrupt participants who have used and abused compartmentalization procedures to hide such activity? (Not to mention murder, bribery, blackmail, terror, etc...)

# posted by AitchD : 10:24 AM
In the late 1970s the Church committee got testimony about CIA involvement in the opium trade in Southeast Asia; the Kerry committee in the middle-late 1980s got testimony about the CIA involvement in the cocaine trade in Central America; the early 1990s had Congress investigating the CIA involvement in crack distribution in California; in the middle 1990s, Congress looked into money laundering and drug trafficking; in the late 1990s, Congress investigated drug trafficking and Colombia. A brief outline is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking
"These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years, helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. You know, you gotta stop 'em at the beginning, like they shoulda stopped Hitler at Munich. They should never've let him get away with that. They was just asking for big trouble" - Peter Clemenza in The Godfather. "Follow the money" - Deep Throat in All the President's Men. "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" - Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

# posted by dr. elsewhere : 11:51 AM
this issue with folks dying when drug trades are exposed, it's pretty spooky. literally and figuratively. and then there's the similar shakedown tactics applied to jill simpson in alabama when she exposed karl rove's involvement in seligman's frame-up: her house caught on fire and her car was run off the road, as joe pointed out. clearly drugs are not the only motivating commodity operating here. and these idiots are not just crazy and incompetent; they're pure evil.

# posted by Deighved H Stern MD : 2:18 PM
Just a follow-up on my first post, I am absolutely floored that C&L has apparently not chosen to pick up on this story. Can anyone come up with a good reason why they wouldn't think this story worth amplifying?

# posted by Joseph : 3:34 PM
Hey, don't worry, Dave. This story's on the front page at Buzzflash and there seems to be a fair amount of traffic from Reddit. Not bad what is, after all, a theory. All I hope to do is to spur some investigation.

# posted by Anonymous : 4:52 PM
Dr. Elsewhere-- Something that is rarely mentioned with regard to Seligman is that his purported briber was in the waste business. This may be an important thread that has been largely overlooked. Cannonfire-- I've followed your line of reasoning with interest. Over and over again, I've suggested that you start with Miami. There's a reason for that...

# posted by Anonymous : 8:51 PM
I had to search, but I knew I'd read about this in the past. It was November, 2005. "Could The CIA Planes In Portugal And Europe Be Running Drugs?" http://www.brendastardom.com/arch.asp?ArchID=776

AMMAN, Jordan -- Over the past seven years, an imposing building on the outskirts of this city has served as a secret holding cell for the CIA.

The building is the headquarters of the General Intelligence Department, Jordan's powerful spy and security agency. Since 2000, at the CIA's behest, at least 12 non-Jordanian terrorism suspects have been detained and interrogated here, according to documents and former prisoners, human rights advocates, defense lawyers and former U.S. officials.

In most of the cases, the spy center served as a covert way station for CIA prisoners captured in other countries. It was a place where they could be hidden after being arrested and kept for a few days or several months before being moved on to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or CIA prisons elsewhere in the world.

Others were arrested while transiting through Jordan, including two detained during stopovers at Amman's international airport. Another prisoner, a microbiology student captured in Pakistan in the weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has not been seen since he was flown to Amman on a CIA plane six years ago.

The most recent case to come to light involved a Palestinian detainee, Marwan al-Jabour, who was transferred to Jordan last year from a CIA-run secret prison, then released several weeks later in the Gaza Strip.

The General Intelligence Department, or GID, is perhaps the CIA's most trusted partner in the Arab world. The Jordanian agency has received money, training and equipment from the CIA for decades and even has a public English-language Web site. The relationship has deepened in recent years, with U.S. officials praising their Jordanian counterparts for the depth of their knowledge regarding al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic networks.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, however, the GID was attractive for another reason, according to former U.S. counterterrorism officials and Jordanian human rights advocates. Its interrogators had a reputation for persuading tight-lipped suspects to talk, even if that meant using abusive tactics that could violate U.S. or international law. "I was kidnapped, not knowing anything of my fate, with continuous torture and interrogation for the whole of two years," Al-Haj Abdu Ali Sharqawi, a Guantanamo prisoner from Yemen, recounted in a written account of his experiences in Jordanian custody. "When I told them the truth, I was tortured and beaten."

Sharqawi was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in February 2002 in a joint Pakistani-U.S. operation. Although the Guantanamo Bay prison had just opened, the CIA flew him instead to Amman, where he was imprisoned for 19 months, according to his account and flight records. He was later taken to another CIA-run secret prison, his statement says, before he was finally moved to Guantanamo in February 2004.

Sharqawi said he was threatened with sexual abuse and electrocution while in Jordan. He also said he was hidden from officials of the International Committee for the Red Cross during their visits to inspect Jordanian prisons.

"I was told that if I wanted to leave with permanent disability both mental and physical, that that could be arranged," Sharqawi said in his April 2006 statement, which was released by a London-based attorney, Clive Stafford Smith, who represents Guantanamo inmates. "They said they had all the facilities of Jordan to achieve that. I was told that I had to talk, I had to tell them everything."

Bush administration officials have said they do not hand over terrorism suspects to countries that are likely to abuse them. For several years, however, the State Department has cited widespread allegations of torture by Jordan's security agencies in its annual report cards on human rights.

Independent monitors have become increasingly critical of Jordan's record. Since 2006, the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued reports on abuses in Jordan, often singling out the General Intelligence Department.

Former prisoners have reported that their captors were expert in two practices in particular: falaqa, or beating suspects on the soles of their feet with a truncheon and then, often, forcing them to walk barefoot and bloodied across a salt-covered floor; and farruj, or the "grilled chicken," in which prisoners are handcuffed behind their legs, hung upside down by a rod placed behind their knees, and beaten.

In a report released in January 2007, Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator for torture, found that "the practice of torture is routine" at GID headquarters and concluded "that there is total impunity for torture and ill-treatment in the country."

Officials with the GID did not respond to a letter seeking an interview for this article. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry also did not respond to interview requests.

The CIA declined to comment on its relationship with the GID but defended in general the covert transfer of terrorism suspects to other countries, a practice known as rendition. "The United States does not transfer individuals to any country if it believes they will be tortured there," said Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman. "Setting aside the myths, rendition is, in fact, a lawful, effective tool that has been used over the years on a very limited scale, and is designed to take terrorists off the street."

Immediately after Sept. 11, the CIA had nowhere to hold terrorism suspects it had captured abroad. The military prison at Guantanamo did not open until January 2002. And it took the CIA until the spring of 2002 to get its own network of secret overseas prisons up and running.

Short on options, the CIA sought help from its counterparts in Jordan. Soon, CIA airplanes began carrying prisoners to Amman. Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a Yemeni microbiology student, was captured in a U.S.-Pakistani operation in Karachi a few weeks after 9/11 on suspicion of helping to finance al-Qaeda operations. Witnesses reported seeing masked men take him aboard a Gulfstream V jet at the Karachi airport Oct. 24, 2001.

Records show that the plane was chartered by a CIA front company and that it flew directly to Amman. Mohammed has not been seen since. Amnesty International said it has asked the Jordanian government for information on his whereabouts but has not received an answer.

About the same time, Jamal Alawi Mari, another Yemeni citizen, was apprehended at his home in Karachi by Pakistani and U.S. agents. Records show that U.S. officials suspected him of working for Islamic charities that allegedly supported al-Qaeda.

Soon after, Mari was also flown by the CIA to Amman. "They never told me where I was going," he testified later before a U.S. military tribunal. "I found out later I was in Jordan." Mari said he was imprisoned for four months in Jordan, out of sight of visiting Red Cross officials. In early 2002, he was taken to Guantanamo and remains imprisoned there.

Defense lawyers and human rights advocates in Amman said it wasn't a surprise that the CIA turned to Jordan's security agency for assistance. "In America, people will ask about any breach of the law," said Younis Arab, a lawyer who has represented a CIA prisoner brought to Jordan. "Here in Jordan, nobody asks. So the Americans get the Jordanians to do the dirty work."

Other Jordanian lawyers cited unconfirmed reports that the CIA had transferred high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders to Jordan for interrogation. Although hard evidence is elusive, some former inmates have reported being detained in the same wing as Ramzi Binalshibh, a key planner in the Hamburg cell that carried out the Sept. 11 hijackings, said Abdulkareem al-Shureidah, an Amman lawyer.

"He was detained in Jordanian jails, definitely," Shureidah said of Binalshibh, who was kept in CIA custody in undisclosed locations from the time of his capture in Karachi in September 2002 until September 2006, when he was transferred to Guantanamo. "The U.S. brought all kinds of persons here from around the world."

Samieh Khreis, an Amman lawyer who has represented former Guantanamo inmates from Jordan, said testimony by former prisoners and others in Jordan reinforced a long-held suspicion that the CIA ran a satellite operation inside headquarters of the General Intelligence Department. "Of course they had a jail here, a secret jail -- of course, no question," he said. "If they were to put me in that GID building over there, in my mind, it might as well be an American jail."

Khreis said the Jordanian spy service has a well-deserved reputation for using dubious tactics to force confessions. But he said the CIA sent prisoners to Amman primarily to take advantage of the GID's knowledge of Islamic radical groups. "Torture is not the main reason," he said.

On June 26, 2006, just after 6 p.m., Nowak, the U.N. investigator, paid a surprise visit to GID headquarters in Amman. The Jordanian government had previously agreed to give Nowak carte blanche to inspect any prison in the country, with no preconditions and unfettered access to inmates. As a new member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Jordan was eager to win Nowak's seal of approval. GID officials permitted Nowak to tour its prison wing. But they refused to allow him to speak with prisoners in private. When Nowak asked about allegations that the CIA had used the building as a proxy jail, department officials said the reports were untrue.

"The response was just very flat, a simple denial, 'We don't know anything about that,' " Nowak recalled in an interview. In interviews with former GID prisoners, Nowak said, he heard repeated, credible reports of inmates being subjected to electric shocks, sleep deprivation and various forms of beatings, including farruj and falaqa.

He said several inmates reported that their chief tormentor was Col. Ali Birjak, head of the GID's counterterrorism unit and one of the officials who had denied cooperating with the CIA. Based on those interviews, Nowak recommended in his report that Birjak be investigated by Jordanian authorities on torture charges.

In a written response to Nowak's findings on Oct. 10, 2006, the Jordanian government called the torture allegations "untrue" and noted that they were lodged by people with criminal records. "It is common for prisoners to make false allegations about torture in a pathetic attempt to evade punishment and to influence the court," the government wrote.

In interviews with The Washington Post, however, former prisoners of the GID gave similar accounts of physical abuse. Masaad Omer Behari, a Sudanese citizen, spent 86 days in the department's custody in early 2003 after he was arrested during a stopover at Amman's international airport.

Behari said his interrogators wanted to know about his activities in Vienna, where he had lived for more than a decade. He had been asked many of the same questions previously by the FBI and Austrian security officials about an alleged plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Vienna in 1998, he said, though he had denied any role and was never charged.

While he was in custody in Amman, Behari said, guards meted out a combination of falaqa and farruj. They struck the soles of his feet with batons while he was handcuffed and hanging upside down, then doused him with cold water and forced him to walk over a salt-strewn floor. "I thought they were going to kill me," he said. "I said my prayers, thinking I was going to die."

The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee.

A court filing from the British Foreign Office released recently includes a letter from the U.S. government, identified as the "Obama administration's communication." Other information identifying the U.S. agency and author of the letter appears to have been redacted.

"If it is determined that [her majesty's government] is unable to protect information we provide to it, even if that inability is caused by your judicial system, we will necessarily have to review with the greatest care the sensitivity of information we can provide in the future."

The letter stands in contrast to President Obama's decision last month to release four memos from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing fresh detail on the CIA's enhanced interrogation program.

But, the U.S. letter points out: "Neither in [those four] memoranda, nor in any statements of the administration accompanying their release, was reference made to the identity of any foreign government that might have assisted the United States.

"Given the declassification of the highly sensitive information contained in the memoranda, the fact that the president refrained from providing any information about foreign governments is indicative that the United States continues to preserve the secrecy of such information as critical to our national security."

At issue is whether the British courts will disclose a seven-paragraph summary of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a former detainee who was released from Guantanamo Bay prison in February.

The British terrorism suspect was set free after charges that he had collaborated with convicted terrorist Jose Padilla in a plot to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States fell apart. Mr. Mohamed says he was tortured while in U.S., Pakistani and Moroccan custody.

In February, the British Foreign Office claimed that the U.S. government had threatened to reduce intelligence cooperation if details of the interrogations and treatment of Mr. Mohamed were disclosed.

The High Court agreed on Feb. 4 to keep the details of Mr. Mohamed's treatment from the public. But two days later, the court decided to take up the matter again in response to an argument that the position of the U.S. government may have represented the Bush administration's view and not that of the Obama administration.

The letter, however, put to rest any doubt that it reflects the position of Mr. Obama's administration. Depending on what the court decides, it also may quash Mr. Mohamed's efforts to get the court to disclose any U.S. confirmation that he was tortured.

"The seven paragraphs at issue are based upon classified information shared between our countries," the U.S. letter said. "Public disclosure of this information, reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the United Kingdom's national security.

"Specifically, disclosure of this information may result in a constriction of the U.S.-U.K. relationship, as well as U.K. relationships with other countries."

Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney for Mr. Mohamed, said in a telephone interview that he was disappointed.

"What they are doing is twisting the arm of the British to keep evidence of torture committed by American officials secret," said Mr. Smith, a U.S. citizen. "I had high hopes for the Obama administration. I voted for the guy, and one hopes the new administration would not continue to cover up evidence of criminal activity."

The Metropolitan Police of London is investigating whether Mr. Mohamed was tortured when he was in American custody.

Mr. Smith said that by attempting to keep evidence of Mr. Mohamed's "abuse" secret, the U.S. official who communicated the threats to the British Foreign Office was in breach of British law, specifically the International Criminal Court Act of 2001.

"The U.S. is committing a criminal offense in Britain by seeking to conceal this information. What the Obama administration did is not just ill-advised, it is illegal," he said.

Mr. Smith said he is scheduled to meet with the Metropolitan Police next week. "One of the questions that will come up is whether these statements by the U.S. government are an independent crime that should be investigated," he said.

David Rose, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and one of the parties in the case petitioning the British court to release the details of Mr. Mohamed's interrogation, said the U.S. government might be helping the British government shroud its own hand in Mr. Mohamed's treatment.

"Binyam Mohamed has always alleged that MI5 agents colluded in his maltreatment and reiterated this in an interview with me after his release," Mr. Rose said. "The British government's attitude towards this case has been characterized by an absence of candor for many months. One has to wonder if this is in order to protect the true role the British agencies played."

Last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to proceed with another case Mr. Mohamed was bringing against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, claiming the company renditioned him to foreign jails from Pakistan to Morocco.

In that case, the Obama Justice Department requested that the circuit court vacate the case on the grounds that it would disclose state secrets, a plea the Justice Department lost.

Last month, Mr. Obama said at a press conference that the state secret privilege should be modified and that it was "overly broad."

"But keep in mind, what happens is we come into office; we're in for a week and suddenly we've got a court filing that's coming up," the president said. "And so we don't have the time to effectively think through what exactly should a[n] overarching reform of that doctrine take. We've got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.

"There - I think - it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national-security interests are genuinely at stake, and that you can't litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety," the president said.

Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who represents Mr. Mohamed and others in a civil lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, which is accused of supplying the equipment and personnel used to transport prisoners among nations, said the Obama administration should have no problem releasing the seven paragraphs disclosing details of Mr. Mohamed's treatment.

"The U.S. actions viewed as a whole seem aimed at preventing accountability in either the United States or in Europe for the past administration's crimes," Mr. Wizner said.

Des câbles diplomatiques inédits en possession du «Temps» montrent comment le gouvernement suisse a cédé aux pressions américaines alors qu’il affirmait publiquement vouloir faire la lumière sur le transfert par la CIA d’un présumé terroriste. Survol illégal de la Suisse, accusations infondées contre l’homme kidnappé en plein jour: de tout cela, la Suisse n’a rien voulu savoir, au nom des bonnes relations bilatérales avec les Etats-Unis
Un cynisme consommé, doublé d’une grande déférence envers les Etats-Unis: ainsi apparaît le Conseil fédéral dans deux documents diplomatiques américains inédits sur le transfert aérien illégal d’un présumé terroriste en 2003. Les câbles remis au Temps montrent également l’acharnement des Etats-Unis à discréditer Dick Marty, rapporteur spécial du Conseil de l’Europe qui enquêtait sur les vols et les prisons secrètes de l’administration Bush.

Le 17 février 2003, 26 agents de la CIA enlèvent à Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama, dit Abou Omar, et l’amènent à la base militaire d’Aviano. Le soir même, un Learjet LJ-35 immatriculé SPAR92 le transfère à Rammstein, en Allemagne, survolant la Suisse en violation des engagements pris par les Etats-Unis. Le 18 février, Abou Omar est amené au Caire, où il sera torturé et emprisonné jusqu’en 2007; une cour égyptienne jugera alors son incarcération «infondée» et le libérera.

Fin 2005, le scandale des prisons et vols secrets est médiatisé. Dick Marty enquête dès novembre, le Ministère public de la Confédération (MPC) un mois plus tard. En janvier 2006 – la veille du jour où Dick Marty présente son premier rapport –, un câble de l’ambassade américaine à Berne (06BERN141, déjà publié) déplore l’intérêt des autorités suisses et des médias pour ces affaires. L’ambassadeur américain Pamela Willeford a «averti les officiels que l’obsession pour les prisons et les vols – largement entretenue par le sénateur Dick Marty – risque de peser sur («overwhelm») la perception de la Suisse par Washington».

Message reçu. Tandis que le procureur milanais Armando Spataro mène sur le cas Abou Omar une enquête serrée qui aboutit à des arrestations dès juillet 2006 (et, au final, à la condamnation de 23 agents américains et deux italiens), il faut attendre fin septembre 2006 pour que le MPC livre un premier rapport au chef du Département de justice et police, Christoph Blocher. Le survol illégal de la Suisse y est qualifié de «vraisemblable, voire certain».

Comment ne pas froisser les Etats-Unis? Le Conseil fédéral les prévient avec délicatesse. Le 22 septembre – alors que le rapport du MPC est encore secret – trois diplomates du Département fédéral des affaires étrangères (DFAE) ont averti l’ambassade des Etats-Unis. Ignorant les conclusions du MPC, le DFAE «espère qu’elles ne gâteront pas nos relations», dit un diplomate cité par un câble inédit (06BERN1804). Côté américain, on souligne le caractère «spéculatif» des éléments réunis par Dick Marty. On invite les interlocuteurs à chanter plus hardiment les liens avec les Etats-Unis. «Il ne suffit pas de dire des choses positives derrière des portes closes – les Suisses doivent aussi rendre publiques les bonnes nouvelles», écrit le nouvel ambassadeur, Peter Coneway, dans son commentaire.

Sur quoi le Conseil fédéral temporise. Ce n’est que le 14 février 2007 qu’il autorise le MPC à engager des poursuites pénales à propos du vol SPAR92 et du cas Abou Omar. Encore exclut-il de ces poursuites l’agent américain «Tom», dont le Blick révélait quelques mois plus tôt qu’il voulait acquérir en cachette les fichiers du syndicat Syna. «La Suisse ne tolère pas les violations des droits de l’homme, même dans le cadre de la lutte contre le terrorisme», affirme crânement le communiqué du gouvernement.

Tout autre est le discours que la conseillère diplomatique de Christoph Blocher tient le même jour à l’ambassade américaine. Selon un autre câble inédit (07BERN151), elle «relativise» la décision du Conseil fédéral. «A un certain point, ajoute-t-elle, il fallait bien que le MPC obtienne l’autorisation de continuer son enquête.» Elle ajoute que son département ne peut commenter les accusations concernant le survol de la Suisse, ne détenant pas d’informations de première main («was not privy to evidence»).

Qu’en termes charmants l’impuissance des autorités suisses est ainsi dévoilée au partenaire américain! L’ambassadeur Coneway ne s’y méprend pas: «Difficile de dire quel type de preuves les Suisses possèdent, mais nous comprenons que le lien entre le vol SPAR92 et Abou Omar ne repose que sur les conjectures (sic) italiennes», écrit-il.

En novembre 2007, le MPC a «suspendu» l’enquête sur le vol SPAR92. Aucun communiqué n’a été diffusé. Aujourd’hui, il «n’entend pas s’exprimer davantage», dit une porte-parole. La conseillère diplomatique de Christoph Blocher est allée travailler sous d’autres cieux, personne ne peut dire où. Un courriel adressé à son nom est resté sans réponse.

Entre-temps, les informations de Dick Marty ont été confirmées, ailleurs qu’en Suisse. Il y a trois semaines, un câble WikiLeaks (06ANKARA3352, public) révélait que la Turquie a prêté main-forte dès 2002 au transfert de prisonniers à la base d’Incirlik. En janvier 2006, Ankara démentait avec véhémence Dick Marty, qui disait cela dans son rapport. Juste après la publication de ce dernier, les transferts ont cessé.

«Le Conseil fédéral n’a jamais voulu parler avec moi du cas Abou Omar et du vol SPAR92», dit au Temps Dick Marty.

Hier sollen Gefangenenflüge der CIA gelandet sein: Das Flugfeld von Szymany, Polen. (Archivbild) Bild: Keystone

(kpn) Der Saudiaraber Abdel Rahim al-Nashiri erschien diese Woche erstmals vor der Militärjustiz im US-Gefangenenlager Guantánamo. Während der Anhörung wird der Prozess gegen den mutmasslichen Drahtzieher des Anschlags auf das US-Kriegsschiff USS Cole vor zwölf Jahren vorbereitet. Bevor im November das eigentliche Verfahren gegen al-Nashiri anläuft, dürfte zunächst die Aufmerksamkeit einmal mehr auf der Gefangenenpolitik der Vereinigten Staaten liegen.

Der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte hat Polen um die Herausgabe eines Dokuments gebeten, welches Details über den Aufbau des geheimen CIA-Gefängnisses bei Warschau enthält. Jenem Gefängnis, in welchem ab 2002 nebst al-Nashiri Dutzende Al-Qaida-Verdächtige den Foltermethoden der CIA ausgesetzt waren. Laut «Telegraph» hatte ein Informant vor rund einem Monat die polnische Presse über das Papier informiert. Bei diesem handelt es sich offenbar um einen Vertragsentwurf, der die Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Geheimdiensten Polens und der USA regeln sollten.

Unterschriften der Amerikaner fehlen
Unter anderem sei darin festgehalten, wie man im Falle des Todes eines Gefangenen vorgehen wolle. Der Vertrag soll vom früheren polnischen Inlandsgeheimdienstchef Zbigniew Siemiatkowski unterzeichnet worden sein. Unterschriften vonseiten der USA fehlten jedoch. Die amerikanischen Vertreter hätten die Polen ausgelacht, will der Informant wissen. Man habe sie als Amateure bezeichnet und gemeint, es gebe bei solchen Angelegenheiten keine formalen Verträge.

Das Fehlen einer Unterschrift spiele jedoch keine Rolle, meint Adam Bondar von der Helsinki-Stiftung für Menschenrechte gegenüber der österreichischen Zeitung «Der Standard». Das Fehlen der Unterschrift mindere die Beweiskraft des Dokuments nicht. «Allein die Tatsache der Vorbereitung des Dokuments bestätigt, dass der Wille da war und Menschen, die es gelesen haben, seinen Inhalt kannten», so Bondar, der die eigenen Ermittlungen der Polen über das mutmassliche CIA-Gefängnis in Polen überwacht.

Frist bis September
Das Dokument soll mittlerweile bei der Staatsanwaltschaft in Warschau liegen. Doch von polnischer Seite habe man seine Existenz bisher weder bestätigen noch abstreiten wollen, so der «Telegraph». Strassburg hat die Regierung in Warschau nun angewiesen, sich zu den Unterlagen zu äussern. Falls das Dokument tatsächlich existiere, sei Warschau unter europäischem Recht dazu verpflichtet, eine Kopie zur Verfügung zu stellen. Polens Regierung hat eine Frist bis zum 5. September bekommen. Bis dato haben sowohl Polen als auch die USA alles daran gesetzt, Details über das geheime Lager bei Warschau im Dunkeln zu behalten.

Für die Vereinigten Staaten kommt die Forderung des Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte mehr als ungelegen. Zu Beginn der Anhörung von Abdel Rahim al-Nashiri hatten nämlich dessen Anwälte in Strassburg bereits eine Kompensationsklage eingereicht. Sie fordern, dass die USA die Wahrheit über die geheimen CIA-Gefängnisse ans Licht bringen und die Foltermethoden, welchen auch al-Nashiri während mindestens sechs Monaten ausgesetzt war, zugeben.

Massiver Druck auf die USA
Im Gefängnis auf der Militär- und Geheimdienstbasis Stare Kijekuty sollen die Gefangenen unter anderem Pseudo-Erschiessungen und simuliertem Ertrinken (sogenanntes Waterboarding) ausgesetzt gewesen sein. Die Forderungen des Gerichtshofs in Strassburg könnten nun bedeuten, dass es für die US-Regierung massiv schwieriger wird, Forderungen von al-Nashiris Anwälten nach der Herausgabe von offiziellen Dokumenten zu Gefängnissen in Polen, Marokko und Thailand abzublocken.