Torture by Proxy (NYT)

[struggle4progress]

OPINION
March 8, 2005
The protections due to any prisoner of the U.S. cannot be changed by sending him to another country.


One of the biggest nonsecrets in Washington these days is the Central Intelligence Agency's top-secret program for sending terrorism suspects to countries where concern for human rights and the rule of law don't pose obstacles to torturing prisoners. For months, the Bush administration has refused to comment on these operations, which make the United States the partner of some of the world's most repressive regimes.

But a senior official talked about it to The Times's Douglas Jehl and David Johnston, saying he wanted to rebut assertions that the United States was putting prisoners in the hands of outlaw regimes for the specific purpose of having someone else torture them. Sadly, his explanation, reported on Sunday, simply confirmed that the Bush administration has been outsourcing torture and intends to keep doing it.

For years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the C.I.A. had occasionally engaged in the practice known in bureaucratese by the creepy euphemism "extraordinary rendition." But after the attacks in New York and Washington, President Bush gave the agency broad authority to export prisoners without getting permission from the White House or the Justice Department. Rendition has become central to antiterrorism operations at the C.I.A., which also operates clandestine camps around the world for prisoners it doesn't want the International Red Cross or the American public to know about.

According to the Times article, the C.I.A. has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists to countries like Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan - each a habitual offender when it comes to torture. It's against American law and international convention to send prisoners to any nation where they are likely to be tortured, so the official said no prisoner is sent to another country without assurances from that government that they will be treated humanely. He said that C.I.A. officials "check on those assurances, and we double-check." <snip>

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,345300,00.html

[gizmo1979]

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