Democrats Seek Probes on CIA Interrogations

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By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page A07

The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees are urging the chairmen to launch investigations into the CIA's practices and policies surrounding interrogation and detention of suspected terrorists, according to members of Congress.

In early February, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) sent a letter to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Rockefeller asked that the panel review the presidential and legal authorities used by the CIA to carry out interrogations and renditions, and to review case studies of interrogation methods for their legality and effectiveness.

"Rendition" refers to a process under which the CIA transports suspected terrorists to other countries, where harsh tactics are sometimes employed to obtain information by governments that have reputations for abusing prisoners. Rockefeller has requested an investigation into the actions of foreign governments as well.

"I think there is an enormous need for Congress to review all the issues surrounding interrogations," Rockefeller said in an interview yesterday. "We should know whether any of our policies have led to abuse" and whether "we are complying with lawful practices. Only our committee has jurisdiction. It's not like anyone else will do it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64170-2005Mar1.html

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1. CIA's Detention Practices Largely Secret

In One Illustration of Lack of Scrutiny, Afghan Prisoner's Death Took Two Years to Come to Light

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005; Page A01

In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.

The Afghan guards -- paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit -- dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said. <snip>

By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.

After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic -- "hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death -- the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said. The captive's family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial. He is on no one's registry of captives, not even as a "ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said. <snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2576-2005Mar2.html

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2. Senate intelligence chief rejects new CIA investigation

03 March 2005

WASHINGTON: The head of a powerful US Senate committee is blocking an investigation into possible CIA mistreatment of terrorism suspects, congressional officials said today.

Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, believes CIA detention and interrogation practices should be subject to the committee's standard oversight function rather than a special review, an aide said.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator John Rockefeller, had proposed a new investigation like an earlier panel investigation that produced a highly critical report last year on US intelligence about Iraq's prewar weapons capabilities. <snip>

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3205692a12,00.html