🚀 go-pugleaf

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: U$ DEFENSIVE OVER REPORTED SECRET CIA PRISONS
Date: 2 Nov 2005 22:18:19 -0600
From: MichaelP <p

Time for more legislator oversight of the warlord administration - also 
time for the public to not elect legislators for whom the act of torture 
is unimportant.

MichaelP

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http://sg.news.yahoo.com/051102/1/3w5n7.html

Agence France Presse

Thursday November 3, 5:20 AM [afp.gif]

The White House refused to confirm or deny that the CIA operates secret 
prisons, known as "black sites," for Al-Qaeda suspects in Eastern Europe 
and other places around the world.

President George W. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said 
the United States will do what is necessary to fight and win the war on 
terrorism.

"The president has been very clear we're doing that in a way that is 
consistent with our values and that is why he's been very clear that the 
United States will not torture," Hadley told reporters.

"The United States will conduct its activities in compliance with law, 
(and) international obligations," he said.

The Washington Post reported that the prisons are, or have been, located 
in eight countries including Thailand, Afghanistan and "several 
democracies in Eastern Europe" since the system was set up after the 
September 11, 2001 attacks.

The names of the eastern European countries were withheld by the Post "at 
the request of senior US officials," who argued that the disclosure might 
disrupt counter-terrorism efforts. Thailand denied there was a prison 
there.

Hadley and White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to confirm or 
deny the Post report. "I would say that the president's most important 
responsibility is to protect the American people," McClellan said.

The refusal to discuss the matter was echoed by US Attorney General 
Alberto Gonzales and the Central Intelligence Agency.

But former president Jimmy Carter denounced what he said was "a profound 
and radical change in the basic policies or moral values of our country" 
in reaction to the report.

"This is just one indication of what has been done under this 
administration to change the policies that have persisted all the way 
through our history," said Carter, who championed human rights during his 
1977-81 presidency.

The existence of secret CIA detention centers has long been claimed. 
Amnesty International denounced an "archipelago" of prisons in June as a 
"gulag of our times."

But the report that eastern European countries were among the locations is 
new.

Czech Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan was quoted by the on-line news 
outlet Aktualne.cz as saying that the Czech Republic recently turned down 
a US request to set up a detention center on its territory.

"The negotiations took place around a month ago," he was quoted as saying. 
The Americans "made an effort to install something of the sort here, but 
they did not succeed."

Separately, Hungary's intelligence chief, Andras Toth, said Budapest had 
not been approached, telling AFP, "The mere suggestion of this is absurd."

The Central Intelligence Agency has sent more than 100 suspects to the 
hidden global internment network, the Post said, indicating that the 
number was a rough estimate and did not include prisoners picked up from 
Iraq.

About 30 of the detainees, considered major terrorism suspects, have been 
held at "black sites" organized by the CIA in Eastern Europe and 
elsewhere, it said.

Locations in Thailand and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were closed in 2003 and 
2004, the daily said. Another in Afghanistan known as the "Salt Pit" was 
moved inside Bagram Air Base.

Over 70 other detainees -- with less direct involvement in alleged 
terrorism and having limited intelligence value -- have been delivered to 
intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other 
countries, the daily added.

The Post said virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the secret 
facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how 
decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

The covert prison system is "known only to a handful of officials in the 
United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top 
intelligence officers in each host country," it said.

The system has been increasingly debated within the CIA where some 
consider it unsustainable and a diversion from its main espionage mission, 
the report said.

The idea of holding suspects outside the United States, where it is 
illegal to hold people in isolation and in secret prisons, was not under 
consideration before September 11, former government officials told the 
daily.

"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever 
discussed," said one former senior CIA intelligence officer. "It was 
against the culture and they believed information was best gleaned by 
other means."