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New Charges of Guantanamo Torture | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - February 11, 2008
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New Charges of Guantanamo Torture
By Adam Zagorin
Time Magazine
In 2005, CIA officials ordered the destruction of video-
tapes depicting the harsh interrogation of prisoners in
the agency's secret overseas prisons. CIA Director Michael
Hayden admitted that in December 2007 amid a public debate
over the use of "waterboarding" on detainees and whether
or not the technique - which simulates drowning -
constituted torture. At that time, Hayden said that only a
few prisoners were ever subjected to "special interrogation
techniques," which can include waterboarding, and that
nothing was recorded on video after 2002. That claim is
now coming under additional scrutiny, in part due to a
classified briefing that will be delivered to the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence this Friday. Lawyers
representing one current Guantanamo detainee tell TIME
that they plan to present evidence that he was subjected
to videotaped interrogation, in addition to unspecified
"systematic torture" when he was held in secret CIA
prisons. The lawyers, from the Center for Constitutional
Rights, a New York-based legal non-profit with a long
record of advocacy for prisoners at Guantanamo, note that
their client has said the videotaping occurred after his
arrest in 2003.
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Majid Khan, 27, a former suburban Baltimore high school
student, was first seized by authorities in Pakistan, where
he said he was visiting his brother. Khan then spent more
than three years in a secret overseas CIA "black site"
before President Bush ordered his transfer to Guantanamo
along with 13 other high-value detainees. Also transferred
was alleged 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheik Mohammed, who had
allegedly ordered Khan to research attacks on American
water reservoirs and gas stations.
Khan's lawyers are armed with more than 500 pages of top-
secret notes taken during recent sessions with their client
at Guantanamo; they will use the material to describe his
interrogation and detention to the Intelligence Committee.
Though details are highly classified, his lawyers claim
that he and others were tortured and videotaped, charges
that Hayden and other CIA officials deny. On Feb. 5, Hayden
admitted to Congress that the CIA had used waterboarding
on Khaled Sheik Mohammed and two others. The CIA continues
to assert that it does not engage in torture.
Rising to Hayden's defense, the White House this week made
clear its view that waterboarding has saved American lives,
is legal - and does not constitute torture, as critics
insist. A spokesman for Bush said the President would
authorize waterboarding for use on future terror suspects
if certain standards are met, a spokesman said. Hayden
himself banned the technique in 2006 for use in CIA
interrogations, and the Pentagon and FBI have done
likewise.
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A White House spokesman said the CIA could use waterboard-
ing again if it had specific approval from the President.
That authorization would depend on a variety of factors,
such as the "belief that an attack might be imminent" the
spokesman explained. "The President will listen to the
considered judgment of the professionals in the intelli-
gence community and the judgment of the attorney general
in terms of the legal consequences of employing a
particular technique," he said.
Khan is one of very few Guantanamo prisoners whose claim
to U.S. residency has been legally established. He has
close relatives in the Baltimore area who are American
citizens; Khan's lawyers have appealed to members of
Congress on his behalf, including Sen. Barbara Mikulski
of Maryland, who sits on the Intelligence Committee. After
years of isolation in prison, Khan was recently allowed to
mix with at least one other prisoner at Guantanamo, Abu
Zubaydah, a top alleged terrorist who, Hayden has said,
was one of those prisoners to be waterboarded.
Khan's lawyers have said their client has gone on a hunger
strike to protest the conditions of his confinment, and
appears pale and gaunt. In the course of meetings with
counsel and the Red Cross, Khan also handed over neatly
penned, handwritten letters. Several have been made public,
after heavy redactions imposed by U.S. military censors.
One of Khan's messages begins: "In this letter I am going
to mention some of the things I have been through." Then
the next 19 lines of text are blacked out.
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But Khan's private declarations to his lawyers cannot be
censored, and it is those that the Intelligence Committee
will hear on Friday. His allegations come at a time when
Congress is considering passage of a new intelligence bill
that would effectively outlaw many of the CIA's interroga-
tion methods by forcing the Agency to use only those
techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual.
The bipartisan ban in the intelligence bill, put forward
by Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Hagel
of Nebraska, still faces Republican opposition, while the
intelligence bill as a whole could face a presidential
veto because if it does not grant amnesty to telephone
companies who participated in possibly illegal wiretapping
of Americans, as requested by the Bush Administration.
"The national debate over torture will end if this amend-
ment to place the CIA under the Army Field Manual becomes
law," Senator Feinstein said. "At that point, all U.S.
government interrogations - military and civilian - would
be conducted under the same rules and regulations, and
eight specific techniques, including waterboarding, would
be prohibited."
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