The Scum at the Top
Commentary on the Rats in Washington
Bush Admits the CIA Runs Secret Prisons
By Deb Riechmann
Associated Press
© September 6, 2006
President Bush on Wednesday
acknowledged for the first time that the CIA
runs secret prisons overseas and said tough
interrogation forced terrorist leaders to reveal
plots to attack the United States and its allies.
Bush said 14 suspects - including the mastermind
of the Sept. 11 attacks and architects of the
2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the U.S. Embassy
bombings in Kenya and Tanzania - had been turned
over to the Defense Department and moved to the
U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
for trial.
"This program has been, and remains, one of the
most vital tools in our war against the terrorists,"
Bush said.
"Were it not for this program, our intelligence
community believes that al-Qaida and its allies
would have succeeded in launching another attack
against the American homeland."
Releasing information declassified just hours
earlier, Bush said the capture of one terrorist
just months after the Sept. 11 attacks had led
to the capture of another and then another,
and had revealed planning for attacks using
airplanes, car bombs and anthrax.
Nearing the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, Bush
pressed Congress to quickly pass
administration-drafted legislation authorizing
the use of military commissions for trials of
terror suspects. Legislation is needed because
the Supreme Court in June said the administration's
plan for trying detainees in military tribunals
violated U.S. and international law.
The president's speech, his third in a recent
series about the war on terror, gave him an
opportunity to shore up his administration's
credentials on national security two months
before congressional elections at a time when
Americans are growing weary of the war in Iraq.
Democrats, hoping to make the elections a
referendum on Bush's policies in Iraq and the
war on terror, urged anew that Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld be made to step down. They
argued that the White House has mishandled the
war, mismanaged the detainee system and failed
to prosecute terrorists.
"Democrats take a back seat to no one in the
fight against terror and using every resource
to strengthen our national security," Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said. "By riding
roughshod over our laws, the Bush administration
has made America less safe and made the war on
terror harder to win."
With the transfer of the 14 men to Guantanamo,
there currently are no detainees being held by
the CIA, Bush said. A senior administration
official said the CIA had detained fewer than
100 suspected terrorists in the history of
the program.
Still, Bush said that "having a CIA program
for questioning terrorists will continue to
be crucial to getting lifesaving information."
Earlier this year, an anti-torture panel at
the United Nations recommended the closure of
Guantanamo and criticized alleged U.S. use of
secret prisons and suspected delivery of
prisoners to foreign countries for questioning.
Some Democrats and human rights groups argued
that the CIA's secret prison system did not
allow monitoring for abuses and they hoped
that it would be shut down.
"He finally acknowledged the elephant in the
room that everybody had always been talking
about," said Jumana Musa, advocacy director
for Amnesty International USA.
"I think what surprised me is he seemed to be
asking Congress to legalize it through statutes,
essentially allowing him to continue to detain
people in secret by sort of putting forth all
this information that they got from these folks
and somehow using that to justify what has been
recognized by U.N. committees as an unlawful act
and contrary to our treaty obligations."
The president declined to disclose the location
or details of the detainees' confinement or the
interrogation techniques.
"I cannot describe the specific methods used -
I think you understand why," Bush said in the
East Room, where families of some of those who
died in the Sept. 11 attacks heartily applauded
him when he promised to finally bring the
perpetrators to justice.
"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."
Bush insisted that the detainees were not
tortured.
"I want to be absolutely clear with our people,
and the world: The United States does not
torture," Bush said. "It's against our laws,
and it's against our values. I have not
authorized it, and I will not authorize it."
Bush said the information from terrorists in
CIA custody has played a role in the capture
or questioning of nearly every senior al-Qaida
member or associate detained by the U.S. and
its allies since the program began.
He said they include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the accused Sept. 11 mastermind, as well as
Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be 9/11
hijacker, and Abu Zubaydah, who was believed
to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many
al-Qaida cells.
He said interrogators have succeeded in
getting information that has helped make
photo identifications, pinpoint terrorist
hiding places, provide ways to make sense
of documents, identify voice recordings and
understand the meaning of terrorist communications,
al-Qaida's travel routes and hiding places.
The administration had refused until now to
acknowledge the existence of CIA prisons.
Bush said he was going public because the
United States has largely completed questioning
the suspects, and also because the CIA program
had been jeopardized by the Supreme Court ruling.
The Supreme Court ruled that prisoner
protections spelled out by the Geneva
Conventions should extend to members of
al-Qaida. In addition to torture and cruel
treatment, the treaties ban "outrages against
personal dignity" and "humiliating and
degrading treatment."
Administration officials said they were
concerned the ruling left U.S. personnel
vulnerable to be prosecuted under the War
Crimes Act because the language under the
Geneva Conventions was so vague.
The Supreme Court ruling put a damper on the
CIA's program, virtually putting the
interrogation of detainees on hold until
such prohibitions like "outrages against
personal dignity" could be defined by law.
"We're not interrogating now because CIA
officials feel like the rules are so vague that
they cannot interrogate without being tried as
war criminals, and that's irresponsible," Bush
said in an interview with "CBS Evening News."
The administration-drafted legislation would
authorize the defense secretary to convene a
military commission with five members, plus
a judge to preside. It would guarantee a
detainee's access to military counsel but
eliminate other rights common in military and
civilian courts. The bill would allow reliable
hearsay and potentially coerced testimony to
be used as evidence in court, as well as the
submission of classified evidence "outside the
presence of the accused."
Senate Republican leaders hailed Bush's proposal.
"It's important to remember these defendants
are not common criminals," said Senate Majority
Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "Rather, many are
terrorists, sworn enemies of the United States."
But Democrats and GOP moderates warned that
the plan would set a dangerous precedent,
ensuring the legislation would not likely
sail through Congress unchanged.
Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and
Lindsey Graham have drafted a rival proposal.
Unlike the administration's plan, the senators'
proposal would allow a defendant to access to
all evidence used against them. The plan by
Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee,
also would prohibit coerced testimony.
Graham, R-S.C., said withholding evidence from
a war criminal sets a dangerous precedent other
nations could follow. "Would I be comfortable
with (an American service member) going to
jail with evidence they never saw? No," Graham
said.
Also on Wednesday, the Pentagon put out a new
Army field manual that spells out appropriate
conduct on issues including prisoner interrogation.
The manual applies to all the armed services but
not the CIA. It bans torture and degrading
treatment of prisoners, for the first time
specifically mentioning forced nakedness,
hooding and other procedures that have become
infamous during the war on terror.
Associated Press writer Anne Plummer Flaherty
contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All right
reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Scum at the Top - Home
E-mail: dwagner2@isd.net
©2007 DJW
Last Modified:
January 15, 2007