Bush's CIA Suspected of More Torture

consortiumnews.com

April 8, 2009

The Bush administration may have abused or tortured many more detainees at secret CIA prisons than the 14 "high-value" terror suspects already known, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a confidential report.

Because the ICRC's report is more than two years old--and because the ICRC still considers its contents confidential--it is not clear if the CIA has since provided more information on the whereabouts of those transferred detainees. The ICRC report noted that the organization--as of February 2007--"has been able to begin discussions with the CIA on this question."

However, documents that were released in other investigations reveal that the Bush administration conducted a kind of shell game with ICRC representatives to conceal the treatment and even the existence of some detainees.

Guantanamo Tricks

Last year, the Senate Armed Services Committee released dozens of pages of internal government documents related to the treatment of detainees and the conversations that preceded the implementation of "enhanced interrogation techniques" at the Guantanamo Bay prison, which was under the control of the Department of Defense.

One document was a copy of the minutes of an Oct. 2, 2002, meeting at which Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, then the chief military lawyer at Guantanamo whose responsibilities included working with the ICRC, discussed concealing abusive interrogation tactics when ICRC officials visited.

"We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around,"  Beaver said, according to the minutes. "It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques."

"We have had many reports from Bagram [detention center in Afghanistan] about sleep deprivation being used," responded Dave Becker of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"True, but officially it is not happening,"- Beaver said. "It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative attention."

Jonathan Fredman, who was the chief counsel for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, noted that the "the CIA is not held to the same rules as the military" when it comes to using aggressive techniques to interrogate detainees.

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