[Ppnews] CIA to Close Secret Prisons for Terror Suspects

[Political Prisoner News]

April 10, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/world/10detain.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

C.I.A. to Close Secret Prisons for Terror Suspects

By 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/scott_shane/index.html?inline=nyt-per>SCOTT 
SHANE

WASHINGTON ­ The 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Central 
Intelligence Agency said Thursday that it would 
decommission the secret overseas prisons where it 
subjected 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Al 
Qaeda prisoners to brutal 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/cia_interrogations/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>interrogation 
methods, bringing to a symbolic close the most 
controversial counterterrorism program of the Bush administration.

But in a statement to employees, the agency’s 
director, 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/leon_e_panetta/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Leon 
E. Panetta, said agency officers who worked in 
the program “should not be investigated, let 
alone punished” because the Justice Department 
under President 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/george_w_bush/index.html?inline=nyt-per>George 
W. Bush had declared their actions legal.

Mr. Panetta and other top Obama administration 
officials have said they believe that 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/torture/waterboarding/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>waterboarding, 
the near-drowning method used in 2002 and 2003 on 
three prisoners, is torture, which is illegal 
under American and international law. The 
International Committee of the Red Cross, which 
interviewed 14 prisoners, said in a report made 
public this week that prisoners were also 
repeatedly slammed into walls, forced to stand 
for days with their arms handcuffed to the 
ceiling, confined in small boxes and held in frigid cells.

Mr. Panetta said the secret detention facilities 
were no longer in operation, but he suggested 
that security and maintenance had been continuing 
at the sites at the taxpayers’ expense since they 
were emptied under Mr. Bush in 2006. Terminating 
security contracts at the sites would save “at 
least $4 million,” Mr. Panetta said.

The C.I.A. has never revealed the location of its 
so-called black sites overseas, but intelligence 
officials, aviation records and news reports have 
placed them in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, 
Romania and Jordan, among other countries. Agency 
officials have said that fewer than 100 prisoners 
have been held since the program was created in 
2002, and about 30 were subjected to what the 
C.I.A. called “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

Mr. Bush transferred the remaining 14 prisoners 
to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba in 2006 but ordered 
some sites maintained for future use; only two 
Qaeda prisoners are known to have been held for several months since then.

In his first week in office, 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per>President 
Obama banned coercive interrogations and ordered 
the C.I.A. program closed. Mr. Panetta said that 
the C.I.A. had not detained any terrorism 
suspects since he took office in February and 
added that any suspects captured in the future 
would be quickly turned over to the American 
military or to a suspect’s home country.

Joanne Mariner, the director of the terrorism and 
counterterrorism program at 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/human_rights_watch/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Human 
Rights Watch, said the closing of the C.I.A. 
prisons was “incredibly heartening and 
important.” But she said that a criminal 
investigation of the 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/cia_interrogations/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>C.I.A. 
interrogation program was nonetheless necessary, 
and she expressed concern that Mr. Panetta had 
not made clear what evidence the C.I.A. would need to detain a suspect.

Mr. Panetta’s statement, along with a classified 
letter about interrogation policy that he sent 
Thursday to the Senate and House intelligence 
oversight committees, underscored the new 
administration’s sharp break with policies that 
Mr. Bush and Vice President 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/dick_cheney/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Dick 
Cheney often credited with preventing a repeat of 
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

By contrast, President Obama and Vice President 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_r_jr_biden/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Joseph 
R. Biden Jr. insist that the use of techniques 
they describe as torture betrayed American 
values, alienated allies and became a recruiting 
tool for Al Qaeda. A task force is now studying 
what interrogation methods should be permitted 
and how to ensure that prisoners turned over to 
other countries will not be mistreated.

In his statement, Mr. Panetta vowed to continue 
the “global pursuit” of Al Qaeda and its allies 
but said interrogators would use traditional methods and not physical force.

“C.I.A. officers, whose knowledge of terrorist 
organizations is second to none, will continue to 
conduct debriefings using a dialogue style of 
questioning,” Mr. Panetta wrote. He said C.I.A. 
officers were required to report abuse, even if 
it were carried out by a cooperating foreign intelligence service.

Mr. Panetta also said the agency would no longer 
use contractors to conduct interrogations. Former 
military psychologists working under contract for 
the C.I.A. helped devise and conduct the previous 
harsh interrogations, according to former agency 
officials. Senator 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/dianne_feinstein/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Dianne 
Feinstein, Democrat of California and the 
chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, 
had proposed legislation barring contractors from 
conducting interrogations, saying the job was too important to outsource.

The Senate committee recently began an 
investigation of the C.I.A. detention and 
interrogation program, and senior Senate and 
House members have called for a broader and more 
public “truth commission” to investigate past counterterrorism programs.

Mr. Panetta said that the agency would cooperate 
with Congressional reviews but said that 
“fairness and wisdom” should dictate against a 
criminal investigation or other sanctions.

The C.I.A. statement comes at a time of 
continuing debate inside the Obama administration 
over which classified documents related to the 
agency’s interrogation program should be made 
public. After several delays, the Justice 
Department now has until April 16 to decide 
whether to make public legal opinions justifying the C.I.A.’s harsh methods.

Attorney General 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/eric_h_holder_jr/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Eric 
H. Holder Jr. has argued for the release of the 
opinions and related documents, but some current 
and former C.I.A. officials say they believe that 
wholesale disclosures could harm counterterrorism 
efforts and hurt morale at the agency.




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