Tag: CIA

Originally posted at The Public Record and Truthout

A number of new articles have been published recently that have highlighted evidence of illegal human experimentation on U.S.-held “terrorism” prisoners undergoing torture. These articles followed the release of a “white paper” by Physicians for Human Rights [PHR], Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General’s Report.

This report looks at those recent charges, and reveals that experiments by a CIA researcher on human subjects undergoing SERE training went unreported in the legal memos the Bush administration drafted to approve their torture program. It will also connect major military and intelligence figures to the SERE experiments, and tie some of them to major science and “experimental” directorates at the CIA and Special Operations Command.

On the heals of  What were they hiding? concerning the torture policies of the cheney/bush administration/CIA/Private Contractors/Military, the George Washington University National Security Archives brings a slew of documents on the CIA and Vietnam conflict years, before our invasion, during and after.

In the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General’s 2004 report on Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (PDF) is this passage stating “inhumane… detention and interrogation techniques were used”. In addition, a CIA contractor killed “an individual” at Asadabad Base in Afghanistan “while under interrogation” in June 2003.

258 . (TS Unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques were used referred to the Department of Justice (DoJ) for potential prosecution. incident will be the subject of a separate Report of Investigation by the Office of Inspector General.

unauthorized techniques were used in the interrogation of an individual who died at Asadabad Base while under interrogation by an Agency contractor in June 2003. Agency officers did not normally conduct interrogations at that location the Agency officers involved lacked timely and adequate guidance, training, experience, supervision, or authorization, and did not exercise sound judgment.

The argument had been no one died while being interrogated tortured, but the OIG’s report contradicts that. Not only that, but “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques were used”.

At the time the Abu Ghraib photos became known, the NY Times identified the person killed at Asadabad as Abdul Wali.

The third death under investigation at the C.I.A. occurred in Afghanistan in June 2003. The dead man was named Abdul Wali, a former local commander who had fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980’s and turned himself in to American forces last June in Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan. He died while being interrogated by an independent contract employee of the C.I.A.

Wali surrendered to the U.S. and was then killed by a CIA contractor named David Passaro. According to the News and Observer, he is serving eight years for beating Wali resulting in his death.

Well, it looks as though we will be getting half a loaf today in regards to torture accountability. The Washington Post is reporting that Attorney General Eric Holder is going to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate about 12 instances where intelligence agents and contractors appear to have exceeded the guidance of the spurious Bybee and Yoo Torture Memo’s. While this is a good thing in and of itself, it is not really a good thing for long term torture accountability. Come on below the flip and the Dog will lay out why we should not get too excited about this.  

I’ve long since quit watching CNN but sometimes when I’m flipping through channels I catch a little piece of it here and there.  The other day I was subjected to an outraged, absolutely outraged Wolf Blitzer confronting Scotland’s equivalent of our Attorney General over the release of the man convicted of being the main perpetrator of the Lockerbie plane bombing.  Wolfie just went on and on about “mass murderers!” and the like, totally ignoring the fact that our own country is engaged in the business of slaughtering far more innocent people, in an ongoing consistent fashion, than any terrorist’s wildest dreams.

Nevertheless, there was never any doubt whatsoever in Wolfie’s little shrink-wrapped brain about the actual guilt of the man in question.   No, he was the “lone gunman”, he was the absolute nexus of evil in this case, right?   The Scottish guy was pretty interesting, he never wavered, never bought into the emotion, and was quick to admit that yes, this was the man convicted.  He never said the guy did it, he just said he was “convicted”.   Which is certainly true.  He was convicted.  

Well why don’t we take a little trip into The Memory Hole about this case, just for the pure rollicking heck of it, not that it will matter, but I’d just like to share a few little tidbits regarding this case that most people don’t even think about anymore, except of course for the families of those killed, as Wolfie was pointing out ad nauseum to the Scottish fellow.

It was claimed some time ago that key evidence in the Lockerbie case was in fact planted by the CIA:

http://www.independent.co.uk/n…

Crucial evidence against two Libyans for the Lockerbie bombing was planted by the CIA, it was claimed in the Commons yesterday.

A fragment of circuit board alleged to have been part of the bomb’s timing mechanism is the sole item of physical evidence linking the two Libyans to the December 1988 bombing. But Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow, declared: “I have come to suspect that the timing device in question was not that of Pan Am 103 but a different timing device that the CIA had picked up from the Libyans … I have been driven to the conclusion that the device was a CIA plant.”

Mr Dalyell, a long-standing critic of US and British government insistence that Libya was behind the attack, said an analysis of the fragment had shown it had been exposed to a temperature of 4,000deg C. But a Swiss police specialist had cast doubt on this, saying the explosion would have lasted only a fraction of a second in outside air temperatures of about minus 40C.

Accusing the Crown Office, the Scottish prosecuting authority, of failing to follow up the right leads, Mr Dalyell said – to strident denials from Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, the Scottish Office minister – that it had allowed itself for six years “to be suborned by political pressure into failing to carry out its duty”.

He said this was a “wicked” dereliction of duty that brought shame on Britain.

Crossposted from Antemedius

Ray McGovern is a retired CIA officer. McGovern was employed under seven US presidents for over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. McGovern was born and raised in the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University, received an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and graduated from Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

In this interview McGovern talks with Real News Network CEO Paul Jay about the paper trail on the Iraq war, as revealed in the British “Downing Street Memo”.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…

The CIA has been secretly pressuring the British Government to help it cover up its use of torture, documents filed in the High Court have revealed.

The documents, to be discussed at a hearing this week, suggest that the UK authorities did everything they could to accede to the CIA’s wishes while at the same time trying to conceal the fact they were talking to the agency.

It is the latest twist in the saga of Binyam Mohamed, 30, the Ethiopian UK resident released from Guantanamo Bay in February after seven years in US captivity.

Binyan Mohammed was the guy who wasn’t waterboarded, but had his genitals mutilated instead.  That’s right, the United States sliced up this guy’s penis.  Here’s a little background on the guy:

Joby Warrick and Peter Finn have a new article in Sunday's Washington Post. The story summarizes some of the competing narratives offered by different participants in the interrogation of alleged Al Qaeda terrorist, Abu Zubaida. (AZ was later admitted to not be an Al Qaeda member by various intelligence agency spokesmen.)

The entire article deserves close reading, the kind reserved for tea leaves, for through the varying narrative threads one can discern attempts by the differing agencies and actors involved to present their actions in the best possible light. In the end, no one comes out looking very good. The article reads like a summary of an internal dispute among gangsters.