WP: CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons

[Pirate Smile]

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons
Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A01

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html

[bettyellen]

1. and they'd prefer not to be held responsible for torturing or killing them

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

2. Very important story

Lots of new info that I've never seen before, like this

Still without a long-term solution, the CIA began sending suspects it captured in the first month or so after Sept. 11 to its longtime partners, the intelligence services of Egypt and Jordan.

A month later, the CIA found itself with hundreds of prisoners who were captured on battlefields in Afghanistan. A short-term solution was improvised. The agency shoved its highest-value prisoners into metal shipping containers set up on a corner of the Bagram Air Base, which was surrounded with a triple perimeter of concertina-wire fencing. Most prisoners were left in the hands of the Northern Alliance, U.S.-supported opposition forces who were fighting the Taliban.

[Rose Siding]

3. Rockefeller went after them on this today, too

-in his floor speech. He's tried more extreme procedural measures to get attn for this, than for the Phase Two report

[earthside]

4. Bush's Gulag

Remember when the Bushites were so upset that Amesty International refered to an 'American gulag'?

The Bushites were right to be concerned because they were feigning outrage to coverup another lie.

This practiced described in the Post article is very dangerous. Because there is no oversight, no outside review, the CIA can sweep up an innocent lawyer in Islamabad and send him to one of these concentration camps perhaps in Bulgaria. No matter how innocent this individual might be, he has no recourse, no redress -- it is illegal kidnapping and imprisonment on an atrociously immoral, unethical, and un-American scale.

Everyone wants real and potential mass murder terrorists caught, but the Declaration of Independence also maintained a base standard of behavior that WE are obligated to practice.

These Soviet-style camps full of prisoners rounded up Nazi-style is yet another example of how low the Bushites and radical Republicans have taken our country. We cannot be rid of Bush and Cheney and the rest of these thugs soon enough!

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

5. we will never be rid of these thugs---never--they intend to stay

there will be no more elections--
seriously,
--->look forward to an "event" that allows them reason to "postpone" elections
--->and count on it for sure ---once postponed, elections will never occur again--

we will be in some sort of perpetual never ending "war"
for the duration of our country's existence...
and possibly for the duration of the earth's existence-

I ASK:
who's going to stop them?

.

[goforit]

14. Well...If 70% Americans HATE Bush...Well its time to arrest and convict

ASAP.

Impeachment means nada, nunc,......nothing.

It's just a public expression.

[hvn_nbr_2]

17. Bush's Gulag (great term), and we're becoming Bushistan.

Or should it be GOPistan or Republicanistan?

[thebigidea]

6. Sy Hersh was on this a year ago. The WP? They were hiding torture pics

fuck those enabling assholes - to this day, they are sitting on hundreds more of those photos.

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. So We Still "Waterboard" Prisoners?

Nice:

Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.

[High Plains]

8. A global system of covert prisons...

That's really charming.

What's that old Jefferson quote? "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

[The Stranger]

18. Jefferson also said "The Tree of Liberty must be watered . . . "

[dutchdemocrat]

9. In Europe - shit will hit the fan...

If Porter Goss and John Negroponte have set up these black holes in Poland. Hell is going to break loose in the Brussels. We have very strict laws regarding civil and human rights, and the EU won't stand for this. There is no way that a member state can be permitted to have extrajudicial gulags.

ON EDIT: This is an extremely important story... please vote it up...

[amandabeech]

10. If these prisons are in EU applicant countries, like Bulgaria or Romania,

then those countires should have great difficulty in joining.

Also, it is not clear that just the host countries of the prisons are involved. Other countries may be involved as transit points and routes. As pointed out in the Daily Kos thread discussing this story, the Czech Republic has been a stopover flight for military flights from Iraq. If prisoners were deplaned there and sent to say, Bulgaria, then the Czech Republic and any other countries through which those prisoners traveled might receive the deserved wrath of the EU.

What if the prisons are located in Turkey? A bit of Turkey is in Eastern Europe. Could "Eastern Europe" be the equivalent of Scooter Libby's nom de guerre of "former Congressional aide?"

[Nothing Without Hope]

11. Very important. And many articles on torture are now coming out

The dam is bursting at last, I believe.

Recommended.

[spinbaby]

12. vote it up in yahoo

http://tinyurl.com/buj5g

[goforit]

13. Bush's CIA operatives...Clear distinction between Bad &Good CIA ops

[enough]

15. United States of America: Soviet Union to the globe.

[Spazito]

16. I am glad to see the truth finally coming out

How long before the U.S., because of the actions of the bush cabal, is officially called a 'rogue' nation? Actions like this certainly earn that designation, imo.

[AZBlue]

19. Convenient timing. WH evil strikes again!

I'm not condoning what the CIA has done. However, we need to recognize this for the pure political game that it is.

The White House was angered that the CIA "got" them on the outing of Valerie Plame via Libby's indictments. So, the WH strikes back. This isn't new information - it's just newly leaked.

These people are pure evil.:evilfrown:

[Up2Late]

20. But isn't this the same thing the ACLU, Human Rights Watch....

...Amnisty International and several other Human Rights groups have been screaming about for years now! Why is this just now getting coverage?

Anyway, this has hit the National and World news big time, I heard it reported in the Hourly headlines on NPR today, and here is the Reuters report:

CIA runs secret terrorism prisons abroad: report

Wed Nov 2, 2005 08:53 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, part of a covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The Soviet-era compound is part of a network that has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand and Afghanistan, the newspaper reported, citing U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

Thailand denied it was host to such a facility. "There is no fact in the unfounded claims," government spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee said.

The newspaper said the existence and locations of the facilities were known only to a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country. The CIA has not acknowledged the existence of a secret prison network, the Post said. A CIA spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The prisons are referred to as "black sites" in classified U.S. documents and virtually nothing is known about who the detainees are, how they are interrogated or about decisions on how long they will be held, the report said. About 30 major terrorism suspects have been held at black sites while more than 70 other detainees, considered less important, were delivered to foreign intelligence services under a process known as "rendition," the paper said, citing U.S. and foreign intelligence sources.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=10137682&src=rss/topNews>
(more at link above)

[guruoo]

21. CIA using secret prisons (in eastern Europe): report

CIA uses secret prisons abroad: report

By Joanne Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has been hiding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, part of a covert global prison system that has included sites in eight countries and was set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The secret network included "several democracies in Eastern Europe" as well as Thailand and Afghanistan, the newspaper reported, but it did not publish the names of the European countries at the request of senior U.S. officials.

U.S. government officials declined comment on the report, but it was likely to stir up fresh criticism of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners in its declared war on terrorism since the September 11 attacks. Russia and Bulgaria immediately denied any facility was there. Thailand also denied it was host to such a facility.

The newspaper, which said its report was based on information from U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, said the existence and locations of the facilities were known only to a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

<snip>
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20051102%2F1207834951.htm&sc=rontz&photoid=SGE.BTZ96.021105174416.photo00&floc=NW_1-T

[sasquatch]

22. Nominated

This should be on the front page.

[saigon68]

23. MORE OF THIS THUG BEHAVIOR

[indepat]

24. Houston: is ther a pattern and problem here?

[spinbaby]

25. This morning's thread on the same topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1893606

[daleo]

26. I imagine there are quite a number of gulags, left over from Stalin days

Bush just seems to have a thing for imitating famous dictators, doesn't he?

He even manages to imitate their wives (Marie Antoinette - Bush eating cake while N.O. sank).

[enough]

27. kick