By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published November 16, 2003
<snip> Under a practice known as "extraordinary rendition," the CIA is delivering terror suspects into the hands of foreign intelligence services without extradition proceedings. According to the Post, the authority to do this comes from a secret "finding" by the president.
Suspects have been sent to Syria, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan, countries whose abusive practices have been documented and condemned by the State Department's annual human rights report. "We don't kick the s-- out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the s-- out of them," an unnamed official who had participated in the rendering of prisoners told the Post. Along with the prisoner, the CIA provides the foreign intelligence services a list of questions it wants answered.
Torture is illegal in the United States, by law, Constitution and international convention. Not only may the United States not engage in the practice - even in wartime - the law explicitly prohibits sending a person to another nation where there is good reason to believe he might be tortured.
This is why the administration has been so cagey about its tactics. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has been trying to get answers, but the administration officially denies what it is doing. "United States policy is to obtain specific assurances from the receiving country that it will not torture the individual being transferred to that country," wrote William Haynes II, general counsel of the Defense Department, in response to Leahy's queries. <snip>
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/16/Columns/Delivering_people_int.shtml