[lbo-talk] CIA chief backs rendtion flights

[ken hanly]

 With policies such as this that results in innocents
being rendered and tortured such as Arar and El-Masri
anti-Americanism is bound to increase worldwide,
especially when the US continues to use rhetoric about
spreading justice and the rule of law globally.
   THe evidence that the policies even work is
questionable. We are supposed to rely upon the word of
someone who can't say whether waterboarding is
torture.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

CIA chief backs rendition flights  
 
Mr Hayden staunchly defended "special methods of
questioning" 
The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency,
General Michael Hayden, has defended the methods it
uses to interrogate terror suspects. 
Gen Hayden said programmes such as extraordinary
rendition produced what he said was irreplaceable
intelligence. 

Under the programme, terror suspects are transported
to secret prisons in countries with less stringent
interrogation rules. 

Mr Hayden, speaking in Chicago, said the leads gained
justified rendition. 

"The irreplaceable nature of that intelligence is the
sole reason why we have what I admit freely is a very
controversial programme." 

The CIA had produced thousands of intelligence reports
from the "fewer than 100 hardened terrorists" detained
since 2002, Mr Hayden told the Chicago Council on
Global Affairs. 

'Water-boarding' controversy 

His comments came as President George Bush's nominee
for US attorney general came under fire for his
position on interrogation techniques. 

 
Michael Mukasey was grilled by the Senate Judiciary
Committee 

Nominee Michael Mukasey condemned one technique,
water-boarding, as "repugnant" and possibly "over the
line," but declined to explicitly rule it out as
torture, saying he could not speculate on classified
procedures. 

Water-boarding simulates drowning by immobilizing a
prisoner with his head lower than his feet and pouring
water over his face. 

Leading Democrats in the Senate have threatened to
block Mr Mukasey's confirmation if he does not
explicitly rule out water-boarding as illegal. 

When asked to comment about Mr Mukasey's statement, Mr
Hayden avoided a clear answer. 

"Judge Mukasey cannot nor can I answer your question
in the abstract. I need to understand the totality of
the circumstances in which this question is being
posed before I can give you an answer," he said. 



 


Blog:  http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html
Blog:  http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html