Source: CBS
President Obama pushed back at Republican criticisms on Iran and comments on the practice of waterboarding discussed at the CBS News/National Journal debate. Bill Plante reports.

This article titled “28 hours in the dark heart of Egypt’s torture machine” was written by Robert Tait, for The Guardian on Wednesday 9th February 2011 21.30 UTC

The sickening, rapid click-click-clicking of the electric shock device sounded like an angry rattlesnake as it passed within inches of my face. Then came a scream of agony, followed by a pitiful whimpering from the handcuffed, blindfolded victim as the force of the shock propelled him across the floor.

A hail of vicious punches and kicks rained down on the prone bodies next to me, creating loud thumps. The torturers screamed abuse all around me. Only later were their chilling words translated to me by an Arabic-speaking colleague: “In this hotel, there are only two items on the menu for those who don’t behave – electrocution and rape.”

Cuffed and blindfolded, like my fellow detainees, I lay transfixed. My palms sweated and my heart raced. I felt myself shaking. Would it be my turn next? Or would my outsider status, conferred by holding a British passport, save me? I suspected – hoped – that it would be the latter and, thankfully, it was. But I could never be sure.

I had “disappeared”, along with countless Egyptians, inside the bowels of the Mukhabarat, President Hosni Mubarak’s vast security-intelligence apparatus and an organisation headed, until recently, by his vice-president and former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, the man trusted to negotiate an “orderly transition” to democratic rule.

Judging by what I witnessed, that seems a forlorn hope.

I had often wondered, reading accounts of political prisoners detained and tortured in places such as junta-run Argentina of the 1970s, what it would be like to be totally at the mercy of, and dependent on, your jailer for everything – food, water, the toilet. I never dreamed I would find out. Yet here I was, cooped up in a tiny room with a group of Egyptian detainees who were being mercilessly brutalised.

I had been handed over to the security services after being stopped at a police checkpoint near central Cairo last Friday. I had flown there, along with an Iraqi-born British colleague, Abdelilah Nuaimi, to cover Egypt’s unfolding crisis for RFE/RL, an American radio station based in Prague.

We knew beforehand that foreign journalists had been targeted by security services as they scrambled to contain a revolt against Mubarak’s regime, so our incarceration was not unique.

Yet it was different. My experience, while highly personal, wasn’t really about me or the foreign media. It was about gaining an insight – if that is possible behind a blindfold – into the inner workings of the Mubarak regime. It told me all I needed to know about why it had become hated, feared and loathed by the mass of ordinary Egyptians.

We had been stopped en route to Tahrir Square, scene of the ongoing mass demonstrations, little more than half an hour after leaving Cairo airport.

Uniformed and plainclothes police swarmed around our car and demanded our passports and to see inside my bag. A satellite phone was found and one of the men got in our car and ordered our driver to follow a vehicle in front, which led us to a nearby police station.

There, an officer subjected our fixer, Ahmed, to intense questioning: did he know any Palestinians? Were they members of Hamas? Then we were ordered to move again, and eventually drove to a vast, unmarked complex next to a telecommunications building.

That’s when Ahmed sensed real danger. “I hope I don’t get beaten up,” he said. He had good reason to worry.

We were ordered out and blindfolded before being herded into another vehicle and driven a few hundred yards. Then we were pushed into what seemed like an open-air courtyard and handcuffed. I heard the rapid-fire clicking of the electric rattlesnake – I knew instantly what it was – and then Ahmed screaming in pain. A cold sweat washed over me and I thought I might faint or vomit. “I’m going to be tortured,” I thought.

But I wasn’t. “Mr Robert, what is wrong,” I was asked, before being told, with incongruous kindness, to sit down. I sensed then that I would avoid the worst. But I didn’t expect to gain such intimate knowledge of what that meant.

After being interrogated and held in one room for hours, I was frogmarched after nightfall to another room, upstairs, along with other prisoners. We believe our captors were members of the internal security service.

That’s when the violence – and the terror – really began.

At first, I attached no meaning to the dull slapping sounds. But comprehension dawned as, amid loud shouting, I heard the electric shock rods being ratcheted up. My colleague, Abdelilah – kept in a neighbouring room – later told me what the torturers said next.

“Get the electric shocks ready. This lot are to be made to really suffer,” a guard said as a new batch of prisoners were brought in.

“Why did you do this to your country?” a jailer screamed as he tormented his victim. “You are not to speak in here, do you understand?” one prisoner was told. He did not reply. Thump. “Do you understand?” Still no answer. More thumps. “Do you understand?” Prisoner: “Yes, I understand.” Torturer: “I told you not to speak in here,” followed by a cascade of thumps, kicks, and electric shocks.

Exhausted, the prisoners fell asleep and snored loudly, provoking another round of furious assaults. “You’re committing a sin,” a stricken detainee said in a weak, pitiful voice.

Craving to see my fellow inmates, I discreetly adjusted my blindfold. I briefly saw three young men – two of them looked like Islamists, with bushy beards – with their hands cuffed behind their backs (mine were cuffed to the front), before my captors spotted what I had done and tightened my blindfold.

The brutality continued until, suddenly, I was ordered to stand and pushed towards a room, where I was told I was being taken to the airport. I received my possessions and looked at my watch. It was 5pm. I had been in captivity for 28 hours.

The ordeal was almost over – save for another 16 hours waiting at an airport deportation facility. It had been nightmarish but it was nothing to what my Egyptian fellow-captives had endured.

Later, I learned that Ahmed, the fixer, had been released at the same time as Abdelilah and me. He told friends we had been “treated very well” but that he had bruises “from sleeping on the floor”. I had flown to Cairo to find out what was ailing so many Egyptians. I did not expect to learn the answer so graphically.

Robert Tait is a senior correspondent with RFE/RL. He was formerly the Guardian’s correspondent in Tehran and Istanbul

• This article was amended on 10 February 2011 to remove references to electrocution (killing by electric shock). These have been corrected to ‘electric shock’.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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This article titled “UK linked to notorious Bangladesh torture centre” was written by Ian Cobain, and Fariha Karim in Dhaka, for The Guardian on Monday 17th January 2011 21.47 UTC

UK authorities passed information about British nationals to notorious Bangladeshi intelligence agencies and police units, then pressed for information while the men were being held at a secret interrogation centre where inmates are known to have died under torture.

A Guardian investigation into counter-terrorism co-operation between the UK and Bangladesh has revealed a detailed picture of the last Labour government’s reliance on overseas intelligence agencies that were known to use torture.

Meetings and exchanges of information took place between British and Bangladeshi officials in an effort to protect the UK from attacks that might be fomented in Bangladesh, according to sources in both countries.

The likelihood that a number of suspects would be tortured as a result of the meetings went unmentioned, according to the sources. Subsequently, more than a dozen men of dual British-Bangladeshi nationality were placed under investigation, and at least some suffered horrific abuse from the Bangladeshi authorities.

At one point Jacqui Smith, then home secretary, flew to Dhaka for face-to-face meetings with senior officials from one agency, the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), whose use of torture had been the subject of a detailed report by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based NGO, less than eight weeks earlier. Seven months before the visit, a report prepared by Smith’s own department had documented the widespread concern about the routine use of torture in Bangladesh. Smith spoke publicly during the visit about the dangers that could be posed by dual nationals; privately, according to a senior DGFI counter-terrorism officer, she urged that the agency investigate a number of individuals about whom the British were suspicious.

In September it emerged that in recent years MI5 and MI6 have always asked the home secretary or foreign secretary for permission before conducting any information exchange where there was a risk of an individual being tortured. Smith, her successor Alan Johnson and David Miliband, the foreign secretary during the period of the joint UK-Bangladeshi counter-terrorism campaign, have declined to answer questions about the matter.

A number of the British suspects were taken to the secret interrogation centre, known as the Task Force for Interrogation cell (TFI). The location of the TFI and the methods employed by those who work there became clear during the Guardian investigation, with both former inmates and intelligence officials speaking out about its operations.

Faisal Mostafa, from Manchester, was taken to the TFI after Smith’s visit to Dhaka and is alleged to have been forced to stand upright for the first six days of his incarceration, with his wrists shackled to bars above his head. He is then alleged to have then been beaten and subjected to electric shocks while being questioned about Bangladeshi associates. At the point at which he was to be questioned about his associates and activities in the UK, he is said to have been blindfolded and strapped to a chair while a drill was slowly driven into his right shoulder and hip.

This abuse during questioning about the UK is said to have been repeated on a number of occasions. The Guardian has seen evidence that supports the allegation that he was tortured in this manner. The report prepared by Smith’s own department povides warning that the paramilitary police unit that seized this man used precisely this method of torture.

Matiur Rahman, deputy chief of operations at the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the police unit that detained the man, said: “The British were interested in him for some time. There was an assumption he was part of an international network. They gave information to us, and we gave information to them.”

After being tortured for several weeks the man spent almost a year in jail before being freed on bail and allowed to return to the UK.

A second man, Gulam Mustafa, from Birmingham, was being held in Bangladesh during Smith’s visit, and was released before being held a second time last April. He says he was tortured on both occasions while being questioned about associates in the UK, with his interrogators beating him, subjecting him to electric shocks and crushing his knees. He was eventually transferred to a prison hospital, where he was treated for injuries suffered he suffered during interrogation.Bangladeshi police officers who arrested him the second time say his first arrest had been at the request of MI6. “When we received the file from his first arrest from RAB, it was marked ‘MI6 File’,” said one senior detective. He added that when this man was arrested for the second time, officials from the British high commission in Dhaka contacted police and asked to be debriefed on the results of his interrogation. “They wanted maximum information.” he said.

A third man, Jamil Rahman, from Swansea, is suing the Home Office, alleging that MI5 was complicit in his torture after he was arrested in 2005 and allegedly tortured in between interrogation by two British intelligence officers.

Smith said she would not answer questions “about the timings of any specific authorisations she may or may not have given the security service”. She declined to say whether she accepted that individuals would be at risk of torture when she asked the Bangladeshi authorities to investigate them. Johnson refused to answer any questions about the matter.

Miliband failed to answer a series of questions about dual nationals investigated in Bangladesh, and about any role he played in granting permission for MI6 to be involved in their cases. A spokeswoman issued a statement on his behalf which said that there were no Foreign Office papers showing that ministers were asked to sanction the arrest of Faisal Mostafa or Gulam Mustafa. She added: “David would never ever sanction torture and it is completely wrong to suggest, imply, or leave a shadow of a doubt otherwise. The UK has detailed procedures that uphold the moral and legal conduct of the intelligence agencies and those responsible for them. When David was Foreign Secretary he followed them scrupulously.”

The Foreign Office said both Mostafa and Mustafa had been offered consular assistance, and reiterated the government’s position on torture. “The government have made absolutely clear in the Coalition’s Programme for Government that we will never condone the use of torture,” a spokesman said. “We take all allegations of torture and mistreatment very seriously, and – where we have permission to do so from the individual concerned – raise them with the relevant authorities. Our security cooperation with other countries is consistent with our laws and values.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

The ACLU is asking the DOJ to prosecute former President Bush over his admission that he authorized waterboarding.

I’m not surprised they’re asking and I have no doubt Holder would love to prosecute Bush. That said, it ain’t gonna happen.

President Bush is a great American who did whatever it took to keep this country safe.

I meant to post this yesterday, but I forgot. Over the weekend Fox News host Judge Andrew Napolitano was on CSPAN to talk about his new book “Lies The Government Told You.” He was interviewed by Ralph Nader. It was all down hill from there.

Napolitano said Bush and Cheney should have been brought up on charges for torture and spying while still in office. He can’t understand why more lawyers aren’t still trying to put them in jail.

He went on to praise the awful left-wing book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” by his “good friend” Vincent Bugliosi.

The judge also gave credence to the lefty meme that Bush “lied us into war.”

I’m still looking for the entire program where he says all of that and more, but for now here’s a little taste.

This via CNS News:

Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the 9-11 commission report, was the mastermind of the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

Nashiri was also the target of an "unauthorized" CIA interrogation technique (that had not been legally vetted by the Justice Department) that is described in a May 7, 2004, CIA inspector general’s report that was partially declassified by the Obama administration this week.

CIA officers blew smoke in Nashiri’s face, according to the report, and they used cigars.

The IG’s office described this smoke-blowing as one of several "unauthorized or undocumented techniques" it discovered had been used in isolated incidents by CIA employees interrogating high-level al-Qaida terrorists.

"An Agency (redacted phrase) interrogator admitted that, in December 2002, he and another (redacted phrase) smoked cigars and blew cigar smoke in al-Nashiri’s face during the interrogation," said the IG report.

I know it sounds like a brutal war crime, but the interrogators had a reason for blowing smoke:

"The interrogator claimed they did this to ‘cover the stench’ in the room and to help keep the interrogators alert late at night," said the IG report. "This interrogator said he would not do this again based on ‘perceived criticism.’ Another agency interrogator admitted that he also smoked cigars during two sessions with al-Nashiri to mask the stench in the room. He claimed he did not deliberately force smoke into al-Nashiri’s face." The interrogators learned their lesson: Don’t blow smoke at terrorists.

Only in America could something this absurd actually be real. Second-hand smoke is considered an “unauthorized” interrogation technique?

I guess if you happen to break wind in front of a detainee you have to report that as well.

What he should have done is put that cigar out in al-Nashiri’s eye. Now that’s what I call an “unauthorized” technique. Oh yeah!!!

-Chris Jones

Attorney General Eric Holder has been salivating at the chance to prosecute someone for “torturing” terrorists after 9/11 and it looks like he’s getting ready to do just that.

What Holder will soon find out is that he’s badly miscalculated public opinion on this issue. He’s expecting public outrage to grow after releasing the previously classified AG report that lists detainee abuses, but there will be no outrage.

The vast majority of Americans have a lot to worry about right now with the economy in the shitter, etc. Whether or not the CIA roughed up some terrorists after they knocked our buildings down is just not something most people are concerned about.

Some of the allegations against the CIA interrogators include threatening one terrorist with a gun, threatening to kill the mother and children of a terrorist, mock executions, and other seemingly useful techniques.

Why should anyone care if the CIA threatened to kill the children of 9/11 mastermind KSM? We didn’t touch his children — we just threatened him with that to get him to talk. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

It seems logical that you would threaten the lives of the people closest to the terrorist you’re interrogating.

If you have a gun handy, why would you not threaten the person you’re interrogating with it?

This administration has no idea what kind of shit storm they’re unleashing with this political witch hunt. Fortunately, this makes it all the more likely that Barack Obama will be a one-term president.

Then we can get back to the business of killing the enemy and gathering intelligence.

Liberal pundit Lanny Davis who’s on record as opposing any Bush-era prosecutions has changed his mind — at least about Cheney.

Davis now says he’s in favor of at least prosecuting Dick Cheney since he’s been so out front about authorizing “torture” (his word) and declaring Obama weak for abolishing it.

I agree with Lanny on this one. I’m fully in favor of whatever prosecutions the dems deem necessary.

I just wonder who’s going to be left after all the dust settles. Nancy Pelosi and her liberal colleagues were complicit in the so-called torture so it could get ugly.

To borrow a line from the 43rd president, bring it on.

Here’s yet another example of extreme hypocrisy from democrats.

Take a listen to Sen. Charles Schumer endorsing actual torture depending on the situation…

Come on democrats, let’s get those show trials underway. What are you waiting for?

It looks like the Obama administrations attempt to smear the Bush administration by releasing the “torture” memos has taken on a life its own.

After telling Sean Hannity that he intends to push for declassification of documents showing what was gained from enhanced interrogation — has done just that.

Dick Cheney personally filled out forms in his own hand and submitted it the National Archives’ Presidential Libraries requesting that two specific documents be declassified.

The forms have since been forwarded to the CIA for processing.

This is starting to get good.