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Argos Media

Pelosi and CIA Clash Over Contents of Key Briefing - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB124231488742119859.html

CIA Torture Nancy Pelosi

shared by Argos Media on 15 May 09 - Cached
  • he top congressional Democrat on Thursday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of deceiving her about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.
  • The accusation pits House Speaker Nancy Pelosi against the CIA in a war of words over whether she was specifically told in September 2002 that waterboarding was being used on detainees. Republicans accuse her of being hypocritical for criticizing Bush-era interrogation techniques, and say she should have spoken out against them when she was first briefed if she opposed their use.
  • At a contentious news conference Thursday, Mrs. Pelosi said that during the 2002 briefing, "we were told that waterboarding was not being used." Mrs. Pelosi acknowledged that as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, she was briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, about waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that critics, including President Barack Obama, call torture. But she said CIA officials told her and other lawmakers only that the Justice Department had concluded the procedure was legal.
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  • A CIA report released last week said that at the briefing, officials described the use of interrogation techniques on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah, who had been waterboarded 83 times the month before.
  • "It is not the policy of this Agency to mislead the United States Congress," CIA spokesman George Little said. CIA officials on Thursday stood by their description of the briefing. CIA Director Leon Panetta has said it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate.
  • When Mrs. Pelosi's successor on the committee, Rep. Jane Harman (D., Calif.), learned in a February 2003 briefing that waterboarding was being used, she wrote a letter to the administration objecting. But Democrats said it had no effect.
  • while some prominent Democrats, including Mrs. Pelosi and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, favor a "truth commission" to investigate the Bush-era harsh interrogations, Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) do not.
  • Ms. Pelosi's fellow Democrats took the unusual step of lashing out at the CIA. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D., Texas) said the CIA briefing Ms. Pelosi received was "inaccurate and incomplete" because she wasn't told that waterboarding was already being employed.
  • At the same time, the CIA has denied a request by former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify documents that he said would show the harsh interrogations were effective. The agency isn't permitted to declassify documents that are the subject of pending lawsuits, it said.
  • Human-rights groups have brought a lawsuit demanding release of the documents. Those groups said Thursday that their lawsuit shouldn't stand in the way of making the information public.
Argos Media

US teacher broke law by describing creationism as 'superstitious nonsense' | World news... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ionism-teacher-first-amendment

US Religion Creationism Chad Farnan

shared by Argos Media on 06 May 09 - Cached
  • A US teenager has successfully won a lawsuit against a teacher who described creationism as "superstitious nonsense".Chad Farnan, a devout Christian studying at California's Capistrano Valley high school, persuaded a judge that his European history teacher, James Corbett, violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which courts interpret as banning government employees from promoting, or displaying hostility towards, religion.
  • Farnan claimed Corbett made comments that were "derogatory, disparaging and belittling regarding religion and Christianity in particular". In legal documents submitted to the US district court, he said he was uncomfortable going to class and felt as though Corbett had created an atmosphere in which he could not effectively learn "both because and regardless of his religious beliefs".
  • Farnan's lawyer, Jennifer Monk, who works for a not-for-profit Christian law firm, Advocates for Faith and Freedom, told the Guardian yesterday that Farnan's victory was the first of its kind, proving that the establishment clause applied equally to the disapproval of religion as it did to the promotion of religion."It is the first case of its kind where a court has held a teacher responsible for the disapproval of Christianity. It's common for lawsuits to be brought against teachers promoting religion. In general, for years, religion has been taken out of the classroom. I don't agree with that, but if it's going to be taken out, at the very minimum you can't go to the other extreme.
Pedro Gonçalves

Taguba denies he's seen abuse photos suppressed by Obama | Salon News - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

US Torture Guantanamo Antonio Taguba

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 May 09 - No Cached
  • Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba denied reports that he has seen the prisoner-abuse photos that President Obama is fighting to keep secret, in an exclusive interview with Salon Friday night. On Thursday an article in the Daily Telegraph reported that Taguba, the lead investigator into Abu Ghraib abuse, had seen images Obama wanted suppressed, and supported the president's decision to fight their release. The paper quoted Taguba as saying, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency." But Taguba says he wasn't talking about the 44 photographs that are the subject of an ongoing ACLU lawsuit that Obama is fighting.
  • "The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," Taguba told Salon Friday night. The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said -- but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Yulia Tymoshenko drops Ukraine election challenge - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8525821.stm

Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 20 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has dropped her legal challenge against her rival's victory in Ukraine's presidential election.
  • International monitors deemed the vote free and fair, and Mr Yanukovych is due to be inaugurated on 25 February. Ukrainian Central Electoral Commission's declaration on Sunday that Mr Yanukovych had won the vote by a margin of 3.48%.
  • "Given that the court is refusing to establish the truth in essence, I withdrew my lawsuit at today's morning sitting of the Supreme Administrative Court and asked the court to stop this show, which bears no resemblance to justice," she said.
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  • As recently as Friday she had appealed for the poll to be declared void, saying: "I cannot accept double standards and I cannot give up". The prime minister said more than a million votes, which she said were decisive to the outcome, were invalid.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Africa | Shell settles Nigeria deaths case - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8090493.stm

Nigeria Shell Ken Saro-Wiva

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Royal Dutch Shell has agreed a $15.5m (£9.7m) out-of-court settlement in a case accusing it of complicity in human rights abuses in Nigeria.It was brought by relatives of nine anti-oil campaigners, including author Ken Saro-Wiwa, who were hanged in 1995 by Nigeria's then military rulers. The oil giant strongly denies any wrongdoing and says the payment is part of a "process of reconciliation". The case, initiated 13 years ago, had been due for trial in the US next week.
  • The lawsuit alleged that Shell officials helped to supply Nigerian police with weapons during the 1990s.
  • It claimed that Shell participated in security sweeps in parts of Ogoniland and hired government troops that shot at villagers who protested against a pipeline. It was also alleged that Shell helped the government capture and hang Ken Saro-Wiwa and several of his colleagues.
Argos Media

Torture tape delays U.S.-UAE nuclear deal, say U.S. officials - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

UAE Abu Dhabi Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan Torture Nuclear Proliferation US

shared by Argos Media on 30 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A videotape of a heinous torture session is delaying the ratification of a civil nuclear deal between the United Arab Emirates and the United States, senior U.S. officials familiar with the case said.
  • In the tape, an Afghan grain dealer is seen being tortured by a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE's seven emirates.
  • The senior U.S. officials said the administration has held off on the ratification process because it believes sensitivities over the story can hurt its passage. The tape emerged in a federal civil lawsuit filed in Houston, Texas, by Bassam Nabulsi, a U.S. citizen, against Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan. Former business partners, the men had a falling out, in part over the tape. In a statement to CNN, the sheikh's U.S. attorney said Nabulsi is using the videotape to influence the court over a business dispute.
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  • Under the "1-2-3 deal," similar to one the United States signed last year with India, Washington would share nuclear technology, expertise and fuel. In exchange, the UAE commits to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The small oil-rich Gulf nation promises not to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs.
  • "It's being temporarily held up because of that tape," one senior official said.
  • The State Department had little to say publicly on the torture tape incident, but its 2008 human rights report about the United Arab Emirates refers to "reports that a royal family member tortured a foreign national who had allegedly overcharged him in a grain deal."
  • U.S. Rep. James McGovern -- the Massachusetts Democrat who co-chairs the congressional Human Rights Commission
  • McGovern asked Clinton to "place a temporary hold on further U.S. expenditures of funds, training, sales or transfers of equipment or technology, including nuclear until a full review of this matter and its policy implications can be completed." He also asked that the United States deny any visa for travel to the United States by Sheikh Issa or his immediate family, including his 18 brothers, several of whom are ruling members of the UAE government.
  • UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a half-brother of Sheikh Issa, is expected to visit Washington sometime next month.
  • The civil nuclear agreement was signed in January between the United Arab Emirates and the Bush administration, but after the new administration took office, the deal had to be recertified
  • The deal is part of a major UAE investment in nuclear, and it has already signed deals to build several nuclear power plants. The United States already has similar nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Morocco, and U.S. officials said Washington is working on similar pacts with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.
  • When the Bush administration signed the deal in January, it stressed the UAE's role in global nonproliferation initiatives, including a donation of $10 million to establish an International Atomic Energy Agency international fuel bank.
  • Congressional critics fear the deal could spark an arms race and proliferation in the region, and the UAE's ties to Iran also have caused concern.
  • Iran is among the UAE's largest trading partners. In the past, the port city of Dubai, one of the UAE's seven emirates, has been used as a transit point for sensitive technology bound for Iran.
  • Dubai was also one of the major hubs for the nuclear trafficking network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted to spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya up until the year 2000.
  • Such ties contributed to stiff opposition in Congress to the failed deal for Dubai Ports World to manage U.S. ports.
  • Officials said they expect the deal to be sent up to the Hill for ratification within the next few weeks, given that there has been little blowback from the publication of the tape, except for McGovern's letter to Clinton. "It will be sent very soon," one official said.
  • UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba told CNN his government always expected the deal to be sent to the Senate in early May, regardless of the controversy surrounding the tape. "As far as we are concerned, the deal is on track and this has not affected the timing," he said.
Argos Media

Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the C.I.A. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...17detain.html

US Torture CIA ACLU Dennis Blair Leon Panetta Jay Bybee Office of Legal Counsel Abu Zubaydah John Yoo

shared by Argos Media on 17 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Justice Department on Thursday made public detailed memos describing brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency, as President Obama sought to reassure the agency that the C.I.A. operatives involved would not be prosecuted.
  • In dozens of pages of dispassionate legal prose, the methods approved by the Bush administration for extracting information from senior operatives of Al Qaeda are spelled out in careful detail — like keeping detainees awake for up to 11 straight days, placing them in a dark, cramped box or putting insects into the box to exploit their fears.
  • The interrogation methods were authorized beginning in 2002, and some were used as late as 2005 in the C.I.A.’s secret overseas prisons.
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  • Some senior Obama administration officials, including Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., have labeled one of the 14 approved techniques, waterboarding, illegal torture.
  • The United States prosecuted some Japanese interrogators at war crimes trials after World War II for waterboarding and other methods detailed in the memos.
  • Together, the four memos give an extraordinarily detailed account of the C.I.A.’s methods and the Justice Department’s long struggle, in the face of graphic descriptions of brutal tactics, to square them with international and domestic law. Passages describing forced nudity, the slamming of detainees into walls, prolonged sleep deprivation and the dousing of detainees with water as cold as 41 degrees alternate with elaborate legal arguments concerning the international Convention Against Torture.
  • The documents were released with minimal redactions, indicating that President Obama sided against current and former C.I.A. officials who for weeks had pressed the White House to withhold details about specific interrogation techniques.
  • Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, had argued that revealing such information set a dangerous precedent for future disclosures of intelligence sources and methods.
  • A more pressing concern for the C.I.A. is that the revelations may give new momentum to proposals for a full-blown investigation into Bush administration counterterrorism programs and possible torture prosecutions.
  • Mr. Obama condemned what he called a “dark and painful chapter in our history” and said that the interrogation techniques would never be used again. But he also repeated his opposition to a lengthy inquiry into the program, saying that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”
  • Mr. Obama said that C.I.A. officers who were acting on the Justice Department’s legal advice would not be prosecuted, but he left open the possibility that anyone who acted without legal authorization could still face criminal penalties. He did not address whether lawyers who authorized the use of the interrogation techniques should face some kind of penalty.
  • The four legal opinions, released in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the A.C.L.U., were written in 2002 and 2005 by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the highest authority in interpreting the law in the executive branch.
  • The first of the memos, from August 2002, was signed by Jay S. Bybee, who oversaw the Office of Legal Counsel, and gave the C.I.A. its first detailed legal approval for waterboarding and other harsh treatment.
  • Three others, signed by Steven G. Bradbury, sought to reassure the agency in May 2005 that its methods were still legal, even when multiple methods were used in combination, and despite the prohibition in international law against “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment.
  • All legal opinions on interrogation were revoked by Mr. Obama on his second day in office, when he also outlawed harsh interrogations and ordered the C.I.A.’s secret prisons closed.
  • They recounted the C.I.A.’s assertions of the effectiveness of the techniques but noted that interrogators could not always tell a prisoner who was withholding information from one who had no more information to offer.
  • The memos include what in effect are lengthy excerpts from the agency’s interrogation manual, laying out with precision how each method was to be used. Waterboarding, for example, involved strapping a prisoner to a gurney inclined at an angle of “10 to 15 degrees” and pouring water over a cloth covering his nose and mouth “from a height of approximately 6 to 18 inches” for no more than 40 seconds at a time.
  • But a footnote to a 2005 memo made it clear that the rules were not always followed. Waterboarding was used “with far greater frequency than initially indicated” and with “large volumes of water” rather than the small quantities in the rules, one memo says, citing a 2004 report by the C.I.A.’s inspector general.
  • Most of the methods have been previously described in news accounts and in a 2006 report of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which interviewed 14 detainees. But one previously unknown tactic the C.I.A. proposed — but never used — against Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist operative, involved exploiting what was thought to be his fear of insects.
  • “As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar,” one memo says.
  • Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, cautioned that the memos were written at a time when C.I.A. officers were frantically working to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing,” said Mr. Blair in a written statement. “But we will absolutely defend those who relied on these memos.”
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