Geopolitics Weekly

The CIA's use of waterboarding to interrogate al-Qaeda suspects was approved by Condoleezza Rice as early as 2002, a senate report reveals.

Ms Rice, as national security adviser at the time, gave consent to the CIA's harsh interrogation programme, the Senate Intelligence Committee found.

The latest details were revealed in a timeline of the CIA's interrogation programme produced by the US Senate Intelligence Committee. It shows Ms Rice and other top Bush administration officials were first briefed about "alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding", in May 2002.

During his first days in detention, senior al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed was stripped of his clothes, beaten, given a forced enema and shackled with his arms chained above his head, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was then, a Red Cross report says, that his American captors told him to prepare for "a hard time."

Over the next 25 days, beginning on March 6, 2003, Mohammed was put through a routine in which he was deprived of sleep, doused with cold water and had his head repeatedly slammed into a plywood wall, according to the report. The interrogation also included days of extensive waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.

But whether harsh tactics were decisive in Mohammed's interrogation may never be conclusively known, in large part because the CIA appears not to have tried traditional tactics for much time, if at all. According to the agency's own accounting, Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times during his first four weeks in a CIA secret prison.

It is unclear from unclassified reports whether the information gained was critical in foiling actual plots. Mohammed later told outside interviewers that he was "forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop" and that he "wasted a lot of their time [with] several false red-alerts being placed in the U.S.," according to the Red Cross, whose officials interviewed Mohammed and other detainees after they were transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2006.

Mohammed continued to be a valued source of information long after the coercive interrogation ended. Indeed, he has gone on to lecture CIA agents in a classroom-like setting, on topics from Greek philosophy to the structure of al-Qaeda, and wrote essays in response to questions, according to sources familiar with his time in detention.

Counterterrorism officials also said the two men and other captured suspects provided critical information about senior al-Qaeda figures and identified hundreds of al-Qaeda members, associates and financial backers. if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & INLINE_ARTICLE_AD ) == INLINE_ARTICLE_AD && inlineAdGraf ) { placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,20,'inline=y;',true) ; } The accumulation and triangulation of information also allowed officials to vet the intelligence they were receiving and to push other prisoners toward making full and frank statements.

Padilla, however, was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8, 2002, more than two months before the issuance of the Justice Department's Aug. 1, 2002, memo authorizing the use of harsh methods in interrogating Abu Zubaida. "The dates just don't add up," wrote Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent, in an opinion piece in the New York Times last week. Soufan, who questioned Abu Zubaida between his capture in March 2002 and early June of that year, said the detainee gave up Padilla without any physical or psychological duress. He also said Abu Zubaida identified Mohammed as the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks "under traditional interrogation methods."

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced in January 2008 to 17 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

An attack on both coasts was conceived by Mohammed before Sept. 11, 2001, but the plot was scaled back to target only New York and Washington. Mohammed continued to consider striking the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, administration officials said. His interrogation led to information that he planned "to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles," according the 2005 Justice Department memo.

The current debate in the US on the "special interrogation methods" sanctioned by the Bush administration could soon reach Europe. It has long been clear that the CIA used the Szymany military airbase in Poland for extraordinary renditions. Now there is evidence of a secret prison nearby.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, also known as "the brains" behind al-Qaida. This was the man who had presented Osama bin Laden with plans to attack the US with commercial jets. He personally selected the pilots and supervised preparations for the attacks. Eighteen months later, on March 1, 2003, Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan by US Special Forces and brought to Afghanistan two days later. Now the CIA was flying him to a remote area in Poland's Masuria region. The prisoner slept during the flight from Kabul to Szymany, for the first time in days, as he later recounted:

A large number of Polish and American intelligence operatives have since gone on record that the CIA maintained a prison in northeastern Poland. Independent of these sources, Polish government officials from the Justice and Defense Ministry have also reported that the Americans had a secret base near Szymany airport. And so began on March 7, 2003 one of the darkest chapters of recent American -- and European -- history.

A White House official apologized Monday after a low-flying Boeing 747 spotted above the Manhattan skyline frightened workers and residents into evacuating buildings.

The huge aircraft, which functions as Air Force One when the president is aboard, was taking part in a classified, government-sanctioned photo shoot, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Two officials told CNN the White House Military Office was trying to update its file photos of Air Force One. The officials said the president was angry when he learned Monday afternoon about the flight, which sparked fear in the New York-New Jersey area. "The president was furious about it," one of the officials said. The incident outraged many New Yorkers, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "First thing is, I'm annoyed -- furious is a better word -- that I wasn't told," he said, calling the aviation administration's decision to withhold details about the flight "ridiculous" and "poor judgment." "Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Center defies the imagination," he said. "Had we known, I would have asked them not to."

Selig Harrison, the director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, said the North Korean announcement about restarting its nuclear facilities should come as "no surprise" to the United States. "The North Koreans had said that they were going to do this. The United States leadership made a mistake by going to the U.N. because the North Koreans said on March 26 that if we went to the U.N., they would resume their nuclear program," he said, referring to North Korea's recent decision to launch a rocket despite international opposition.

Harrison visited Pyongyang in January and doesn't expect North Korea to reprocess plutonium for at least a year. Nuclearization may not even be their primary goal with this latest announcement, he said. "You have to put it all into context of the North Korean situation, they want to negotiate to get economic help. All of this is a re-bargaining chip," he said. "The North Koreans are not hell-bent on nuclear weapons, this is just their opportunity, and they want to negotiate in bilateral talks with the US."

"The North Koreans have shut down the six-party talks, but they haven't ruled out bilateral negotiations," he said, referring to talks aimed at persuading North Korea to scrap its nuclear program. The talks involved China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

The ailing carmaker General Motors has proposed handing a controlling stake of more than 50% to the US government as it struggles to reach a deal with its lenders to avert imminent bankruptcy.The nationalisation, in effect, of the biggest US motor manufacturer would be part of a huge debt-for-equity swap as GM tries to shed $44bn (£30bn) of $62bn in crippling liabilities owed to the government, trade unions and bondholders.

But the plan was condemned last night as "neither reasonable nor adequate", by bondholders who would get only 10% of the company, forcing them to write off billions of dollars. Existing shareholders would be left with only 1%.

With its future on a knife-edge, GM delivered a blunt warning that unless its creditors accepted the plan, it would declare bankruptcy and leave the courts to carve up the company. Fritz Henderson, the chief executive, told a press conference at the company's headquarters: "If this cannot be accomplished out of court, we'll go into court and restructure GM under bankruptcy if it's necessary."

A Mexican village whose inhabitants were overwhelmed by an outbreak of respiratory illness starting in February has emerged as a possible source of the swine flu outbreak which has now spread across the world.

The state government of Veracruz in eastern Mexico has confirmed one case of swine flu in the village of La Gloria with the sufferer named locally as a four-year-old boy, Edgar Hernandez Hernandez. The federal government said tonight that he tested positive for the same strain of the virus which has claimed lives in Mexico.

Mexico's national public health authority, the Mexican social security institute, raised concerns that waste from the Granjas Carrol facility may be responsible for the outbreak of illness, according to local media."According to state agents of the Mexican social security institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement," reported Mexico City newspaper La Jornada.

The swine flu virus first detected in Mexico can no longer be contained and countries should focus on mitigating its effects, a top UN official said. World Health Organization deputy chief Keiji Fukuda was speaking as the WHO raised its alert level to four, or two steps short of a full pandemic.

The number of probable deaths from the virus there has risen to 152. The US, Canada, Spain and Britain have confirmed cases of the virus, but not deaths have been reported outside Mexico.

Alert level four means the virus is showing a sustained ability to pass from human to human and is able to cause community-level outbreaks.

Sri Lankan troops will no longer use heavy weapons or air strikes in fighting against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north-east, the government says. The statement said the army would focus on trying to rescue civilians. Concern has been rising over civilian deaths. The rebels are boxed in to a shrinking patch of land which they share with thousands of civilians. On Sunday the government dismissed a Tamil Tiger ceasefire offer as a "joke" and said the rebels were near defeat.

"Our security forces have been instructed to end the use of heavy calibre guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons which could cause civilian casualties," the statement said. "Our security forces will confine their attempts to rescuing civilians who are held hostage and give foremost priority to saving civilians." However, the pro-rebel TamilNet web site reports that air strikes have continued since the announcement.

No confirmation of the reports is possible as independent journalists are not allowed into the war zone.

Over the past year, at least seven Roma have been killed in Hungary, and Roma leaders have counted some 30 Molotov cocktail attacks against Roma homes, often accompanied by sprays of gunfire.

Experts on Roma issues describe an ever more aggressive atmosphere toward Roma in Hungary and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, led by extreme right-wing parties, whose leaders are playing on old stereotypes of Roma as petty criminals and drains on social welfare systems at a time of rising economic and political turmoil. As unemployment rises, officials and Roma experts fear the attacks will only intensify.

In the Czech Republic, where radical right-wing demonstrators have clashed with the police as they tried to march through Roma neighborhoods, a small child and her parents were severely burned after assailants firebombed their home in the town of Vitkov this month. The police in Slovakia were caught on video recently tormenting six Roma boys they had arrested, forcing them to undress, hit and kiss one another.

Nestled in rocky hills about 40 minutes from Tehran, Pardis Technology Park is supposed to be Iran's answer to Silicon Valley. But these days, Pardis is deserted and forlorn, with many buildings standing unfinished, their exposed girders rusting. Foreign companies are reluctant to invest in the Islamic Republic, and domestic outfits are cash-strapped.

many Iranians like the prospect of working with US companies rather than the Europeans that have been the only game in recent years. "Iranian officials believe Americans are more straightforward in business deals," says Narsi Ghorban, managing director of Narkangan Gas to Liquid, a Tehran energy company. "They get what they want and give you your due."

If businesspeople do come to Tehran, a sprawling city built on steep hills that lead up to snow-capped mountains, they will find some conditions improved. Mobile telephones from other countries finally work, and several private hotels have sprung up. Since the 1979 revolution, social life has never been more liberal. Boys and girls hold hands in public, women show some hair outside their scarves, and checkpoints where police once searched cars for alcohol have all but disappeared. But there's still enough fear of the regime that many people decline to be interviewed.

Not content with plunging into crowds during his frequent public appearances, Ahmadinejad has been known to drive alone and unprotected at night to deprived neighbourhoods to meet families who lost relatives during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq. He has dismissed advice that his habits could make him a sitting duck for potential assassins.

Now his worried security team has identified a new threat to his person - the many letters he receives from voters during his trips across Iran.Ahmadinejad has actively encouraged the public to write to him in a drive to boost his populist image. But advisers have warned that the letters could contain poisonous substances intended to kill him.

Al-Qaida's North African wing has threatened to kill a British tourist taken hostage in the Sahara unless the radical cleric and terrorism suspect Abu Qatada is released within 20 days.

Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as "Osama bin Laden's righthand man in Europe", is being held in Britain pending deportation to his native Jordan, where in 1999 he was convicted in his absence of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to life imprisonment. The charges related to bombings at the American school and the Jerusalem hotel in Jordan. He was convicted a second time in 2000 over a plot to bomb tourists.

"We demand that Britain release Sheikh Abu Qatada, who is unjustly [held], for the release of its British citizen. We give it 20 days as of the issuance of this statement," the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a posting on an Islamist website yesterday. "When this period expires, the mujahideen will kill the British hostage."

Iceland stepped into terra incognito today, veering left for the first time to hand a parliamentary majority to social democrats, socialists and greens and humiliating the rightwingers who have dominated for generations.

Venting their fury at a government that presided over Iceland's transformation from one of the world's wealthiest countries into the biggest victim of the global financial meltdown, voters in an early election gave strongest support to the social democrats, who are pushing for Iceland to enter the European Union.With 30% of the vote for the 63-seat Althingi or parliament, the Social Democrats emerged as comfortable winners under Johanna Sigurdardottir, the 66-year-old lesbian caretaker prime minister. The Left-Greens, an alliance of old-style socialists and younger environmentalists never previously voted into power, got 21.5% of the vote.

The leftwing coalition is assured of a three-seat majority and will need to embark on an austerity drive, swingeing spending cuts, and probably tax rises for the rich to try to rescue an economy that came crashing down last October when the three main banks collapsed and the country teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

A US raid in the south of Iraq, in which two people died, was a crime and those responsible should be tried, says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. He said the raid in the town of Kut was a breach of the security pact governing US military actions in the country. The US has said the raid was carried out in full agreement with the Iraqis.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says it is the most serious dispute between the US and Iraq since the agreement came into force at the start of the year. One senior local official said the actions had rendered the pact "meaningless".

US forces stormed buildings in Wasit province early on Sunday morning. A policeman and a woman were shot dead and six people detained. The US military said the raid, against a weapons smuggler and "network financier", had been "fully coordinated and approved by the Iraqi government". They said soldiers had shot and killed "an individual with a weapon" outside the house and that the woman who died had "moved into the line of fire".

The Taleban's talks with the government in north-west Pakistan have been suspended amid army operations against militants, a Taleban negotiator says.

Pakistani troops and Taleban militants have clashed in Lower Dir in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), forcing hundreds of civilians to flee.

"We are demanding a suspension of the operation so that Sufi Muhammad is able to get out of his village."

It has now been revealed the fruit, a type of orange-grapefruit hybrid marketed as Jaffa Sweetie, were not Israeli in the first place. The Sweeties were brought to Iran from China, where faking the origin of goods is a common practice.

The international community is better prepared than ever to deal with the threatened spread of a new swine flu virus, a top UN health chief has said

As the UN warned the outbreak might become a pandemic, Dr Keiji Fukuda said years of preparing for bird flu had boosted world stocks of anti-virals. Canada is the latest country to confirm cases after as many as 81 deaths in Mexico and 20 cases in the US. Washington has warned the flu may yet claim American lives.

Eight cases have been confirmed among New York students, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio. Several countries in Asia and Latin America have begun screening airport passengers for symptoms. There is currently no vaccine for the new strain of flu but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication.