Human Rights Glance
The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on Al Qaeda prisoners for nearly seven years without seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003. That year, the agency's inspector general circulated drafts of a report that raised deep concerns about the use of waterboarding and other methods, and recommended a study by outside experts on whether those techniques worked.
Interrogation techniques' efficacy wasn't scrutinized
CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks
The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.
That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.
Military agency: warned "torture" methods unreliable
The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information."
Appeals court rules Gitmo detainees are not 'persons'
A Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not "persons" according to it's interpretation of a statute involving religious freedom.
The ruling sprang from an appeal of Rasul v. Rumsfeld, which was thrown out in Jan. 2008.
Man claims torture before U.S. memo OK'd it
A Tunisian man claims he was tortured by the CIA eight months before a Justice Department memo sanctioned the practice.
Rafiq Alhami makes his claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Newark.
The suit claims Alhami was kicked, punched, threatened with dogs and kept shackled in painful positions at three secret CIA sites in Afghanistan in 2001.
Heroic US GIs Slaughter Afghan Family Members
"It was the middle of the night this past winter when the door of my house exploded out of its foundation. My family and I were awakened by the sheer noise of the explosion. My pregnant wife, my two daughters, my son and I stepped out of the house into our yard. As we approached the destroyed door of our yard, the intruding US soldiers had already entered the compound and they started firing at us. The bullets hit everyone in my family including my wife and our unborn child, two daughters, my son and I; everyone was killed except one of my daughters and I. After the shooting, the US forces ordered vicious attack dogs to drag the bodies of my family members out of the yard into the ally outside. I was also bitten by the dogs after I shielded my surviving daughter, who was also badly injured by an incoming US round. So, when I covered my daughter with my body from the attacks of these vicious dogs, the US troops ordered these vicious beasts to attack me as well.
Rice Reviewed, Approved Waterboarding in 2002
Condoleezza Rice, John D. Ashcroft and other top Bush administration officials reviewed and approved as early as the summer of 2002 the CIA's use of harsh interrogation methods on detainees at secret prisons, including waterboarding that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has described as illegal torture, according to a detailed timeline declassified by Holder at the request of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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