US INTERROGATIONS REPORT May Be Released Soon

(roughly 150-page)
Report to detail interrogations, secret detention

FIND the Yahoo! Version of this Wires-
Generated Article here

Come back to this site for updates and look for more commentary from other sources soon: Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, Amnesty, Consortium News, Cage Prisoners, Andy Worthington, Candace Gorman, etc.

UPDATE June 19 '09 PM ET
Current News (See URL for all below)

6/19, Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, Obama's Bogus New Excuse for Secrecy

6/19, Andy Worthington, Public Record, New Revelations About the Torture and Alleged Suicide of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

6/19, Jason Leopold, Public Record, Obama Prepared to Issue Executive Order Banning Release of Abuse Photos

6/19, Nedra Pickler, Associated Press, Judge to Review Cheney Interview in CIA Leak Case

Find all these at Bill of Rights Defense Committee here

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Excerpts from Title Article just below : Helgerson's report (not yet released) drew on 38,000 documents and interviews with more than 100 CIA officials - "This is not about fighting for or against redactions_ it's about applying the law."

By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 19, 4:15 am ET

WASHINGTON – The government is preparing to release a long-delayed internal report on the CIA's secret detention and interrogation program. How much of the document will be declassified for public view isn't yet known.

The roughly 150-page report was expected to be released Friday, but a CIA spokesman said Thursday that government officials were still poring through the documents.

"The CIA is reviewing the report to determine how much more of it can be declassified in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act," said George Little, the spokesman.

Responding to reports that CIA officials were pressing to redact large portions of the documents, Little said, "This is not about fighting for or against redactions_ it's about applying the law."

The review by the inspector general for the CIA was completed in May 2004. John L. Helgerson, the now-retired CIA inspector who spearheaded the investigation, said Thursday that the report is "a comprehensive look at everything the agency had been doing related to detention and interrogation."

Helgerson said the review covered "activities within the formal approved program, and it also included a reference to activities that went on outside the formal program."

"We found a great deal running very well. We also found things to be concerned about," Helgerson said. The investigation was conducted in response to concerns expressed by agency employees about the program, he added.

The government released a heavily redacted version of Helgerson's report last year to the American Civil Liberties Union as a result of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on the program. All but a few paragraphs and individual words were blacked out.

Helgerson said a large portion of the report addresses CIA activities, sources and methods that should remain classified.

The ACLU is pressing for the full release of the report.

"The public has a right to know what took place in the CIA's secret prisons, and on whose authority," Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement issued this week.

Some of the details that were blacked out last year have since been released in other documents. The Obama administration this spring declassified a slew of Bush-era Justice Department memos on the CIA's interrogation program that outlined the methods and legal rationales for the program.

The interrogation methods included waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that President Barack Obama recently pronounced a form of torture.

The IG review cast doubt on the effectiveness of the harsh interrogation methods employed by CIA interrogators, according to references to the report contained in the Justice Department memos.

The IG review also quoted medical personnel who questioned the safety and effectiveness of the waterboarding, as applied by the psychologist/interrogators who conducted the sessions.

It described the technique as producing the "sensation of drowning and suffocation," according to a footnote in another legal memo, and noted that it was carried out differently than was approved by the Justice Department in a 2002 legal opinion.

It said that the subject's mouth and nose are supposed to be covered with a damp cloth and a small amount of water poured over.

"By contrast, the agency interrogator ... applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee's mouth and nose," the IG review said.

Helgerson said news reports that his review referred several criminal cases to the Justice Department for prosecution are inaccurate. The IG separately referred cases to the Justice Department for its review, and those cases are referenced in the report.

One of them is the only CIA prisoner abuse case to be prosecuted so far. Former CIA contractor David Passaro was convicted in 2007 of felony assault for the death of an Afghan prisoner in 2003. Helgerson's office conducted the criminal investigation that led to the trial, he said.

Helgerson's report drew on 38,000 documents and interviews with more than 100 CIA officials.

Helgerson, who retired from the CIA on May 31, declined to discuss details of the review until its release to avoid disclosing classified information.
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SEE 2005 - 2009 reports & commentary about the "Torture Flights" - "America's Gulag Archipelago" - "Extraordinary Renditions" as this system is variously called (In Amnesty and Human Rights Watch Indexes/Archives as well as articles posted on these in various places. While occasionally reports "pop-up" in the "usual" media - then often there is not a report on these for quite awhile. Thus it would behoove us all to watch carefully for reports from various groups - traditional, watch dog and independent journalism and most especially from the human rights and constitutional - legal groups at this crucial time.

From 2005

US Running 'Archipelago' of Secret Prisons: Amnesty International
here

Also see 2006 Report and Various Follow-Up Comments on European Sites used for Stopovers with still startling MAP here

According to this and various others reports: The CIA flew 1,245 secret flights into European airspace, according to a European Parliament draft report obtained by ABC News.

The following report is the result of a year-long investigation into secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights and prisons in Europe.

No European country has officially acknowledged being part of the program.(by January 2006) But citing records from an informal meeting of European and NATO foreign ministers last December that included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Parliament's draft report concludes "member states had knowledge of the programme of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons."

The report said the recently fired head of Italian intelligence, General Nicolo Pollari, "concealed the truth" when he appeared before the Parliament's investigating committee and stated "that Italian agents played no part in any CIA kidnapping." The report detailed the involvement of many European countries in what it called the CIA's "illegal" program.

It listed the number of CIA flights, or stopovers, it found in a number of countries.

Italy: 46 stopovers.

United Kingdom: 170 stopovers.

Germany: 336 stopovers.

Spain: 68 stopovers.

Portugal: 91 stopovers.

Ireland: 147 stopovers.

Greece: 64 stopovers

Cyprus: 57 stopovers.

Romania: 21 stopovers.

Poland: 11 stopovers.
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Feb 9, 2009 Find various items with search engine and keep watching potential future sites and "Staging Posts" in CIA "extraordinary rendition" flight - which, although the current administration says these "torture flights" will be no more - what's the proo? Common Dreams has followed related reports more than many media groups.

Did Obama - UK Excuse Torture? So you think the UK did not cooperate with extraordinary renditions? here

North Carolina, USA - Keep Watching here