CIA 'jets suspects overseas'

From correspondents in Washington
March 07, 2005

THE Central Intelligence Agency uses a secret jet to ferry terror suspects for interrogation to countries known to use torture, according to a US report set to go to air.

CBS television's 60 Minutes program videotaped the Boeing 737 on a runway at Glasgow Airport in Scotland, saying it was able to trace it through a series of companies and executives that apparently exist only on paper.

It said the plane had made at least 600 flights to 40 countries, all after the September 11, 2001, attacks, including 30 trips to Jordan, 19 to Afghanistan, 17 to Morocco, and 16 to Iraq.

The plane also went to Egypt, Libya and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the report.

The aircraft is part of the CIA's so-called "rendition" program, in which suspects are sent to foreign governments for interrogation.

The agency has not formally acknowledged the program's existence.

A German national, whom CBS identified as El-Masri, said he was on vacation in Macedonia when he was arrested by police and held in Macedonia for three weeks and then brought to the airport, beaten by masked men, drugged and put aboard the 737.

The plane left Skopje, Macedonia, and went to Baghdad and then Kabul, with El-Masri saying he awoke in a jail cell where his captors said, "You're in a country without laws and no one knows where you are," CBS News quoted the former detainee as saying.

"It was very clear to me that he meant I could stay in my cell for 20 years or be buried somewhere," El-Masri told the network.

He said his fellow prisoners in the American-run jail were Saudi Arabians, Tanzanians, a Yemeni and a Pakistani who had lived in the United States.

El-Masri said he had been in solitary confinement for five months and then released without an explanation.

According to the report, the jet also made 10 trips to Uzbekistan, where former British ambassador Craig Murray said the jet's nominal owner, Premier Executive Transport Services, kept a small staff at the airport in Tashkent.

Mr Murray said Uzbek interrogators use unusually cruel methods, including "techniques of drowning and suffocation, rape ... and also the insertion of limbs in boiling liquid."

He said he had complained to his superiors that information was being obtained by torture and sent his deputy to the CIA station chief to inquire about the practice.

"The CIA definitely knows," he told the television program, adding that his deputy had confirmed that evidence "probably was obtained under torture but the CIA didn't see that as a problem".

He was ordered to return to London four months ago and had since left government service, CBS News pointed out.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is just a blatant loophole that this Administration is exploiting in order to justify defying everything this country and it's most treasured documents specifically state is wrong.

This is so wrong. But I have a feeling some won't have a problem with it. That is untill someone they know and love is sent on one of these Boeing 737's to Uzbekestain to be raped by jackals...

So this is why the CIA keeps a list of countries with the worst human rights violations.

IEB, please post a link and an author when you make posts like this. I am not saying the article is untrue, but the first thing people typically look at when deciding credibility is the source. If there is no source, I typically ignore it.

Now assuming the article is true, I do think it is terrible. While I have no problem with us torturing the hell out of certain individuals, those being people who may be aware of an attack on our country, in order to get information, I never think it is right to take simple suspects and send them to the nearest human rights abuser and torture the hell out of them. I also see no problem with torturing known terrorists (Hussein, Osama, or known terrorist agents). I do fear that quite often we are fucking with people who were merely arrested for suspicious behavior, and they are getting abused for no real reason.

CBS and 60 Minutes are cited all over the article....

I wasn't questioning the validity, just making a statement. Just because so and so, says that such and such, said what and not, does not validate it. I was just addressing the point that IEB consistantly posts articles, and I have no idea where they came from because no link or author is included. If someone is quoting CBS, or 60 minutes(not that there is any difference) does not mean that the person quoting them is a reliable source. We have all seen the one or two sentence quote get misrepresented. Again, I am not assuming that is the case, but if someone is posting info, I would like to go back to the source to confirm the information. Also, it is an article basically analyzing someone elses research. If someone could actually put up the CBS news report, that would be a lot more usefull.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/ ... 8155.shtml

That took 6 seconds

Now the article has validity. That is all it takes.

We are detaining these enemy combatants in a humane manner," General Miller told reporters in March 2004. "Should our men or women be held in similar circumstances, I would hope they would be treated in this manner."

This is a pretty neat read on the justification of the use of torture:

http://www.irregulartimes.com/timebombtorture.html

Oh, the irony!

"Validity" and "CBS" are probably the last two words I would use in a sentence to verify something. Is this Dan Rather's parting gift to us?

Nevertheless, if true, I adopt your reasoning above.

Well we just send them there whatever happens happens.
We arent in control of anything. We dont know whats going on, or how they are interrorgated.
Its out of our hands.

Yeah...

So do you have an opinion on that practice?

--PunkDavid

Honestly I'm glad no one has come on here to openly condone such actions. This is just horrible. We are better then this. We are better then this!

I'm sure they will now...

if it gets information from people that could help out the people of the US, then im for it

It doesn't. That's the thing. It's been proven unreliable. But you were right on cue regardless.

so i assume that all your little blogger sites you go to religiously have told you they dont work?

if they gave up information that was very key, do you really think youd know about it?

What happens if the one time it does . . . and it directly leads to the capture of Bin Laden and the cessation of terrorist activity against American interests? Would you condone it?

No, I would not condone it. We have these things in this country that are sacred that we cherish specifically the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These documents while quite old are the foundation to this Democarcy. We do this and we are no better then those fuckers that cut heads off. This is very black and white to me. Torture should never be an acceptable form of interogation.

This whole torture and skirting the Constitution to fight terrorism thing is just another example of the biggest philosophical question in criminal justice:

Is it a greater injustice for a guilty man to go free or for an innocent man to be punished?

I know where I stand on the question.

--PunkDavid

It's funny you mention those old, but sacred, documents. Because during the times they were drafted, torture techniques far beyond what your CIA are using on these poor saps were routinely utilized. Christ, slavery was a protected right during these times. It's pretty ironic if you ask me.

By the way, our Constitution is by no means the exclusive foundation of our democracy. It started with Hammurabi's Code, the Greek city-states, the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact -- well preceding our own Constitution.