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Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The United States Tortures War Prisoners. Why The CIA Destroyed 92 Torture Videos

Alan: The worst torture photos have been "sealed" by federal court order.
And you can bet it's the same reason the Senate report on Torture hasn't yet been released. The CIA far exceeded their own definition of 'waterboarding' with at least two or more high-profile detainees, and they don't want the American People to know it. Sadly, as it stands, we'll probably never know how many others were subject to this type of despicable torture as well.
The CIA brought top al-Qaeda suspects close “to the point of death” by drowning them in water-filled baths during interrogation sessions in the years that followed the September 11 attacks, a security source has told The Telegraph.
The description of the torture meted out to at least two leading al-Qaeda suspects, including the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, far exceeds the conventional understanding of waterboarding, or “simulated drowning” so far admitted by the CIA.
“They weren’t just pouring water over their heads or over a cloth,” said the source who has first-hand knowledge of the period. “They were holding them under water until the point of death, with a doctor present to make sure they did not go too far. This was real torture.”
The Telegraph (UK) obtained a second source for the article familiar with the Senate report who told them that it contains several "unflinching accounts" of CIA interrogations that would"... deeply shock" the American People.
Senator Dianne Feinstein herself said that the report will expose “brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation” Purportedly, the Senate report also accuses the CIA of lying and of grossly exaggerating the usefulness of torture.
An official CIA description of waterboarding in the 2004 report says that a cloth is used to cover a subject’s nose and mouth and is saturated with water for “no more than 20 seconds” before being removed. A stream of water is then “directed at the upper lip” in order to prolong “the sense of suffocation”.
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However the report also admits that waterboarding was being carried in a “manner different” from that prescribed in the US military’s standard SERE training manual, but details were not revealed, beyond the frequency of the treatment, which was admitted to have broken guidelines.
Since the CIA's use of waterboarding was publicly known it only stands to reason that because of the new revelations and graphic nature of the classified 3,600 page report (of which 480 pages are to be declassified) Republicans including former officials like former Vice President Dick Cheney, former CIA director George Tenet and former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld are dead set against its release to the public.
Among the additional difficulties for investigators seeking the truth about what happened is the fact that in November 2005 the CIA destroyed some 92 video tapes of its waterboarding and interrogation of Mohammed and the others.
The agent responsible for destroying the tapes, Jose Rodriquez, was only reprimanded. He justified his actions, arguing that he worried the tapes would eventually be leaked to the media, and would provoke a backlash, endangering agents' lives.
A third source for the article, familiar with the report, said that in general, the torture techniques used by the CIA was far more brutal than widely known even in the agency.
“They got medieval on his ass, and far more so than people realise,” the source told The Telegraph referring to the treatment of Mohammed and Nashiri, but declined to provide further details because of the still-classified nature of the material.
We need to know the truth.
Release the report... NOW
Pertaining links:
Alan: The worst torture photos have been "sealed" by federal court order.


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