Friday, September 15, 2006
Keep 7 Confession Methods
At the center of the dispute among some leading Republican senators and the Bush administration on how to fight the war on terror are seven approved CIA interrogation methods that the administration wants to maintain for use against suspected high-level terrorists, according to one congressional source and a lawyer involved in the negotiations, report senior editor Michael Hirsh and investigative correspondent Mark Hosenball in the current issue of Newsweek.
CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told agency personnel last week in an e-mail that he was not asking for a "CIA carve-out" - in other words, an exception for CIA interrogators.
In the Sept. 25 issue of Newsweek, Scott Horton, a New York City Bar Association lawyer who has advised the Senate on the legislation, says Capitol Hill aides have told him that the CIA has sought to use the following techniques: (1) induced hypothermia; (2) long periods of forced standing; (3) sleep deprivation; (4) the "attention grab" (the forceful seizing of a suspect's shirt); (5) the "attention slap"; (6) the "belly slap"; and (7) sound and light manipulation.
According to a Senate source who would speak to Newsweek only if he were not identified, Bush administration officials, in private negotiations with the Senate, have agreed to drop waterboarding from a list of approved CIA interrogation techniques. Waterboarding is an interrogation method that creates the sensation of drowning so that the panicked prisoner will talk. Asked to comment, a senior administration official tells Newsweek he cannot discuss what CIA methods are still being considered. But the official, who would speak only if he were not named, tells Newsweek that "one should not assume all techniques used previously will be used in the future." He also noted that the new U.S. Army field manual bans waterboarding.
The GOP's intraparty dispute centers on a single provision of the Geneva Conventions. The senators, who appear to have the support of a majority of their colleagues, want to keep the Geneva restriction broadly defined in order to protect U.S. troops abroad. "What is billed [by Bush] as 'clarifying' our treaty obligations will be seen as 'withdrawing' from the treaty obligations," says Sen. Lindsey Graham. "It will set precedent, which could come back to haunt us," he tells Newsweek.
At the center of the dispute among some leading Republican senators and the Bush administration on how to fight the war on terror are seven approved CIA interrogation methods that the administration wants to maintain for use against suspected high-level terrorists, according to one congressional source and a lawyer involved in the negotiations, report senior editor Michael Hirsh and investigative correspondent Mark Hosenball in the current issue of Newsweek.
CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told agency personnel last week in an e-mail that he was not asking for a "CIA carve-out" - in other words, an exception for CIA interrogators.
In the Sept. 25 issue of Newsweek, Scott Horton, a New York City Bar Association lawyer who has advised the Senate on the legislation, says Capitol Hill aides have told him that the CIA has sought to use the following techniques: (1) induced hypothermia; (2) long periods of forced standing; (3) sleep deprivation; (4) the "attention grab" (the forceful seizing of a suspect's shirt); (5) the "attention slap"; (6) the "belly slap"; and (7) sound and light manipulation.
According to a Senate source who would speak to Newsweek only if he were not identified, Bush administration officials, in private negotiations with the Senate, have agreed to drop waterboarding from a list of approved CIA interrogation techniques. Waterboarding is an interrogation method that creates the sensation of drowning so that the panicked prisoner will talk. Asked to comment, a senior administration official tells Newsweek he cannot discuss what CIA methods are still being considered. But the official, who would speak only if he were not named, tells Newsweek that "one should not assume all techniques used previously will be used in the future." He also noted that the new U.S. Army field manual bans waterboarding.
The GOP's intraparty dispute centers on a single provision of the Geneva Conventions. The senators, who appear to have the support of a majority of their colleagues, want to keep the Geneva restriction broadly defined in order to protect U.S. troops abroad. "What is billed [by Bush] as 'clarifying' our treaty obligations will be seen as 'withdrawing' from the treaty obligations," says Sen. Lindsey Graham. "It will set precedent, which could come back to haunt us," he tells Newsweek.
