AP INVESTIGATION: Details in CIA detainee's death

[kpete]

Source: Associated Press

AP INVESTIGATION: Details in CIA detainee's death

By ADAM GOLDMAN and KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writers Adam Goldman And Kathy Gannon, Associated Press Writers – Sun Mar 28, 7:01 am ET

WASHINGTON – More than seven years ago, a suspected Afghan militant was brought to a dimly lit CIA compound northeast of the airport in Kabul. The CIA called it the Salt Pit. Inmates knew it as the dark prison.

Inside a chilly cell, the man was shackled and left half-naked. He was found dead, exposed to the cold, in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002.

The Salt Pit death was the only fatality known to have occurred inside the secret prison network the CIA operated abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. The death had strong repercussions inside the CIA. It helped lead to a review that uncovered abuses in detention and interrogation procedures, and forced the agency to change those procedures.

Little has emerged about the Afghan's death, which the Justice Department is investigating. The Associated Press has learned the dead man's name, as well as new details about his capture in Pakistan and his Afghan imprisonment.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100328/ap_on_go_ot/us_cia_salt_pit

[Robb]

1. This story is EXACTLY the point we were making for years.

Hezb-e-Islami were and are complete motherfuckers. This guy was unquestionably a fellow motherfucker.

And we SHOULDN'T HAVE TORTURED HIM, PERIOD.

[EFerrari]

6. This story is wrong. There was a least one death at Abu Graib

and three in a black site at Gitmo.

[unhappycamper]

2. Didn't Porter Goss switch over to the CIA around this time?

I'm pretty sure he went over there to clean up some messes.

[UpInArms]

10. Rice will manage Iraq's 'new phase'

10/6/2003

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-10-06-rice-iraq_x.htm

WASHINGTON — President Bush is giving his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, the authority to manage postwar Iraq and the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

While some saw it as a sign of frustration with the handling of postwar efforts, Bush and other officials said the move is a logical next step and reflected no dissatisfaction with progress.

"We want to cut through the red tape and make sure that we're getting the assistance there quickly so that they can carry out their priorities," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It's a new phase, a different phase we're entering."

Rice will head the Iraq Stabilization Group, which will have coordinating committees on counterterrorism, economic development, political affairs and media messages. Each committee will be headed by a Rice deputy and include representatives of the State, Defense and Treasury departments and the CIA.

McClellan said the change is no indication of discontent with progress in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Bremer will continue to report to Rumsfeld, and the Pentagon will still be "the lead agency," he said.

Rice is one of Bush's closest confidants, and he has turned to her before to handle high-profile assignments, such as her appointment as liaison to the Middle East. Rice, 48, was a Bush adviser during the 2000 campaign. As national security adviser, she spends more time with him than any staffer except chief of staff Andy Card.

The new structure will give Bush's top White House aides a stronger voice in decisions and will make the president more directly accountable. Because of their close relationship, many people will assume Bush signed off on Rice's decisions.

...more...

[OnyxCollie]

3. K&R. nt

[PSPS]

4. As usual, the moribund AP continues to refer to US torturing as "harsh interrogation techniques"

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[Jumping John]

7. Here is a tale of murder at Bagram

Taxi to the Dark Side: Murder of young Afghan driver exposes US torture policies

The “dark side” is a reference to a comment made by US Vice President Dick Cheney who was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” a few days after the 9/11 terror attack what the Bush administration would do in pursuing the perpetrators.

“We have to work the dark side, if you will,” Cheney replied. “We’re going to spend time in the shadows. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods available to our intelligence agencies ... It’ll be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”

Taxi to the Dark Side opens with an examination of the murder of Dilawar, a 22-year-old taxi driver from the poverty-stricken village of Yakubi in eastern Afghanistan, by US military forces at Bagram Air Base in December 2002. Dilawar and three of his passengers were captured by the Northern Alliance who falsely accused the men of firing rockets at the Camp Salerno military base.

Five days after being handed over to American forces, Dilawar was dead, killed by US Army interrogators who shackled him to the ceiling by his wrists and subjected him to sleep deprivation and savage beatings for hours on end. The initial official military report claimed that Dilawar had died of “natural causes”. A subsequent autopsy revealed, however, that his legs had been reduced a pulp and that even if he had survived, it would have been necessary to amputate them.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/dark-m24.shtml

[UpInArms]

8. Afghan prisoners beaten to death at US military interrogation base

http://www.worldrevolution.org/article/716

March 7, 2003

The Guardian (UK)

Two prisoners who died while being held for interrogation at the US military base in Afghanistan had apparently been beaten, according to a military pathologist's report. A criminal investigation is now under way into the deaths which have both been classified as homicides.

Two prisoners who died while being held for interrogation at the US military base in Afghanistan had apparently been beaten, according to a military pathologist's report. A criminal investigation is now under way into the deaths which have both been classified as homicides.

The deaths have led to calls for an inquiry into what interrogation techniques are being used at the base where it is believed the al-Qaida leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is now also being held. Former prisoners at the base claim that detainees are chained to the ceiling, shackled so tightly that the blood flow stops, kept naked and hooded and kicked to keep them awake for days on end.

The two men, both Afghans, died last December at the US forces base in Bagram, north of Kabul, where prisoners have been held for questioning. The autopsies found they had suffered "blunt force injuries" and classified both deaths as homicides.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said yesterday it was not possible to discuss the details of the case because of the proceeding investigation. If the investigation finds that the prisoners had been unlawfully killed during interrogation, it could lead to both civil and military prosecutions. He added that it was not clear whether only US personnel had had access to the men.

One of the dead prisoners, known only as Dilawar, died as a result of "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease", according to the death certificate signed by Major Elizabeth Rouse, a pathologist with the Washington-based Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which operates under the auspices of the defence department. The dead man was aged 22 and was a farmer and part-time taxi-driver. He was said to have had an advanced heart condition and blocked arteries.

...more...

[UpInArms]

9. (2002) General's sacking cleared way for Pentagon to rewrite rules

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/19/iraq.guantanamo

The Guardian, Wednesday 19 May 2004

The commander of Guantánamo Bay, sacked amid charges from the Pentagon that he was too soft on detainees, said he faced constant tension from military interrogators trying to extract information from inmates.

Brigadier General Rick Baccus was removed from his post in October 2002, apparently after frustrating military intelligence officers by granting detainees such privileges as distributing copies of the Koran and adjusting meal times for Ramadan. He also disciplined prison guards for screaming at inmates.

In one of the general's first interviews since his dismissal, he told the Guardian: "I was mislabelled as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we were doing was our mission professionally."

Gen Baccus's unceremonious departure offers a rare insight into how the Pentagon rewrote the rules of warfare to suit the Bush administration's view of a radically changed world following the terror attacks of September 11 2001.

It also suggests what can happen to military personnel slow to sign on to the Pentagon's changed view of the world. Eighteen months after being removed from Guantánamo, Gen Baccus, 51, and a commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, is still waiting for a new military assignment.

Meanwhile, the systems set in place at Guantánamo following his departure have come to govern detention facilities in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

The connection between Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib grew clearer this month when Gen Baccus's successor at the camp, Major General Geoffrey Miller, was put in charge of the US military's prisons in Iraq. Gen Miller's recommendations for Abu Ghraib - merging the functions of prison guard and interrogator as he did at Guantánamo - were cited in the Pentagon's internal report on abuse at the now notorious prison.

...more...

[retired af major]

11. Hmmmm

"The Salt Pit death was the only fatality known to have occurred inside the secret prison network the CIA operated abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks."

Wut? I see a whitewash in the making. Two things make me say this; 1) there were deaths at Bagram AB and elsewhere, and the renditions / secret prisons were being used before Bush the Lesser. Meaning Clinton knew and approved (It's good to have your former chief of staff running the spook house).