From SoTT

CIA agents reveal interrogation tactics

AFP
Sat Nov 19, 3:56 AM E

WASHINGTON - CIA agents have revealed details of six interrogation tactics approved by top brass for use at secret CIA jails in Asia and Eastern Europe, ABC News reported.

The techniques have lead to questionable confessions and the death of one man since March 2002, the network said, after interviewing current and former CIA officials.

Former CIA officer Bob Baer told ABC the techniques amounted to "bad interrogation. I mean, you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough."

CIA sources speaking on condition of anonymity described six techniques: "Attention Grab, Attention Slap, Belly Slap, Long Time Standing, Cold Cell, Water Boarding."

The six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," as sources called them, were used on a dozen top Al-Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe, ABC said.

In "Belly Slap," interrogators deliver "a hard open-handed slap to the stomach" intended to cause pain but not internal injury.

In "Long Time Standing," prisoners are forced to stand handcuffed and shackled for more than 40 hours.

In "The Cold Cell" a prisoner is made to stand naked in a cell kept near 10 degrees C (50 degrees F) and is continually doused with cold water.

Water Boarding brings results within seconds, the sources said. A prisoner is tied onto a board with his feet higher than his head, and his face is wrapped in cellophane. When water is poured over him, he begins to gag and begs to confess, sources told ABC.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," John Sifton of Human Rights Watch told ABC.

After investigating the claims, the network asked CIA officials for comment, but they "would neither confirm nor deny the accounts. They simply declined to comment," ABC said.

Earlier this month, CIA inspector general John Helgerson said techniques used by the agency appeared to violate the international Convention Against Torture, according to current and former officials who described the report to The New York Times.

The report listed 10 techniques authorized in early 2002 that went beyond those used by the US military on prisoners of war.

From SOtT

Bush rarely speaks to father, 'family is split'

Drudge Report Flash
Tue Nov 15 2005 11:23:51 ET

President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, INSIGHT magazine claims in a new report.

The president’s reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.

LINK

Impeachment Poll

Washington Post
November 8, 2005

Back in June, Zogby asked Americans if they agreed or disagreed with the following question:

"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

An astonishing 42 percent of Americans agreed. (I wrote about that in my July 6 column.)

Since then, no news organization has expressed any curiosity, and no polling company has decided to ask the question on its own.

But afterdowningstreet.org, a group urging Congress to launch a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war, keeps asking.

In October, they commissioned Ipsos Public Affairs to ask a similar question. That poll found that 50 percent of Americans agreed.

Now, a new Zogby poll commissioned by the group finds that a clear majority - - 53 percent of Americans -- agree with the statement.
 

Rabid vampire bats kill 23 people after rainforest exodus

MARGARET NEIGHBOUR

RABID vampire bats killed 23 people and bit more than 1,000 when they attacked residents in their homes at night, officials in Brazil confirmed yesterday.

The victims were bitten after the bloodsucking mammals were displaced from their rainforest habitat by continued widespread tree-felling, said the authorities in Sao Paulo.

The attacks have taken place over the past two months and the latest victim was 20-year-old Valnice Santos, who died last week of rabies after being bitten in her home in the northern town of Turiacu, said Henrique Jorge dos Santos, an epidemiologist with the state health agency.

Last month, an infected colony of the bats invaded thousands of homes and killed 16 people living near marshlands in the town of Maranhao, 1,500 miles north of Sao Paulo, Mr Santos said.

Seven similar deaths occurred in three cities near Turiacu, suggesting the bats came from the neighbouring state of Para.

Deforestation in Para state is eliminating the bats' habitat and forcing them to seek other areas.

All the victims died of rabies. Health agencies have treated 1,350 people with anti-rabies medication in the past two months.

It was unclear how many of those people were infected with the rabies virus.

The state government is spraying the captured bats with poison, hoping that they fly back to their colony and kill off the rabies-infected population.

Rabies outbreaks have occurred in Brazil every year since 1986, with the worst killing 73 in 1990, according to Brazilian Health Ministry records.

Vampire bats are found across Latin America and feed on the blood of warm-blooded animals such as birds, horses and cattle.

The rabies virus, which infects the central nervous system of humans, can cause death within a matter of days from the onset of symptoms if vaccines are not administered.

LINK

CIA runs secret terrorism prisons abroad

WPost Wed Nov 2, 2005 WASHINGTON (Reuters)

The CIA has been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, part of a covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The Soviet-era compound is part of a network that has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand and Afghanistan, the newspaper reported, citing U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The newspaper said the existence and locations of the facilities are known only to a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA has not acknowledged the existence of a secret prison network, the Post said. A CIA spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The prisons are referred to as "black sites" in classified U.S. documents and virtually nothing is known about who the detainees are, how they are interrogated or about decisions on how long they will be held, the report said. [...]

The secret detention system was conceived shortly after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, when the working assumption was that another strike was imminent, the report said.

LINK