https://www.reuters.com/article/poli...53H1Y020090418

Obama Reprieve For CIA Illegal: U.N. Rapporteur

April 20, 2009 VIENNA (Reuters) "04/18/09 -- - President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators who used waterboarding on terrorism suspects amounts to a breach of international law, the U.N. rapporteur on torture said.

"The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court," U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak told the Austrian daily Der Standard.

Nowak did not think Obama would go as far as to seek an amnesty law for affected CIA personnel and therefore U.S. courts could still try torture suspects, he said on Saturday.

Obama has affirmed his unwillingness to prosecute under anti-torture laws CIA personnel who relied in good faith on Bush administration legal opinions issued after the September 11 attacks.

Obama said he had ended harrowing techniques used against detainees by Bush-era CIA personnel, but that U.S. intelligence agents still operated in a dangerous world and had to be confident they could perform their jobs.

Nowak, an Austrian, suggested an investigation by an independent commission before suspects were tried and said it would be important for all victims to receive compensation.

Human rights advocates have attacked Obama's decision, saying charges were necessary to prevent future abuses and hold people accountable. Some U.S. lawmakers have called for public investigations.

The four memos Obama released approved techniques including waterboarding, week-long sleep deprivation, forced nudity and putting insects in with a tightly confined prisoner.

His administration also said it would try to shield CIA employees from "any international or foreign tribunal" -- an immediate challenge to Spain where a judge has threatened to investigate Bush administration officials.

(Reporting by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Robert Woodward)

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https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/200...heikh-mohammed

CIA Waterboarded al-Qaida Suspects 266 Times Torture technique outlawed by Obama was used extensively on 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and alleged terror commander Abu Zubaydah

By Matthew Weaver and agencies

April 20, 2009 "The Guardian" - The CIA waterboarded two al-Qaida terror suspects a total of 266 times, according to a report that suggests the use of the torture technique was much more extensive than previously thought.

The documents showed waterboarding was used 183 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who admitted planning the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reported today.

The US Justice Department memos released last Thursday showed that waterboarding, which the US now admits is torture, was used 83 times on the alleged al-Qaida senior commander Abu Zubaydah, the paper said. A former CIA officer claimed in 2007 that Zubaydah was subjected to the simulated drowning technique for only 35 seconds.

The numbers were removed from most of the memos over the weekend. But bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler from empytwheel, discovered that the figure had not been blanked out from one of the memos.

Barack Obama has banned waterboarding and overturned a Bush administration policy that it did not amount to torture.

The president did not intend to prosecute Bush administration officials who devised the policies that led to such interrogations, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said yesterday.

Asked on Sunday about the fate of those officials, Emanuel told ABC's This Week programme that Obama believed they "should not be prosecuted either and that's not the place that we go".

Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under Bush, said the public release of the memos would make it harder to get useful information from suspected terrorists being detained by the US.

"I think that teaching our enemies our outer limits, by taking techniques off the table, we have made it more difficult in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine, more difficult for CIA officers to defend the nation," Hayden said on Fox News Sunday.

He disputed an article in the New York Times on Saturday that said Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying that he believed that after unspecified "techniques" were used Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.

One of the released memos was a 2002 justice department briefing memo written by assistant attorney general Jay Bybee and sent to John Rizzo, the acting general counsel for the CIA, spelling out in detail how waterboarding should be practised. It specifically refers to the interrogation of Zubaydah using the water technique.

"In this procedure," Bybee said, "the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and the mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds ... this causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individual's blood.

"This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased efforts to breath. This effect plus the cloth produces the perception of 'suffocation and incipient panic', ie the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into his lungs."

After the 20 to 40 seconds, the cloth is lifted and the individual is allowed three or four full breaths before the procedure is repeated.

The memo went on to say that "we also understand that a medical expert will be present throughout this phase and the procedure will be stopped if deemed medically necessary to prevent severe mental or physical harm to Zubaydah".

A footnote to another 2005 justice department memo released last week said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the CIA rules permitted.

Copyright The Guardian

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fk5wfAYX0U

Will Obama Wash Bush's Dirty Laundry?

"President Obama, You Are Wrong"

By Keith Olbermann:

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" Takes on President Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA Interrogators for torture.