A Dream for a Better World

Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a gross breach of medical ethics, a long-secret report by the Red Cross concluded. Based on statements by 14 prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda and were moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in late 2006, Red Cross investigators concluded that medical professionals working for the C.I.A. monitored prisoners undergoing waterboarding, apparently to make sure they did not drown. Medical workers were also present when guards confined prisoners in small boxes, shackled their arms to the ceiling, kept them in frigid cells and slammed them repeatedly into walls, the report said.  Facilitating such practices, which the Red Cross described as torture, was a violation of medical ethics even if the medical workers’ intentions had been to prevent death or permanent injury, the report said.

Although the CIA’s secret prisons, harsh interrogation techniques and Guantanamo Bay are being demantled, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool – the secret renditions in which terrorism suspects were kidnapped and transferred to countries that cooperate with the United States.  Under Obama’s executive orders recently, the CIA still has the authority to carry out the renditions.  Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it took suspected terrorists off the streets.  The secret rendition program became a target of international scorn as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver’s license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it’s not clear what information those systems contain.  Dozens of the organizations known as fusion centers were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.  The centers use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies.

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the CIA’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes.  The International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the CIA last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were categorically torture, which is illegal under both American and international law. It was reported that Abu Zubaydah was confined in a box so small he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position and was one of several prisoners to be slammed against the walls, according to the Red Cross report. The CIA has admitted that Abu Zubaydah and two other prisoners were waterboarded.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan was the Iraqi informant who peddled discredited intelligence that helped spur an invasion of his native country.  It was intelligence attributed to Alwan – whose code-name was Curveball – that the White House used in making its case that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.  He described what turned out to be fictional mobile germ factories.  The CIA belatedly branded him a liar. Since his discredited role in the lead-up to war nine years ago, Alwan has moved to Germany hoping for an easier life. He also hoped for a reward for his cooperation with German intelligence officers.  He stated that for what he has done, he should be treated like a king.  However, he has faced withering international scorn for peddling the discredited intelligence and has survived living with his family in a cramped, low-rent apartment flipping burgers or washing dishes at various fast food restaurants. 

It was recently learned that the Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, against captives after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality.  Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.  The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. Attending the sessions were Cheney, then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.  Cheney and the top national security officials were deeply immersed in developing the CIA’s interrogation program during months of discussions over which methods should be used and when.

Did the CIA manufacture phony documents linking al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein in an effort to assist the Bush Administration in its lead up to war in Iraq?  According to a new book, “The Way of the World”, the CIA has although the agency adamantly denies the allegation.  The author contends that once the Bush Administration learned in 2003 that the Iraqi President no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction, they ordered the CIA to concoct a fake document that purported to show that Iraq helped trained Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.  The purpose behind this forgery was to influence public opinion about the war.

Kyle Dustin “Dusty” Foggo, the former no. 3 official of the CIA, plead guilty recently to defrauding the government in a case revolving around the corruption scandal involving former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.  Foggo admitted that he had abused his rank to divert lucrative contracts toward his friends.  In this conviction, Foggo becomes the highest-ranking official at the CIA convicted in a criminal case.  However, in return for his guilty plea for a single fraud charge, prosecutors dropped 27 additional counts that included money laundering and conspiracy.  Furthermore, prosecutors are recommending that he serves no more than 37 months in prison.