Tag Archives: CIA
27 January 2014
The Washington Post has provided a detailed account of the use by the United States of a secret prison near Warsaw that was used in 2003 to interrogate accused September 11 conspirators.
The report describes how the interrogation initially took place in Thailand, and that the Polish location was chosen when a better facility was needed. The CIA paid nearly 300,000 US dollars for improvement of the facility. US interrogators used in the Polish prison ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ that were formulated at the CIA and approved by Justice Department lawyers. These included slapping, sleep deprivation and waterboarding. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of the attacks, was reportedly waterboarded 183 times in the Polish facility.
Source: The Washington Post | The hidden history of the CIA’s prison in Poland
9 December 2013
The lawyers for two Guantánamo Bay detainees claimed before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that the detainees were tortured in a secret ‘black site’ in Poland. Poland has been brought before the ECtHR for allowing US officials to use ‘enhanced’ interrogations and ‘waterboarding’ technics within its territory. Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism argued before the Court, where ‘systematic human rights violations are alleged to have occurred, the right to know the truth is not only an individual right that belongs to the immediate victim of the violation, but also a collective rights that belongs to the whole of society.’ (more…)
Source: The Guardian | Guantánamo Bay detainees claim Poland allowed CIA torture
29 October 2013
The Washington Post reported that despite having repeatedly denounced the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years (secretly) endorsed the programme, and regularly received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts. Also, during the early years of the campaign, the CIA used Pakistani airstrips for its Predator fleet.
According to leaked top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos, Pakistan was not only regularly briefed on the strikes, in some cases it helped choose targets, or collaborated in a four-year period from late 2007, when military ruler Pervez Musharraf was in power, to late 2011 when a civilian government led by the Pakistan People’s Party had taken over. In April 2013, Musharraf told CNN that he had authorised drone strikes in Pakistan while he was in power. However, Pakistani security officials and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (2008-June 2012) denied that they had approved US drone strikes on the country’s soil, although a diplomatic cable from then-US ambassador Anne Patterson from August 2008, released by WikiLeaks, indicated Gilani had agreed to the strikes in private.
The Washington Post said the leaked documents showed the CIA, who runs the drone programme, drafted documents to share information on at least 65 attacks with Pakistan’s government. In 2010, a document describes hitting a location ‘at the request of your government’, and another document refers to a joint targeting effort between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Source: The Washington Post | Secret memos reveal explicit nature of U.S., Pakistan agreement on drones
Source: Yahoo News | Former Pakistan PM, security officials deny US drone collusion
13 September 2013
The Washington Post reported that in the last few weeks, the CIA has started delivering (light) weapons to rebels in Syria, mainly in order to support fighters that are under the command of General Idriss, the commander of the Supreme Military Council. Separate deliveries (e.g. vehicles) have been made by the State Department. Aid in the form of nonlethal gear (e.g. medical kits and communications equipment) has also been delivered to the Syrian rebels.
Source: The Washington Post | U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels
28 August 2013
Foreign Policy reported on recently declassified CIA files that reveal that the United States provided assistance to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war despite having knowledge of chemical weapons use by Saddam Hussein’s military.
According to the report, the CIA documents and former US intelligence officials confirm that the US had firm evidence of chemical weapons attacks beginning in 1983, but the Reagan administration nevertheless continued to provide assistance, including satellite imagery, to Iraq. Previous reports had indicated that the US had suspected the use of chemical weapons, but the declassified documents reveal that US officials were regularly informed on the scale of nerve gas attacks, which according to the FP report, amounts to American complicity in Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons attacks.
The US has denied acquiescing to Iraq’s chemical weapons attacks, and the CIA declined to comment for the FP report.
Source: Foreign Policy | Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran