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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau
June 30, 2011, 4:23 p.m.
Reporting from Washington—
The Justice Department has decided not to file criminal charges in the vast
majority of cases involving the CIA's former interrogation, detention and
kidnapping program.
In a statement to CIA employees on his last day as director, Leon E. Panetta
said Thursday that after an examination of more than 100 instances in which
the agency allegedly had contact with terrorism detainees, Assistant U.S.
Atty. John Durham decided that further investigation was warranted in just
two cases. Each of those cases resulted in a death.
Leon Panetta cites Afghanistan gains, continued terrorism threat in
confirmation hearing Leon Panetta cites Afghanistan gains, continued
terrorism threat in confirmation hearing
Panetta, who is to be sworn in as Defense secretary Friday, did not disclose
specifics about those cases, but it has been widely reported that one
involves Manadel Jamadi, who died in 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after
he was beaten while being questioned in a shower by a CIA interrogator.
"Both cases were previously reviewed by career federal prosecutors who
subsequently declined prosecution," Panetta said.
Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., who announced the CIA investigations in
August 2009, followed Panetta's announcement with a statement that confirmed
the decision but did not explain it. Beyond the two detainee deaths, "the
department has determined that an expanded criminal investigation of the
remaining matters is not warranted," Holder said.
The announcements mean that no CIA officer will face prosecution in
connection with interrogations that the agency's inspector general and a
Justice Department official under former President George W. Bush concluded
had exceeded what lawyers had authorized.
For example, a 2004 CIA inspector general's report concluded that the way
the CIA practiced waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates
drowning, was harsher than Bush administration lawyers had envisioned in the
memos they wrote signing off on it. The memos were later criticized as
badly reasoned, and many lawyers believe waterboarding was never legal.
Three detainees, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-professed
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, were waterboarded. Obama administration
officials, and an investigation by Senate Democrats, have concluded the
techniques yielded no real intelligence value, though former Bush
administration officials hotly disagree.
Panetta praised the decision not to file charges in most cases, as did Rep.
Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who succeeds Panetta as CIA director, told the
Senate Intelligence Committee last week that "it is time to take the rear-
view mirrors off the bus with respect to certain actions out there."
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union disagreed.
"We continue to believe that the scope of Mr. Durham's mandate was far too
narrow," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.
"The central problem was not with interrogators who disobeyed orders, but
with senior officials who authorized a program of torture."
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