Bush lets CIA resume coercion
WASHINGTON – President Bush signed an order Friday that clears the way for the CIA to resume some of the harsh interrogation methods it has used against terrorism suspects, even while it prohibits techniques that had caused an international outcry, including sexual humiliation and denigration of religious symbols.
The executive order ends months of legal skirmishing within the government over how to comply with laws barring mistreatment of detainees and a Supreme Court ruling last year requiring the U.S. government to treat terrorism prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
In practical terms, the document places significant new limits on the CIA, even while making it clear that the agency will continue to operate under special rules that set it apart from the rest of the government. The order places no restriction on employing coercive methods – such as sleep deprivation and the use of “stress positions” – that are expressly off limits for the military and domestic law-enforcement agencies.
On another level, the order represents an attempt by the Bush administration to straddle two competing mandates by bringing the CIA program into line with court rulings and legislative requirements without disabling an operation that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have defended as one of the most valuable weapons in the war on terrorism.
Human rights groups criticized Bush’s order for failing to spell out which techniques are now approved or prohibited. The order instead said that CIA interrogators cannot undertake prohibited acts such as torture and murder, and barred religious denigration and humiliating or degrading treatment “so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem (it) … beyond the bounds of human decency.” Detainees, it said, must be provided with “the basic necessities of life,” including adequate food and water, clothing, essential medical care and “protection from extremes of heat and cold.”
“All the order really does is to have the president say ‘Everything in that other document that I’m not showing you is legal – trust me,’ ” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch.
Others noted that the order brings the United States closer to international standards on the treatment of prisoners but still gives the CIA significant latitude to employ methods that other countries and organizations have condemned.
“It certainly was a positive thing to see express prohibitions on things like sexual humiliation,” said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for Amnesty International in Washington. “But the places where (the document) is silent speak volumes.”
The order does not specifically address waterboarding, one of the most controversial methods employed by the CIA, in which a prisoner is strapped to a board and doused with water to simulate the sensation of drowning. A separate document spelling out specific techniques remains classified.
In a statement issued to the CIA work force Friday, agency director Michael V. Hayden said that because of the order, “we can focus on our vital work, confident that our mission and authorities are clearly defined.”
The agency suspended its use of harsh methods three years ago as the Bush administration’s legal justifications for them began to crumble and CIA operatives working in secret detention facilities overseas became worried that they might face lawsuits or even criminal prosecution for the techniques they were being told to use.
Bush administration officials involved in drafting the order said it was designed to preserve flexibility for the CIA and to avoid spelling out boundaries that might be studied by al-Qaida or other terrorist organizations.
In a telephone briefing with reporters, an administration official refused to elaborate on what the order will allow CIA interrogators to do, saying “that will only enable al-Qaida to train against those (methods) they know are on or off.” The official stressed that the order contains “red lines which I think we can all agree are beyond the pale” but acknowledged that there is no provision for allowing the Red Cross to visit CIA facilities or allow prisoners to be in contact with their families.
Critics said that the document signed by Bush is frustratingly vague, reserving its most specific language for abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib and other military facilities that were never part of the CIA’s interrogation program.
“The stuff they rule out is stuff they’ve always been willing to rule out,” Malinowski said.
U.S. officials said the executive order was accompanied by a separate document prepared by the Justice Department that spells out the specific interrogation methods and procedures that the CIA will be allowed to use in the secret detention program. But officials said that document is classified and will not be released.
The executive order is designed to bring the CIA program into compliance with the Supreme Court ruling last year in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a case brought against the government by a detainee.
In Hamdan, the court said that even if detainees did not deserve full status as prisoners of war, they still must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3, which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”