Shedding new light on a chapter of the U.S. \u201cwar on terror\u201d that has largely remained shrouded in secrecy, the Open Society Justice Initiative released a report Tuesday [5 Feb 2013] detailing the cases of 136 individuals who were extraordinarily rendered or secretly detained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).<\/i><\/p>\n
Entitled \u201cGlobalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition<\/a>\u201d, the report confirms that the CIA held suspected terrorists in undisclosed prisons, known as \u201cblack sites\u201d. The agency also carried out \u201cextraordinary renditions\u201d \u2013 defined by the report as the illegal transfer of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for detention or interrogation.<\/p>\n According to the Justice Initiative\u2019s report, CIA detainees were tortured and abused in detention sites around the world. Some were wrongfully detained, and others were never charged for a crime.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the thing with these cases, each one is quite disturbing,\u201d Amrit Singh, author of the report and senior legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative\u2019s National Security and Counterterrorism programme, told IPS.<\/p>\n Take the case of Fatima Bouchar, one of 136 individuals whose experience the report documented. In 2004, the CIA and Thai authorities abused Bouchar at an airport in Bangkok. She was chained to a wall and starved for five days, before being rendered to Libya. Bouchar was four and a half months pregnant at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cPart of the reason why this report was written is because it\u2019s really important to tell the stories of what happened to these victims,\u201d said Singh.<\/p>\n The report argues that along with its illegality, torture produces faulty information. It cites the case of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who was extraordinarily rendered by the U.S. to Egypt in 2002. Under the threat of torture, al-Libi fabricated information about Iraq, Al-Qaeda and the use of biological and chemical weapons.<\/p>\n In 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell cited this fabricated information in his speech to the U.N., while advocating for war in Iraq.<\/p>\n The report was written in the context of post 9\/11 U.S. counterterrorism policies. Its opening epigraph draws from a 2001 television interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, conducted by Tim Russert for \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on NBC News.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world,\u201d said Cheney. \u201cA lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quickly, without any discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n The report also lists 54 complicit \u201cforeign governments\u201d that participated with the CIA in various ways: by hosting CIA. prisons on their territories; by capturing, transporting and torturing detainees; by providing intelligence, etc.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really speaks to the power that the U.S. wields over the world,\u201d said Singh. \u201cIn this case, the U.S. has power essentially to recruit partners in committing human rights violations in the name of countering terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n Checks and balances and extrajudicial killings<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2002, Maher Arar was detained by U.S. authorities at New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy Airport. The CIA flew him out to Amman, Jordan, where he was abused by Jordanian guards. Then he was extraordinarily rendered to Syria, locked in a grave-like cell for 10 months, beaten with cables and threatened with electric shocks.<\/p>\n Arar\u2019s lawyer Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told IPS that they sued the U.S. government officials who sent him to be tortured. But their case came up short.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, the defendants (the U.S. government) came back with the same arguments as they always do, saying even if what (Arar) says is true \u2013 that the U.S. sent him to Syria to be tortured \u2013 the officials can\u2019t be held liable,\u201d said LaHood.<\/p>\n She said that when U.S. government officials associate their actions with \u201cnational security\u201d, it is nearly impossible to prosecute them. \u201cThe judiciary cannot touch it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven though there\u2019s constitutional violations here, there\u2019s no remedy,\u201d she added. \u201c(Arar) couldn\u2019t go anywhere with his case in the U.S. He hasn\u2019t gotten an apology. He\u2019s still on the watch-list.\u201d<\/p>\n LaHood told IPS about similar challenges in prosecuting extrajudicial killings. She noted an ongoing case Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta in which the families of three U.S. citizens \u2013 who were killed in U.S. drone strikes \u2013 are suing the U.S. executive branch.<\/p>\n \u201cThe defendents \u2013 Panetta, Petraeus and a couple of others \u2013 have moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the judiciary can\u2019t adjudicate the case,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When asked about the balance of power between the executive and judicial branches of the U.S. government, LaHood said, \u201c(The) executive power has grown and grown, and that\u2019s in part because the executive is increasing its own power, and in part because the judiciary is deferring to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Philip G. Alston, a professor of law at New York University School of Law and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, told IPS,\u00a0\u201cThe executive branch is effectively given carte blanche by the judicial branch.<\/p>\n \u201cThe latter has particularly abdicated its responsibility to uphold the rule of law in any matter that involves the CIA,\u201d he added. \u201cThe result is that it is left to make its own decisions, subject only to pro forma Congressional oversight \u2013 which, as far as can be judged from the public record, is little short of cheerleading.\u201d<\/p>\n Singh told IPS, \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that there are serious terrorist threats today in the world, and they must be dealt with in an appropriate an lawful manner, but the fact that these threats exist does not constitute grounds to deviate from established domestic and international law.<\/p>\n \u201cU.S. courts have largely denied victims of torture their (compensations). U.S. courts have not acted as a constraint on the abuse of executive power, which is how they should conduct their business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n