Showing posts with label CIA black sites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA black sites. Show all posts

Monday, October 9, 2017

More Details Emerge On CIA Black Sites

The Guardian: Inside The CIA's Black Site Torture Room

There were twenty cells inside the prison, each a stand-alone concrete box. In sixteen, prisoners were shackled to a metal ring in the wall. In four, designed for sleep deprivation, they stood chained by the wrists to an overhead bar. Those in the regular cells had a plastic bucket; those in sleep deprivation wore diapers. When diapers weren’t available, guards crafted substitutes with duct tape, or prisoners were chained naked in their cells. The cellblock was unheated, pitch black day and night, with music blaring around the clock.

“The atmosphere was very good,” John “Bruce” Jessen told a CIA investigator in January 2003, two months after he interrogated a prisoner named Gul Rahman in the facility. “Nasty, but safe.”

Jessen, one of the two contract psychologists who designed the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques”, spent 10 days in the secret prison near Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2002. Five days after he left, Rahman, naked from the waist down and shackled to the cold concrete floor, was discovered dead in his cell from hypothermia.

In August, Gul Rahman’s family and Mohamed Ben Soud and Suleiman Abdullah Salim, two surviving prisoners of the Afghan black site, reached an out-of-court settlement in their lawsuit against Jessen and James Mitchell seeking restitution for torture.

Read more .....

WNU Editor: Here is an easy prediction .... even though these CIA black sites closed years ago .... the debate and discussion on what happened during this time will still continue.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

The White House Has No Plans To Re-Open CIA 'Black Sites'

A Navy guard patrols Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay naval base © Michael R. Holzworth / Reuters

New York Times: White House Pulls Back From Bid to Reopen C.I.A. ‘Black Site’ Prisons

WASHINGTON — The Trump White House appears to have backed off for now on its consideration of reopening overseas “black site” prisons, where the C.I.A. once tortured terrorism suspects, after a leaked draft executive order prompted bipartisan pushback from Congress and cabinet officials.

On Thursday, the White House circulated among National Security Council staff members a revised version of the draft order on detainees that deleted language contemplating a revival of the C.I.A. prisons, according to several officials familiar with its contents.

The draft order retains other parts of the original that focus on making greater use of the military’s Guantánamo Bay prison, which the Obama administration had tried to close. Those sections, reflecting repeated vows from President Trump, include a call to bring newly captured terrorism detainees there and to freeze plans for any more transfers.

After news outlets reported details of the original draft on Jan. 25, lawmakers erupted in outrage, and both the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, disavowed any prior knowledge of the contemplated order.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: If another 9/11 or worse happens .... trust me on this one .... those CIA 'Black Sites" will return with a vengeance, and those who oppose them will be wiped out in the next election. But for now .... because the threat is no longer really there .... why create a firestorm of protest.

More News On The White House Having No Plans To Re-Open CIA 'Black Sites'

U.S. backs off bid to reopen CIA 'black site' prisons: officials -- Reuters
Report: US Backs Off Bid to Reopen CIA 'Black Site' Prisons -- VOA
US administration backs away from plan to reopen CIA ‘black sites’ – media -- RT
Trump Administration Abandons Idea to Reopen CIA 'Black Site' Prisons -- Sputnik

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Are CIA 'Black Sites' Returning?

Washington Times: Trump considering order to reopen CIA prisons for terrorism suspects

John McCain: ‘We are not bringing back torture’

President Trump is considering an executive order that would keep open the Guantanamo Bay prison and could lift a ban imposed by former President Obama on the CIA operating overseas clandestine prisons for terrorism suspects.

A three-page draft order, titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants,” would reinstate other policies from the Bush administration on the treatment of terrorism detainees, according to the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the draft.

Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, warned the Trump administration against bringing back torture methods, known during the Bush era as “enhanced interrogation” such as waterboarding.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The White House is denying this story .... White House says draft interrogation order is not a White House document (Reuters).

More News On Reports That CIA 'Black Sites' May Be Returning

Trump Draft Order Could Lead to New CIA-Run 'Black Sites' -- AP
White House draft order calls for review on use of CIA ‘black site’ prisons overseas -- Washington Post
Trump Poised to Lift Ban on CIA 'Black Site' Prisons -- New York Times
White House considers review of interrogation methods -- USA Today
President Donald Trump opens door to reviving CIA 'black site' prisons in executive order draft -- The Independent
Trump Is Reportedly Considering Reopening CIA "Black Site" Prisons -- Mother Jones
McCain to Trump: 'We're not bringing back torture' -- The Hill
Will Donald Trump Torture Terrorists? President May Reopen CIA Black Site Prisons With Executive Order -- International Business Times

Friday, June 3, 2016

The CIA Is Blaming The Federal Bureau Of Prisons For A Detainee Death At A 'Black Site'

Jason Leopold, VICE News: After a Detainee Died at a Black Site, the CIA Blamed Training From the Federal Bureau of Prisons

In late 2002, the CIA asked the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to send a training team to a CIA black site in Northern Kabul, Afghanistan, code-named COBALT. While there, the BOP team instructed guards on the proper use of a restraining technique against detainees called "short chaining," also referred to as short shackling.

Not long after the BOP team left the black site, the technique was used on an Afghan militant and suspected al-Qaeda operative named Gul Rahman, who had been captured by the Pakistani government during a raid a month earlier. Deemed a high-value detainee, he was then taken to COBALT. While being held captive at the black site, the CIA said Rahman became violent, and on numerous occasions had threatened to kill guards.

On November 19, 2002, at about 3pm, guards brought food to Rahman's cell. The last meal he'd eaten had been the day before. When the guards entered Rahman's cell, he was nude from the waist down. The captive again threatened to kill the guards and proceeded to throw his food, water bottle, and waste bucket at them.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I am surprised that this report on the death of this Afghan militant and suspected al-Qaeda operative has been made public .... albeit heavily redacted. But I suspect that this debate is going to go on for a very long time, and in the event of another 9/11 (or worse) .... I can only speculate on where this discussion will then go. But I do know one thing .... since the start of President Obama's term in office, capturing militants and questioning them for intelligence is no longer the priority .... drone strikes and targeted assassinations are. Case in point .... and we saw this being enforced only last week .... U.S. intelligence knew where Taliban leader Mullah Mansour was last week when he was killed in a drone strike .... it looks like they were tracking him for a very long time. So .... why the targeted assassination .... why not conduct a special ops mission to capture him. Again .... no one in the media are asking the right questions.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

The CIA Apparently Took 14,000 Photos Of Their Former Overseas 'Black Sites' After 9/11

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Washington Post: CIA photos of ‘black sites’ could complicate Guantanamo trials

Military prosecutors this year learned about a massive cache of CIA photographs of its former overseas “black sites” while reviewing material collected for the Senate investigation of the agency’s interrogation program, U.S. officials said.

The existence of the approximately 14,000 photographs will probably cause yet another delay in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as attorneys for the defendants demand that all the images be turned over and the government wades through the material to decide what it thinks is relevant to the proceedings.

Defense attorneys said they have not yet been informed about the photographs and said it is unacceptable that they should come to light now, more than three years after the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other defendants accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.


WNU Editor: The reason why these pictures were taken .... The official added that many of the pictures appear to have been taken for budgetary reasons to document how money was being spent.

Friday, August 1, 2014

The CIA's 'Dirty Laundry' Is About To Be Revealed

Larry Downing/Reuters

The CIA's Dirty Playbook Is About To Be Opened -- Eli Lake & Josh Rogin, The Daily Beast

A long-awaited Senate report won’t use the word ‘torture’ to describe the CIA’s interrogations. But it will show abuse that is horrific, systematic, and widespread.

The White House is set to give Congress on Friday the final, declassified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s majority report on CIA interrogation. And according to one person who has reviewed the document and three people who were briefed on its contents, the committee’s report will reveal new and shocking details about the CIA’s detention, rendition, and interrogation program in the years following the 9/11 attacks. But the report will not accuse the CIA outright of “torture,” an accusation that could have political, diplomatic, legal, and even criminal implications.

Instead, committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein has said, the report shows abuse that is “chilling” and “far more systematic and widespread than we thought.”

“The American people will be profoundly disturbed about what will be revealed in this report,” Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the committee who has been vocal in his criticism of the CIA, told The Daily Beast this week.

Read more ....

My Comment: By publishing this report .... it is easy to predict that the lawyers who are defending the suspects involved in the planning and execution of 9/11 will be moving to have the charges against their clients dismissed since the evidence that was gathered to implicate them was based on torture.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Did Britain Cooperate With The CIA In Operating A 'Black Site' On Diego Garcia?


U.K. Govt Pressed Over Allegations CIA Used Diego Garcia As Black Site -- Al Jazeera

The British government faced renewed questions Thursday over whether the CIA has used the island of Diego Garcia, a leased U.K. territory in the Indian Ocean, to detain high-value suspects.

Prompted by an Al Jazeera report that published information from a classified U.S. Senate report, London-based human rights group Reprieve called on U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague to release more information on the issue.

On Wednesday, it was reported that a Senate Intelligence Committee paper confirms that U.S. intelligence agents detained suspects on Diego Garcia, an island about 1,100 miles off the southern tip of India. The article cited two unnamed U.S. officials with knowledge of the classified document, which is set for declassification after an Intelligence Committee vote last week.

Read more ....

Update #1: British gave 'full co-operation' for CIA black jail on Diego Garcia, report claims -- The Telegraph
Update #2: Claims British territory of Diego Garcia was 'used by US as a secret jail to hold terror suspects' puts pressure on Hague -- Daily Mail

My Comment: The other Diego Garcia story is this one .... New conspiracy suggests MH370 is parked on Diego Garcia -- MINA