UN Torture Expert to Report on Bradley Manning Detention

A UN expert says he’s had “productive conversations” with American officials about the detention of Bradley Manning, but would not say if the conditions of that detention violated international standards.

UN Special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez says he will be releasing a report on Manning’s detention in the coming weeks.

“On the one hand he is no longer in solitary confinement, although he spent something like eight months in solitary confinement. But when he was moved to Fort Leavenworth his regime changed.” Mendez told reporters today. “On a daily basis he does communicate and socialize with other inmates in his same category which is a big improvement over the first 8 months.”

Mendez says he is following developments in the case closely, despite being refused a confidential meeting with the alleged Wikileaks source. He said the US Defense Department agreed to let him visit Manning but would not guarantee the conversation would be private.

“Under the rules of the Special Rapporteur and the rules of all the special procedures, that is a condition that we cannot accept.” he said. “I nevertheless told Mr. Manning through his council that if he still wanted to see me I would make an exception, but he also chose not to waive his right to have a private conversation with me.” 

Mendez was at the UN to present a report calling on states to end the use of solitary confinement as a punitive measure or prison management technique. He says solitary confinement is permissible in some instances, such as for protective reasons or other short term specific purposes, but is otherwise a inhuman punishment. He also said instances of pre-trial solitary confinement were especially of concern.

“Its used mostly as a way to extort confessions or information leading to the prosecution of others. If this is used to coerce the will of a person in detention it can amount, depending on the severity, to either cruel and degrading treatment or to torture itself.”

Somali Torture Victims Try To Overcome Prime Minister's Immunity Claim

Bashe Abdi Yousuf and four other former Somalis claim they were tortured or had family members murdered by the Somali government in the 1980s. They sued Mohamed Ali Samatar, a former Somali Prime Minister, in US federal court after discovering that Samatar was living in Virginia. In the Supreme Court today, Samatar's lawyers argued that his actions were taken while he was a government official, and thus Samatar should have immunity under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

The FSIA says that foreign governments cannot be sued in US courts (with the exception of countries listed by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism), and Samatar's argument is that, while the statute's terms don't protect government officials from suit, the law would be ineffective if a plaintiff could sue the top officials in that government. The rationale behind the immunity is that US courts should not pass judgment on foreign governments, but that immunity would be worthless if foreign government officials could be threatened with lawsuits over official acts they carried out in their home country.

Justice Stephen Breyer seemed the most receptive to this argument in court today, at one point telling Yousuf's lawyer that if the law doesn't protect officials, "this act is only good as against the bad lawyer." Any clever lawyer, Breyer said, would just sue the officials directly.

The lawyers for the Somalis argued that there were still teeth in FSIA, even if it does not protect officials individually, since any suit that asked for a change in government policy, return of land, or other remedies against a foreign government would be thrown out under FSIA. Further, some actions taken by government officials would still be protected under common-law immunity principles.

The argument that seemed to gain the most support, though, was based on the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), passed by Congress in 1991. If government officials have immunity, and the TVPA did not change that, then the TVPA served no purpose, several Justices suggested. Lawyers for the Somalis replied that, in some cases, governments waive immunity protection for their officials, so torture prosecutions can proceed.

Overall, the stance of the Justices was unclear, since they were faced with seemingly contradictory statutory language. The case, Samantar v. Yousuf, will be decided by this summer.

Religious Leaders Urge Torture Investigation

By Mariko Lamb- Talk Radio News Service

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) urged President Barack Obama to establish a commission to investigate the use of enhanced interrogation techniques during a press conference today.

NRCAT is headed by a collaboration of prominent religious leaders of various denominations.  Despite differences in religious faith, all leaders and advocates of the campaign expressed the same views that if the U.S. acted in a way that could be considered torture, then it should be identified, eliminated, and prevented.  Each leader or delegate found a basis of argument against torture in his or her own religious beliefs.

Speaker Rabbi Gutow said, “Torture is not a Jewish value...One should not torture someone created in the image of his or her own god.”

Reverend Dr. John Thomas also condemned torture, saying an investigation of enhanced interrogation techniques “will be difficult and challenging, but necessary.”

Additional objectives of the campaign, founded in January 2006, include monitoring the special task force’s interrogation methods, passing the Torture Victim’s Relief Act, repealing the Military Commissions Act, and ensuing access of detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Cheney: Waterboarding Saved Thousands Of American Lives

By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service

Former VP Dick Cheney

Rushed to a secret White House bunker on September 11, 2001, former Vice President Dick Cheney watched coordinated terrorist attacks unfold before his eyes.

“I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities,” said Cheney today at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

In the days following 9-11, Congress passed a Joint Resolution that gave the President and other high ranking officials the power to act with “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect America, according to Cheney.

This meant the Bush Administration would use all tactics at their disposal to ensure the country’s safety, including the allowance of waterboarding against suspected terrorists and an offensive war to disrupt terrorist activities.

Cheney bluntly stated that the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques were “legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.”

Cheney defended the 183 instances of waterboarding employed by the CIA on Kaled Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks.

“American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people,” said Cheney.

Waterboarding was not used against every enemy combatant, but “only those terrorists of the highest intelligence value,” said Cheney.

However, Cheney asserted that high-ranking members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s use of these techniques, including the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D Calif.). He criticized those members of Congress who demanded to be briefed saying that “they support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.”

In response to Pelosi’s assertion that the CIA lied to her, Cheney stated that “people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about ‘values.’”

Pelosi has been one of the harshest critics of the Bush Administration and a leading advocate for a ‘Truth Commission.’

“It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors,” said Cheney in regards to such a commission.

Cheney wants the government to release all torture documents, and he mocked the Obama Administration’s choice to only partially release these documents when he said that “the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.”

“Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of the specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place,” said Cheney.

Additionally, Cheney asserted that no matter what actions the Obama Administration takes, like the closing Guantanamo Bay or disallowing the use of enhanced interrogation, the terrorists will continue to hate America.

“The terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by,” said Cheney.

Pelosi: The CIA Misled Me And The American People

By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service

The slow revelation of the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency can be likened to a child slowly pulling off a band-aid and crying louder and louder with each hair pulled out of the follicle.

With each removed hair, or revelation in the news, the groans of the American people are only amplified as they want the truth about the CIA’s use of waterboarding and which U.S government officials knew but remained silent.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was briefed by the CIA on interrogation techniques during September 2002, virulently denied that she knew the CIA employed water boarding.

In fact during a press conference this afternoon, she repeatedly answered numerous questions regarding her knowledge of when the CIA employed enhanced interrogation techniques, like waterboarding. She did this after her press secretary yelled out “last question.” Pelosi even answered as she was walked out of the room.

“I am speaking from my own experience, and we were told that it (waterboarding) was not being used,” said Pelosi emphatically.

Admitting that she was briefed by the CIA in September 2002, Pelosi said that the unnamed agent did not tell her that they used waterboarding, and promised her that the CIA would notify her if waterboarding was ever employed.

Pelosi said that the briefing in 2002 was “ incomplete and inaccurate,” as the waterboarding of terrorist and Bin Laden confidant, Abu Zubaydah, had occurred a month earlier.

After trying to clear her own name, Pelosi attempted to shift the blame to the CIA because it had not been forthright with information regarding the agency’s true actions.

“They (the CIA) misrepresented every step of the way, and they don’t want that focus on them, and they have tried to shift the focus on us (Congress),” said Pelosi.

At the same time of her briefing, Pelosi stated that “The Bush Adminstration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

As a result, Pelosi has been a leading advocate in the need for an independent “Truth Commission” that would work “to determine how intelligence was misused, and how controversial and possibly illegal activities, like torture, were authorized within the executive branch.”

However, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the “Truth Commission” a “politically motivated investigation into our intelligence agency.”

Boehner feels that such an investigation is “dangerous and wrong.

But if this investigation does occur, he wants to see all the information presented, including what Pelosi knew, when she knew it and what she did about it.

Additionally, Boehner believes that Pelois’s numerous stories have led to “more questions than answers,” and bluntly questioned if the Democrats were not being truthful themselves.

“When you look at the number of briefings that the Speaker was in and other Democratic members of the House and Senate its pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were, they were well aware that they have been used,” said Boehner.

Pelosi’s statements have only stoked the flames of suspicion, and her calls for a “Truth Commission,” at least according to Boehner, may lead to some unintended and unwanted discoveries.