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  • News > Nation > National News

    National News  

    Posted on Thu, May. 08, 2008 10:43 PM

    Bond outlines proposal on nonpermissible actions by CIA

    
Bond
    Bond

    WASHINGTON | Seeking to referee a stalemate over CIA interrogations, Sen. Kit Bond says Congress should ban waterboarding but allow the agency some leeway in how it questions detainees.

    Bond, a Missourian and senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlined his proposal in nonbinding language accompanying a bill that sets out the intelligence community’s policies, programs and spending for 2009. An unclassified summary was released Thursday.

    Like the 2008 version of the authorization bill — which President Bush vetoed — the 2009 bill restricts the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques approved by the military in the Army Field Manual. Bond said he would seek to attach his proposed compromise to this or other legislation.

    Rather than prescribe what the intelligence agency may do in an interrogation, Bond wants to write into law only what the CIA cannot do: force detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner; have hoods or sacks placed over their heads or duct tape over their eyes; be beaten, shocked or burned; threatened with military dogs; exposed to extreme heat or cold; subjected to mock executions; deprived of food, water or medical care, or be waterboarded.

    Waterboarding involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning. CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged this spring that three CIA prisoners were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. He prohibited the practice by the CIA in 2006, but it still could be used if authorized by the president and the attorney general.

    Hayden has opposed the field manual limitation, saying the military list does not include all interrogation techniques that are consistent with U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions, such as sleep deprivation.

    The unclassified portion of the new legislation focuses heavily on the CIA’s treatment and interrogation of detainees. It prohibits private contractors from participating in interrogations; it requires Red Cross access to all prisoners — an attempt to prevent the holding of secret or “ghost” detainees, and it requires an annual report on compliance with a law banning cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners.

    It requires the administration to turn over to Congress any legal justifications that address detainees. Last month, the Pentagon declassified an 81-page legal opinion from 2003 that outlined the legal basis for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaida and Taliban detainees overseas, as long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captives. The memo also said the president’s wartime power as commander in chief would not be limited by the U.N. treaties against torture.

    On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee approved its version of the 2009 authorization bill. It requires intelligence agencies to brief the entire committee on certain covert operations before the committee OKs financing.

     

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