Agents 'shielded' from torture charges

[cal04]

THE US government's policies on interrogating terrorist suspects may preclude the prosecution of CIA agents who commit abuses or even kill detainees, a US magazine reported overnight. The Central Intelligence Agency has been implicated in the death of at least four detainees but the US government has so far brought charges against only one low-level contract employee, possibly because modified policies under President George W. Bush grant interrogators wide latitude, the New Yorker magazine wrote.

In the case of one Iraqi terrorist suspect, Manadel al-Jamadi, who died shortly after being taken into custody two years ago, the US Justice Department has yet to file charges against anyone even though the death was classified as a homicide. Photos of grinning US soldiers crouching over Jamadi's corpse were among the disturbing images that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, prompting international outrage and internal US military investigations.

Jamadi, whose head had been covered by a plastic bag and was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose, died of asphyxiation, according to previous media reports.
The CIA agent who interrogated Jamadi has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency, the New Yorker reported. The magazine identified the CIA employee, who is not a covert agent, as Mark Swanner and said he and his lawyer declined to comment for the article.

An unnamed lawyer familiar with the case told the magazine that the case appears to be "lying kind of fallow". The Bush administration's legal definition of torture and abuse make it extremely difficult to prosecute any CIA agent suspected of abusing a detainee, the magazine wrote. Two classified memos written by the Justice Department in 2002 and 2003 allegedly grant "breath-taking" and "radical" latitude for the treatment of prisoners, dismissing domestic and international laws, anonymous sources were quoted as saying. "These two memos sanction such extreme measures that, even if the agency wanted to discipline or prosecute agents who stray beyond its own comfort level, the legal tools to do so may no longer exist," the magazine wrote.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17162591%255E1702,00.html

[Double T]

1. This lawless administration can't get out of office fast enough.......

Now the CIA can be judge, jury and executioner without any accountability? And we are trying to tell other countries to model their democracy after WHAT?????

[Marie26]

2. So what does this mean?

CIA agents are already implicated in deaths at Abu Ghrab. The news just reported that the CIA has secret prison camps in Eastern Europe that have not been monitored by human rights org. Dick Cheney just personally asked for an exception in the anti-torture amendment to allow CIA agents to torture detainees. What does this mean? It's already hard to prosecute - wouldn't Cheney's exception give CIA agents complete impunity? These prisons are not open - so if Cheney's exception passes, CIA agents would have complete freedom to torture detaniees in the future. How would anybody know? How would anyone know or stop it if prisoners are routinely tortured or killed in these camps? It sounds like the US is setting up a gulag system & it makes me a little sick to my stomach.

[Spazito]

3. I think they are referring to the Gonzales memos

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf

http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/torture/30603wgrpt.html

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4999734/
(scroll down to pdf links re Gonzales and Powell)

[951-Riverside]

4. What will they do if these agents turn on them?

[daleo]

5. License to kill

It's not just James Bond anymore. Who knows where it will end? I bet Gestapo officers had the same legal cover.