New documents obtained by TWI related to the case of Mohammed Jawad, an adolescent tortured by Afghan police and then abused again by U.S. interrogators, suggest that not only certain CIA interrogations, but interrogations by the Department of Defense demand a broader investigation as well.
Last month, Attorney More…
As President Obama reconsiders some of the assumptions of the counterinsurgency strategy he announced in March for Afghanistan and Pakistan, a conference featuring many of the luminaries of the counterinsurgency community discussed both the challenges inherent in counterinsurgency, including some lessons yet to be applied in Afghanistan.
U.S. Army Gen. More…
Although the Obama administration’s much-anticipated new policy on the use of the so-called “state secrets” privilege, announced this morning, has drawn some praise, civil liberties lawyers and other critics of the use of the privilege don’t think it solves the problem.
The state secrets privilege allows the government More…
Switzerland sent officials last month to visit the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay to collect information about four detainees it’s considering accepting for resettlement, The Associated Press reports.
The men being considered are reportedly two Chinese Muslim Uighurs, an Uzbek and a Palestinian. The men the More…
In yet another case that questions the power of federal courts to rein in the government’s executive branch, the U.S. Circuit Court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday issued a mandate that allows the government to send up to 150 Guantanamo detainees to other countries over More…
In surprising slap-in-the-face order to the government, a federal judge ruled last month that a court can require the government to disclose classified information to an individual with security clearance even if the executive branch doesn’t want to.
Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News reports that Judge Royce Lamberth More…
As Spencer noted, in responding to a federal judge’s order to turn over another batch of documents including President George W. Bush’s authorization of CIA secret prisons, and records of investigations into the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, the Department of Justice instead opted More…
After months of leaks and speculation about its content, the Department of Justice yesterday produced a declassified version of the 2004 CIA inspector general report that provides details of the CIA’s investigations of certain detainees in the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” At almost the same More…
A four-plus page section of the 2004 CIA inspector general report on torture is called “Endgame,” and, ominously, all but two paragraphs, far separated from each other, are redacted. Here’s what the first one says:
The number of detainees in CIA custody is relatively small by comparison with those
Just released from the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Her review is said to be rather thorough, and yet she appears distinctly sanguine about today’s revelations:
“The documents released today provide evidence that the CIA detention and interrogation program exceeded its authority as follows:
· Beating a
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