Bush visits the CIA: His Dad's Old Haunts
"Bush visits the CIA: reassuring America’s Murder Inc.
By Patrick Martin
9 March 2005
President Bush’s visit to CIA headquarters last Thursday was an effort to assure the officials and agents of the chief US spy agency of continued White House support. His trip followed press reports of growing concern among career CIA officers that they could face discipline or even prosecution for the torture of prisoners detained as part of Bush’s “war on terror.”
Congressional Republicans have rejected calls for special hearings of the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the mounting evidence that kidnapping, torture and even murder of prisoners is standard practice for the CIA. Only one CIA agent, contract employee David Passaro, has been charged with a crime related to post-9/11 activities—in his case, the killing of a prisoner in Afghanistan who was beaten to death.
At least one other CIA officer is under investigation for a killing at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The CIA station chief in Baghdad was removed from his post in December 2003, the New York Times reported February 28, at least in part because of the death of two prisoners who had been interrogated by agency employees. The same article in the Times revealed: “The agency has referred some cases to the Justice Department for a review of possible criminal charges under the federal torture law, which forbids extreme interrogation tactics, and under civil rights laws more commonly used in police brutality prosecutions.”
The two Iraqi deaths were those of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in a shower room at Abu Ghraib prison on November 4, 2003, and Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who was beaten and asphyxiated. In both cases, military personnel have been charged with directly inflicting the fatal injuries—al-Jamadi was struck repeatedly on the head with rifle butts by Navy Seals, while Mowhoush was shoved into a sleeping bag head-first by Army intelligence officers and suffocated. CIA interrogators, however, were present and participating in both incidents.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director Porter Goss said that “a bunch of other cases,” in addition to Passaro’s, were under review by the CIA inspector general. He added, “What I can’t tell you is how many more might come in the door.”
This is was the background for Bush’s visit to CIA headquarters March 3 for a public relations event in the lobby of the building named after his father, George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director in 1975-76. The president spent two hours in the building, receiving a classified briefing that White House and CIA officials declined to discuss, as well as shaking hands with hundreds of agency employees. The administration has called for a 50 percent expansion in CIA manpower over the next few years.
Bush was effusive in his praise of the agency, telling his accompanying press corps: “I wanted to assure the people here that their contribution was incredibly vital to the security of the United States, and that, together, we’ve achieved a lot in securing this country. There’s a lot of really incredibly bright, capable, hard-working, dedicated Americans who work in this building.”
A photo-op for the media cannot, however, divert attention from the ongoing revelations about the participation of CIA agents in crimes against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and many other countries.
On the same day that Bush visited the headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the Washington Post carried a front-page story about the murder of a young Afghan detainee in November 2002 at the hands of the CIA. A CIA case officer ordered Afghan guards to strip the prisoner naked, chain him to the concrete floor of a warehouse code-named the Salt Pit, and leave him exposed overnight without any cover. The man froze to death. An autopsy confirmed hypothermia as the cause of death.
The prisoner was buried in an unmarked grave, his family was not notified, and even his name is unrecorded. “He just disappeared from the face of the earth,” one US government official told the Post. The CIA case officer involved has since been promoted."
Link...
By Patrick Martin
9 March 2005
President Bush’s visit to CIA headquarters last Thursday was an effort to assure the officials and agents of the chief US spy agency of continued White House support. His trip followed press reports of growing concern among career CIA officers that they could face discipline or even prosecution for the torture of prisoners detained as part of Bush’s “war on terror.”
Congressional Republicans have rejected calls for special hearings of the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the mounting evidence that kidnapping, torture and even murder of prisoners is standard practice for the CIA. Only one CIA agent, contract employee David Passaro, has been charged with a crime related to post-9/11 activities—in his case, the killing of a prisoner in Afghanistan who was beaten to death.
At least one other CIA officer is under investigation for a killing at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The CIA station chief in Baghdad was removed from his post in December 2003, the New York Times reported February 28, at least in part because of the death of two prisoners who had been interrogated by agency employees. The same article in the Times revealed: “The agency has referred some cases to the Justice Department for a review of possible criminal charges under the federal torture law, which forbids extreme interrogation tactics, and under civil rights laws more commonly used in police brutality prosecutions.”
The two Iraqi deaths were those of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in a shower room at Abu Ghraib prison on November 4, 2003, and Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who was beaten and asphyxiated. In both cases, military personnel have been charged with directly inflicting the fatal injuries—al-Jamadi was struck repeatedly on the head with rifle butts by Navy Seals, while Mowhoush was shoved into a sleeping bag head-first by Army intelligence officers and suffocated. CIA interrogators, however, were present and participating in both incidents.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director Porter Goss said that “a bunch of other cases,” in addition to Passaro’s, were under review by the CIA inspector general. He added, “What I can’t tell you is how many more might come in the door.”
This is was the background for Bush’s visit to CIA headquarters March 3 for a public relations event in the lobby of the building named after his father, George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director in 1975-76. The president spent two hours in the building, receiving a classified briefing that White House and CIA officials declined to discuss, as well as shaking hands with hundreds of agency employees. The administration has called for a 50 percent expansion in CIA manpower over the next few years.
Bush was effusive in his praise of the agency, telling his accompanying press corps: “I wanted to assure the people here that their contribution was incredibly vital to the security of the United States, and that, together, we’ve achieved a lot in securing this country. There’s a lot of really incredibly bright, capable, hard-working, dedicated Americans who work in this building.”
A photo-op for the media cannot, however, divert attention from the ongoing revelations about the participation of CIA agents in crimes against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and many other countries.
On the same day that Bush visited the headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the Washington Post carried a front-page story about the murder of a young Afghan detainee in November 2002 at the hands of the CIA. A CIA case officer ordered Afghan guards to strip the prisoner naked, chain him to the concrete floor of a warehouse code-named the Salt Pit, and leave him exposed overnight without any cover. The man froze to death. An autopsy confirmed hypothermia as the cause of death.
The prisoner was buried in an unmarked grave, his family was not notified, and even his name is unrecorded. “He just disappeared from the face of the earth,” one US government official told the Post. The CIA case officer involved has since been promoted."
Link...
posted by A. J. Franklin @ 08:40
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