The White House wants the CIA to be exempted from a proposed ban on the abusive treatment of terrorism suspects being held in United States custody.
The Senate defied a threatened presidential veto three weeks ago and passed legislation that would outlaw the ”cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of anyone held by the US. But the Washington Post and The New York Times, both quoting anonymous officials, said the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, proposed a change so that the law would not apply to counter-terrorism operations abroad or to operations conducted by ”an element” of the US government other than the defence department.
Cheney, accompanied by the CIA director, Porter Goss, is said to have made the proposal last week to John McCain, the Republican senator who wrote the legislation. They argued that the president needed maximum flexibility in the war on terrorism. The newspapers said McCain rejected the plan. Spokespersons for all three men declined to comment.
Although most detainees in US custody in the war on terrorism are held by the US military, former intelligence officers say the CIA is holding several dozen detainees of particular intelligence interest at locations overseas, including senior al-Qaeda figures Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaida, the Post said.
Human rights groups said creating parallel sets of rules for military personnel and intelligence agents was impractical in the war on terror, where soldiers and spies often work together and share techniques. ”They are explicitly saying, for the first time, that the intelligence community should have the ability to treat prisoners inhumanely,” Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch told the New York Times.
”You can’t tell soldiers that inhumane treatment is always morally wrong if they see with their own eyes that CIA personnel are allowed to engage in it.”
The McCain measures still face stiff opposition in the house of representatives, which has to agree them for them to pass. – Guardian Unlimited Â