Iraq

Report: CIA methods raise abuse concerns

WASHINGTON - The CIA has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of al-Qaida that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, the New York Times reports, quoting unnamed current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, CIA interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level al-Qaida prisoners, none known to be held in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the CIA. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees. The directives empowered the CIA to kill or capture al-Qaida leaders, but it is not clear whether the White House approved the specific rules for the interrogations.

The White House and the CIA declined to comment.

Defenders of the operation said the methods stopped short of torture, did not violate U.S. anti-torture statutes, and were necessary to fight a war against a nebulous enemy whose strength and intentions could only be gleaned by extracting information from often uncooperative detainees. Interrogators were trying to find out whether there might be another attack planned against the United States.

The methods employed by the CIA are so severe that senior officials of the FBI have directed bureau agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said.

KARBALA, Iraq - Shiite leaders reported progress Wednesday toward an agreement that would end a 5-week-old standoff with the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf, but Sadr himself vowed to fight on and gunbattles continued between American forces and his followers.

In Karbala, Sadr's militia, known as the Mahdi Army, kept up attacks against American forces this morning after the Americans occupied their stronghold in a fierce overnight battle.

ACCUSED SOLDIER: Giorgio Ra'Shadd, the lawyer for an Army private facing a court-martial for being photographed with naked Iraqi prisoners, said Wednesday that the military is not providing information he needs to mount an adequate defense. On Tuesday, Pfc. Lynndie England told KCNC-TV in Denver that her superiors gave her specific instructions on how to pose for the photos, which they said were to be used in interrogating other captives. She declined to name the superiors.

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