WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday that before the United States hands over terror suspects to foreign governments, it receives assurances they won't be tortured. He acknowledged that once a transfer occurs, the United States has little control.
The Bush administration's program to send foreigners to other countries has been denounced by human rights advocates. They say it amounts to outsourcing torture to elicit information that could not be obtained legally in America.
Gonzales defended the program and reiterated that the Bush administration does not condone torture. "Our policy is not to render people to countries where we believe or we know that they're going to be tortured," he said.
At least three people have asserted that the United States shipped them to foreign prisons where they were mistreated and eventually released without being charged.
