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Bush revives interrogations

His executive order allows tough questioning of terror suspects.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

The order bars some practices such as sexual abuse, part of an effort to quell international criticism of some of the CIA's most sensitive and debated work. It does not say what practices would be allowed.

The executive order is the White House's first public effort to reach into the CIA's five-year-old terror detention program, which has been in limbo since a Supreme Court decision last year called its legal foundation into question.

Officials would not provide details on specific interrogation techniques that the CIA may use under the new order.

In the past, its methods are believed to have included sleep deprivation and disorientation, exposing prisoners to uncomfortable cold or heat for long periods, stress positions and - most controversially - the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The Bush administration has portrayed the interrogation operation as one of its most successful tools in the war on terror, while opponents have said the agency's techniques have left a black mark on the United States' reputation around the world.

Bush's order requires that CIA detainees "receive the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care."

In a decision last year aimed at the military's tribunal system, the Supreme Court required the U.S. government to apply Geneva Convention protections to the conflict with al-Qaida, shaking the legal footing of the CIA's program.

In a message to CIA employees on Friday, director Michael Hayden tried to stress the importance and narrow scope of the program.

He noted that fewer than half of the less than 100 detainees have experienced the agency's "enhanced interrogation measures."

"Simply put, the information developed by our program has been irreplaceable," he said. "If the CIA, with all its expertise in counterterrorism, had not stepped forward to hold and interrogate people like (senior al-Qaida operatives) Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the American people would be right to ask why."

Fast Facts:

Not allowed

The order says conditions of confinement and interrogation cannot include:

-Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation or cruel or inhuman treatment.

-Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would "deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency."

-Acts intended to denigrate the religion of an individual.

[Last modified July 21, 2007, 01:52:12]