US rules out inhumane treatment of prisoners abroad
By Saul Hudson
news.yahoo.com
The United States explicitly banned its interrogators around the world from treating detainees inhumanely in a policy shift made public on Wednesday under pressure from Europe and the U.S. Congress.
President George W. Bush's administration had previously said U.S. personnel could not torture prisoners anywhere.
But it had made a distinction for less extreme tactics known as "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment, saying the United States only had to prevent that from occurring on U.S. territory to meet its pledges under a U.N. convention.
Human rights groups say the Central Intelligence Agency exploited that loophole to abuse detainees abroad in its war on terrorism, for example making them feel like they were drowning.
U.S. interrogators have used such tactics in places such as Afghanistan because they could argue technically it did not amount to torture, and even though it was cruel the Bush administration allowed them to do it, the groups say.
But on a trip to Europe to defuse widespread anger over U.S. treatment of detainees, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice articulated a new legal interpretation of an international treaty that U.S. officials said resulted from a policy shift.
"As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT (Convention against Torture), which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment -- those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States," Rice told reporters in Ukraine.
London-based Amnesty International said Rice's remarks were "not a major concession." It still wanted serious action by Washington over what it called cases of torture in U.S. bases.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said it was important to know how Rice's move "is translated operationally."
The move announced by Rice could also be an important factor in domestic politics where Senator John McCain, a Republican and former prisoner of war who was mistreated in Vietnam, has pressed the administration to close the loophole.
For weeks, the administration had resisted legislation proposed by McCain that was widely backed in Congress. But in recent days it has begun to negotiate for a compromise.
EUROPE WANTS ANSWERS
Critics suspect the CIA of running secret prisons in eastern Europe and covertly transporting detainees in its war on terrorism around the continent.
Rights groups say incommunicado detention is illegal and often leads to torture.
Rice made her remarks hours before arriving in Brussels where she was likely to face criticism despite defending U.S. policy this week in Washington, Berlin and Bucharest.
Rice planned to explain policies further when she met NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday. Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said her answers so far to the allegations had been unsatisfactory and he predicted a "lively discussion."
A senior State Department official, who asked not to be named, said Europe's reaction to Rice's defense, outlined mainly in a lengthy statement on Monday, had so far been mixed.
"One statement was not going to make people suddenly say 'Oh, of course, now I see the light'," he told reporters. "But amid the debate, what we have done is provide a context for our friends and an argument for our critics."
Another senior U.S. official who asked not to be named because he was discussing internal decision-making said there had long been debate within the administration about how to interpret the torture convention.
The administration agreed on new language several weeks ago but Wednesday was the first time a senior official had used it in public so clearly, he said.
In October, in a move that went largely unnoticed, the Justice Department told the Senate Judiciary Committee of the new policy, which contrasted with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' position earlier in the year that the treatment rules did not apply overseas.
Rice "spelled out in a comprehensive way what our views are when it comes to the treatment of enemy combatants," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It is existing policy."
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Lovell in London, and New York newsroom and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington)
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