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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lou Weed who wrote (251219)	12/11/2007 9:10:42 AM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 281500

New details in CIA waterboarding By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The CIA's waterboarding of a top al-Qaida figure was approved at the top levels of the U.S. government, a former CIA agent said Tuesday as agency director Gen. Michael Hayden prepared for questioning by congressional panels about the destruction of videotapes of terror suspect interrogations. ADVERTISEMENT According to the former agent, waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah got him to talk in less than 35 seconds. The technique, which critics say is torture, probably disrupted "dozens" of planned al-Qaida attacks, said John Kiriakou, a leader of the team that captured Zubaydah, a major al-Qaida figure. Kiriakou did not explain how he knew who approved the interrogation technique but said such approval comes from top officials. "This isn't something done willy nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner," he said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department." Each time CIA agents wished to use waterboarding or any other harsh interrogation technique, they had to present a "well-laid out, well-thought out reason" to top government officials, Kiriakou said. In Zubaydah's case, Kiriakou said the waterboarding had immediate effect. "The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou said in an interview first broadcast Monday evening on ABC News' World News. "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Details of Zubaydah's interrogation came as Hayden prepared for two days of questioning by the Senate and House intelligence panels about the CIA's destruction of the videotapes. Both are closed sessions. Kiriakou said he did not know the interrogation of Zubaydah was being recorded by the CIA and did not know the tapes subsequently were destroyed. "Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get after using the waterboarding technique," Kiriakou, now retired from the CIA, told ABC News. "And I struggle with it." He added: "What happens if we don't waterboard a person and we don't get that nugget of information and there's an attack. I would have trouble forgiving myself. ... At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do." Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning. Hayden told CIA employees last week that the CIA taped the interrogations of two alleged terrorists in 2002. He said the harsh questioning was carried out only after being "reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and by other elements of the Executive Branch." Hayden said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes' existence and the agency's intent to destroy them. The White House refuses to talk about specific types of interrogation techniques but insists that the United States does not torture. The CIA destroyed the tapes in November of 2005. Exactly when Congress was notified and in what detail is in dispute. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the CIA claims it told the committee of the tapes' destruction at a hearing in November 2006. Rockefeller said, however, that the hearing transcript found no mention of that subject. The House committee first learned the tapes had been destroyed in March 2007, according to Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. In last week's message, Hayden told CIA employees that "the leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed." But Reyes said Monday that Hayden's claim that Congress was properly notified "does not appear to be true."

To: Lou Weed who wrote (251219)	12/11/2007 9:27:15 AM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Here Comes The 'Thaw' I Spoke About Last Week; Iranian president: US report positive By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer 57 minutes ago TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday called a U.S. intelligence report concluding Iran stopped developing its nuclear weapons program four years ago a "step forward" in comments that marked a change from his usually harsh anti-Western rhetoric. ADVERTISEMENT The hard-line leader told reporters that an "entirely different" situation between the two countries could be created if more steps like the intelligence report followed. "We consider this measure by the U.S. government a positive step. It is a step forward," Ahmadinejad said. "If one or two other steps are taken, the issues we have in front of us will be entirely different and will lose their complexity, and the way will be open for the resolution of basic issues in the region and in dealings between the two sides," he said. Iran has said its nuclear program is peaceful, but until last week, the United States and Western allies had countered that Iran was hiding plans for a bomb. The latest U.S. intelligence assessment on Iran, however, says Tehran once had a weapons program but shelved it in 2003. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate was in stark contrast to a 2005 estimate that said Tehran was continuing its weapons development. When asked about what other steps Washington needs to take, Ahmadinejad suggested that one would be for the U.S. to "make a serious change in position in the region." "Regional nations have rights and want to fully use their rights. Respecting these rights is a serious change in strategy. This is the next step. If it is done, then you will see that ... it is not that a 60-year issue can't be resolved," he said referring to an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He repeated a previous invitation to President Bush for a public debate and said Iran was studying requests from U.S. officials to come to Iran. He did not elaborate. "Many requests reach us from American officials for dialogue and travel to Iran. We are investigating," Ahmadinejad said. But he also made clear that any more economic sanctions against Iran would have "no legal leg" to stand on. On Tuesday, diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are to discuss a draft plan for new United Nations sanctions against Iran. If passed by the Security Council, the plan would slap a third round of sanctions on Iran for defying international demands that it halt its enrichment of uranium. "The agency report and the NIE are before the eyes of the international public opinion. There is no reason for the continuation of enmities and hostilities. The threats failed, they were not effective," he said.

To: Lou Weed who wrote (251219)	12/11/2007 4:12:03 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Ethnicity is based on race and not on affiliation to a certain religious sect. Should Catholics be considered a different ethnic group to Protestants? I think not. First, ethnicity is almost never based simply on "race", which is in itself a cultural construct. In some places, for instance Afghanistan, you can easily pick out both the racial and the cultural differences between Hazara and Pashtun; in other places, people who look the same racially and speak the same language are are different sides of the ethnic divide based almost solely on culture and religion, like the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats in the Balkans. And wouldn't you say that Protestant vs Catholic is precisely what divides the two main ethic groups of Northern Ireland? So I'm not buying this attempt to ban religion from definition of an ethnicity. Religion is very much a part of the package, which is why I say that "Salafi Saudis" - the Arab ethnic group originally coming from the Nejd in central Arabia, who have taken over Arabia politically and culturally - is a valid definition, and far more specific and therefore meaningful than vague talk of ethic "races". In this respect, when I say that bin Laden's beliefs are widely shared, I mean by Salafi Saudis (and Yemenis), those fundamentalists who are now, thanks to official government Salafi teaching, a very solid majority of Saudi Arabians at the moment.