This front-page WaPo expose is a fine piece of journalism, if for no other reason,that the CIA’s secret facilities have been the subject of so little scrutiny.
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
There are several interesting angles to the report, but one that stands out is the ongoing legal question.
It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA’s internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.
Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA’s approved “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques,” some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as “waterboarding,” in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.
So, to avoid breaking our laws, U.S. intelligence officials are holding detainees overseas, and breaking other countries’ laws.
As for the fact that the detentions are occurring in “Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe,” I think Ezra covered this nicely.
You know what seems truly out of line now? Dick Durbin’s “gulag” comment. I’m sure glad screaming hordes of conservatives got him to apologize for that totally unsubstantiated smear against our country…