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Top CIA lawyers to face legal complaints over roles in interrogation program

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

A grassroots coalition will file complaints today with the Washington, D.C. bar against two Central Intelligence Agency lawyers for their involvement in authorizing the use of controversial interrogation techniques against detainees in US custody.

Velvet Revolution, a coalition of over 150 grassroots groups, will register complaints against CIA lawyers Jonathan M. Fredman and John A. Rizzo. Fredmen, who is currently counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, served as the Associate General counsel for the CIA from 2001-2004. Rizzo is the current Acting General Counsel for the CIA but is retiring this month. His nomination to become full General Counsel has been held up for years over his alleged role in enabling the CIA’s controversial interrogation program.

DC lawyer and activist Kevin Zeese, along with a former Reagan administration Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein, held a press conference this morning at the National Press Club in which they discussed the complaints they will be filing later today.

The complaints to be filed against Fredmen and Rizzo describe the role both men played in authorizing the CIA to use techniques generally considered torture against detainees in US custody, captured during the Bush administration.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano, in a statement to RAW STORY Monday, said, “We’ll give this the attention it deserves.”

A call placed to the Director of National Intelligence’s office was not immediately returned.

Detainee Crucified

Among the more startling revelations during the press conference today was an article describing how a detainee in Iraq had been “essentially crucified” during CIA interrogation.

According to a June 22 article in The New Yorker magazine, cited during the press conference today, an Iraqi prisoner in US custody was crucified – dying from asphyxiation while hanging from his arms during a CIA interrogation.

“An Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003, while being interrogated by the C.I.A. at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad,” the New Yorker’s Jane Meyer wrote. “A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs. Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.”

No charges have been sought against the interrogators from the CIA who participated in the death of al-Jamadi or CIA officers involved in other cases.

Zeese, the Velvet Revolution, the Bill of Rights Committee, Fein, and others also called on the dismissal of both Fredman and Rizzo from the Obama administration during the press conference today.

Rizzo is already on his way out. But the man nominated by President Obama, former Justice Department lawyer Stephen W. Preston, was loath to criticize his predecessor or the CIA’s activities during his May confirmation hearing.

Questioned whether he felt waterboarding constituted torture, Preston answered, “I have not reached that conclusion.”

Zeese said the “rule of law” must be applied in the case of the two men who led the CIA’s legal efforts.

“We call for dismissal of two torture architects still working in the Obama administration,” said Zeese. “The United States must face the reality of the extent of the torture program under the Bush-Cheney administration. War crimes were committed. The toxic poison of torture will not be removed from the body politic unless the rule of law is applied.”

Rizzo Complaint

John A. Rizzo has been a CIA lawyer for roughly 30 years. The Los Angeles Times has called him the “most influential career lawyer in CIA history, having risen to the top of the agency’s legal ranks while leaving his mark on classified programs from proxy wars in Central America to Predator strikes in Pakistan.”

Rizzo is currently the Acting General Counsel for the CIA and was Deputy General Counsel for the CIA prior to his current role. The complaint, which will be filed with the DC bar today, cites Rizzo’s authority as legal counsel in authorizing torture techniques.

“Specifically,” it reads, “Mr. Rizzo ignored over two centuries of historical and legal precedents, fell short of the bar of the ‘good faith’ imperative, and advanced suspect legal constructs and prescriptions for detainee interrogation well outside of legal norms, thereby providing the false cover of claimed legality for those who then engaged in acts and policies that, in fact, violated the following laws, both in letter and spirit:

1. The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), Articles 1, 2, 3 and 16 (ratified in October 1994), implemented by Sections 2340-2340A of title 18 of the United States Code.

2. The Geneva Conventions, Article 3, (ratified in August 1955)

3. The Eighth Amendment against “cruel and unusual punishment”

4. The “Separation of Powers” constructs and imperatives of the U.S. Constitution

5. The United States Criminal Code, Title 18, Prohibitions Against Torture (18 USC 2340A) and War Crimes (18 USC 2441)

The complaint against Rizzo further cites examples in which Rizzo allegedly participated in meetings authorizing torture or authored approval of certain techniques.

“On September 25, the most high-level senior Bush administration lawyers met at the Guantanamo Bay facility and included legal counsel from the President’s office (Alberto Gonzales), the Vice-President’s office (David Addington), the Department of Defense (Michael J. Haynes II), and the Department of Justice (Alice Fisher),” it reads. “With Mr. Rizzo representing the CIA which was overseeing the program, this group was there to observe and “green light” a brutal interrogation program, one that had begun months before with Zubadayah but was continued in a carefully prescribed program (minus waterboarding) with detainees at Guantanamo Bay.”

The full complaint can be read here.

Fredman Complaint

Fredman, meanwhile, was senior counsel within the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA during the Bush administration. According to the complaint, “Fredman approved a policy of torture and oversaw the details of its carefully prescribed application of violence, intimidation and humiliation intended to ‘enhance’ interrogations and aggressively coerce detainees at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Abu Ghraib (Iraq), Bagram AFB (Afghanistan), and ‘extraordinary rendition’ or ‘black’ sites in Thailand, Diego Garcia, Poland, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere.”

The complaint against Fredman also cites alleged involvement in authoring legal opinions and participating in meetings where these techniques were decided on.

“According to the first of two May 10, 2005 “Bradbury memos” addressed from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice to Mr. Rizzo at the CIA, the so-called “enhanced techniques” included dietary manipulation, forced nudity, stress positions, abdominal slaps and waterboarding,” the complaint says. “The second May 10th memo addressed the use of combinations of these techniques. Together with the August 2002 memo authored by John Yoo and Jay Bybee, these memos set forth both the claim of legality and detailed guidelines for a brutal and abusive program of detainee treatment. This legal analysis, approved and advanced within the CIA by Mr. Rizzo and Mr. Fredman at CTC, gave the formal ‘in-writing’ green light to a program that led to documented abuses and scores of deaths within the detainee/interrogation system.”

The full Fredman complaint is available here.

Velvet Revolution and other groups filed similar complaints against Bush administration lawyers on May 18 with the state bars of DC, New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania.

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Wikipedia Censored News of Afghanistan Kidnapping

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

THE New York Times worked with Wikipedia to keep news of the kidnapping of one of its reporters in Afghanistan off the online user-edited encyclopedia.

New York Times reporter David Rohde, who was kidnapped by the Taliban in November, escaped from his captors along with his translator this month.

A number of news organisations, including Agence France-Presse, at the request of the New York Times, agreed not to report the kidnapping out of concerns for their safety.

Keeping the news off Wikipedia was another matter, the Times said.

It said that on at least a dozen occasions, user-editors posted news of the abduction on a Wikipedia page about Mr Rohde, only to have it erased.

Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing, it said.

“The sanitising was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at the Times,” the newspaper said.

“We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” Mr Wales told the Times.

“I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.”

The Times said that two days after the November 10 kidnapping, Michael Moss, an investigative reporter at the Times and friend of Mr Rohde, altered Mr Rohde’s Wikipedia entry to emphasise that his work could be seen as sympathetic to Muslims, like his reporting on Guantanamo and his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims.

It said that the next day, an unidentified user, citing an Afghan news agency report, edited the entry on Mr Rohde and mentioned the kidnapping.

Mr Moss deleted the mention, and the user promptly restored it, adding a note protesting the removal, the Times said.

It said the Times eventually reached out to Wales and Wikipedia put an indefinite block and then a temporary freeze on changes to the page.

“We had no idea who it was,” Mr Wales said of the unidentified user making the edits.

He said there was no indication the user had ill-intent.

The Times said Mr Wales himself unfroze the page after the June 19 escape by Mr Rohde and his interpreter, Tahir Ludin.

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Obama Declares Coup “Not Legal” Amid Uncertainty

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Capping a day of mixed signals, U.S. President Barack Obama said late Monday that he considered Sunday’s ouster and exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to be “not legal” and that Washington still considered him the legitimate president of the Central American country.

Speaking at a very brief press appearance with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Obama referred to Sunday’s events as a “coup” and warned that, if permitted to stand, it would constitute a “terrible precedent” for the region.

“President Zelaya was democratically elected, he had not yet completed his term,” he said. “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras, the democratically elected president there.”

Obama spokes several hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had explicitly declined to label Sunday’s developments a “coup” or demand that Zelaya be reported to his position as president. She stressed that State Department lawyers were still reviewing the situation to determine whether Zelaya’s ouster constituted the kind of action that would require a suspension of U.S. assistance.

Under U.S. law, no aid can be disbursed to any country “whose elected head of government has been deposed by military coup or decree”.

“We are withholding any formal legal determination,” Clinton told a press briefing here.

Asked whether Washington is demanding Zelaya’s restoration, Clinton said: “We haven’t laid out any demands that we’re insisting on, because we’re working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives.”

Her remarks marked a striking contrast to those of the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, who, at a press conference here at OAS headquarters with Salvadorean President Mauricio Funes, declared that Zelaya’s re-instatement as president was a pre-condition for any successful resolution of the two-day-old crisis.

The OAS, he said, will only be open to dialogue “if it contemplates the return of President Zelaya to his legitimate position.”

Insulza, who will chair a special emergency meeting of OAS foreign ministers on the situation here Tuesday, also invoked Article 19 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter which effectively suspends any member country from taking part in official OAS business if there is an unconstitutional interruption of its democratic order.

He said the situation required that the de facto authorities in Tegucigalpa suffer “international isolation” until the legitimate government is restored.

The contrast between Clinton’s remarks and those of Insulza’s suggested for the first time that at least a temporary gap has opened between the United States and most, if not all, of Latin America as to how they should react to the crisis in Honduras, whose Congress Sunday elected Roberto Micheletti as the new president after the military detained and expelled Zelaya to Costa Rica.

But Obama’s remarks late in the afternoon - particularly those about Zelaya’s official status - appear to have closed that gap.

“I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections,” Obama said.

“The region has made enormous progress over the past 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don’t want to go back to a dark past. We always want to stand with democracy,” he said.

Obama’s remarks very much echoed Insulza’s statement earlier in the day. Noting the OAS Permanent Assembly’s condemnation of the moves against Zelaya late Sunday, the former Chilean former minister said the Council had “distance(d) the organisation from dark periods in the history of our continent”.

At the United Nations in New York City, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also issued a statement condemning Sunday’s events and calling for “the re-instatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country,” while the U.N. General Assembly, which is chaired by Nicaragua’s permanent representative Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, held a formal debate on Zelaya’s ouster.

For now, most attention here will be focused on Tuesday’s extraordinary meeting of the OAS General Assembly which Clinton is expected to attend. Despite the doubts raised by her remarks to the press, the secretary of state made clear that it will rely above all on multilateral efforts to resolve the crisis peacefully.

Nonetheless, her statement set off a small firestorm among human rights and democracy activists here Monday who were concerned that they signaled a willingness to accept a solution that fell short of Zelaya’s reinstatement and a retreat from public statements made by the U.S. ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Lawrence, who had publicly insisted until now that Washington would not recognise anyone as president except Zelaya.

“The political message (Clinton’s remarks) are sending is risky,” said Vicki Gass, a Central America analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). “If the U.S. doesn’t stand strong on this, it will set back its attempts to restore its image in the region.”

“Moreover,” she said, “with all of (President Alvaro) Colom’s problems at the moment, Guatemala is already perilously close to a coup itself,” she added.

Some analysts speculated that Clinton’s remarks may have been designed in part to gain some leverage over Zelaya who is seen by right-wing critics here as aligning Honduras behind Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other left-wing populists, including Bolivian President Evo Morales, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa Delgado.

Washington, which has conducted military training, supply and surveillance activities from Honduran air bases for the past 30 years, last year lost access to a key air base in Ecuador as a result of a campaign promise by Correa.

In addition, Washington may want to condition its backing for Zelaya’s re-instatement on his pledge to drop efforts to reform the constitution in a way that that would permit him to serve a second term as president, ret. Amb. John Negroponte, who was the Reagan administration’s envoy to Tegucigalpa during the early years of the “contra war” against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, told the Washington Post Monday.

Zelaya’s attempt to hold a non-binding national referendum on the question clearly galvanised his foes in the other major branches of government, including the armed forces and the Supreme Court.

Indeed, the far-right Americas columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady, celebrated Zelaya’s ouster in an op-ed entitled “Honduras Defends Its Democracy.”

“Hugo Chavez’s coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation’s constitution,” O’Grady wrote.

She called on “Honduran patriots” to “hold their ground” against international pressure by “Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton, and, of course, Hugo (Chavez) himself” to return Zelaya to office.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.

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Met go into denial over G20 policing criticism

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

The Metropolitan Police appears to have swept aside criticisms expressed by MPs in a report into the policing of the G20 protests.

The report, by the home affairs select committee, condemned the police for their use of “kettling” tactics and the concealment of ID numbers by a large number of officers during the April protests, which saw one man lose his life and hundreds of reports of brutality by officers.

Commenting on the committee’s findings, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison stated: “What we have always sought to do is facilitate lawful protest, balance the competing rights of those affected by that protest, and to do our duty to uphold the law.”

He said it was wrong to claim officers were untrained and said that the operation had been policed “remarkably successfully.”

And he then appeared to blame protesters for the trouble, saying they had not communicated with police.

Some of the worst scenes of brutality were at the climate camp at Bishopsgate and Climate Change Action’s Richard Bernard confirmed that campaigners had tried to engage with police prior to the event.

“What the Met seem to have done is ignore recommendations and criticism expressed in the home affairs committee report, which said that more effort to communicate was needed on both sides, and twisted it,” he said.

He added that “some parts” of the police appeared to be interested in communicating with the pressure group, “but this statement would suggest that the Met is not.”

And he accused the police of “fulfilling their own prophecy of violence by giving out the violence they said would happen - and trying to do it unrecorded - when most of the media had gone home. The levels of violence that day were definitely excessive.”

Meanwhile, solicitors acting for G20 protesters will today launch a legal challenge over police tactics, demanding that senior officers furnish a legal basis for the use of “kettling.”

Solicitor John Halford said there was “something unreal” about a police operation with facilitating peaceful protest as one of its aims which led to hundreds of peaceful people being penned in for several hours, scores of assaults by police officers and a fatality.

“More unreal still is the institutional position taken by police in response to this claim - that nothing whatever went wrong and that everything was authorised by law,” he stressed.

Paddy McGuffin
Copyright Morning Star

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