Activists: U.S. used waterboarding more than it admits

CBS

(AP) CAIRO — Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding in American interrogations of detainees than has been acknowledged by the United States.

The group's report details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era U.S. program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.

The report also includes information about Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Muammar Qaddafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Qaddafi who it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated. Human Rights Watch says several of them were subsequently tortured in prison.

The report comes days after the Justice Department announced it would not bring criminal charges against any CIA personnel over severe interrogation methods used in the detention and rendition program.

[stupa5]

Cheney Cheney Cheney...war criminal!

[walt9800]

You really ARE stupa. Grow a brain.

[earth5695]

stupa..........good name for you.

[mturner1938]

Aren't these people considered to be TERRORISTS that are being waterboarded? Waterboarding is tame compared to what these terrorists have done to other people and what they have done to American citizens. Those terrorists would kill you just simply because you are an American.

[InconvenientReality]

Most of our prisoners are SUSPECTS, not known terrorists.

Think for a minute. If you're the commander on the scene and you've captured a suspected Al Qaeda safe house, are you going to let people go just because the owner of the house claims he didn't know the lodger was a terrorist? No, of course not. But most of the people who might be in posession of useful information are people who *also* may be completely innocent - the janitor *might* be planning to kill all the Americans he can, or he might be planning nothing more nefarious than the theft of Zarqawi's silverware. Does the fact that the janitor says he knows nothing useful mean that he's innocent, or that he's a terrorist protecting his allies?

[quincytodd]

What would one expect those goons to say? They certainly don't want to make themselves look as bad as they truly are! The bottom line here is that these tortures need to cease but with Mitt Romney running against Barack Obama, this is quite unlikely no matter which one of these bozoes win!

[InconvenientReality]

So, campaign for one of their opponents. Stein and Johnson are, AFAIK, both against the secret prison network, and if the Obama administration's unwillingness to prosecute torturers loses them the election, it's possible that Romney may think twice about following through on his campaign promise to permit torture and much more probable that we'll get a sincere anti-torture administration in 2016.