'Rendition' Revisited

Scott Pelley Reports On CIA Practice Of Rendition

(CBS) 

Last week on her European tour, Secretary of State Rice acknowledged rendition is a weapon in the war on terror.

But she added this: "The United States does not transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogations using torture."

And yet according to the flight logs, there are frequent flights to places like Tashkent, Uzbekistan, a country with a well-known reputation for torture. Craig Murray is the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, and told 60 Minutes Uzbek citizens, captured in Afghanistan, were flown back to Tashkent on the American plane.

"I know of two instances for certain of prisoners who were brought back in a small jet and I believe it was happening on a reasonably regular basis," says Murray.

Asked who operated the jet, Murray responds: "Premier Executive Airlines."

In Uzbekistan, he says, many prisoners are subject to torture techniques straight out of the Middle Ages.

"Techniques of drowning and suffocation, rape was used quite commonly. And, also insertion of limbs in boiling liquid," says Murray.

Ambassador Murray complained to his superiors that British intelligence was using information gleaned by torture. He was recalled by London last year and quit the Foreign Office.

Murray says the CIA "definitely knows" that people are being tortured in these jails. "I asked my deputy to go and speak to the CIA head of station and she came back and reported to me that she had met with the CIA head of station who told her that 'Yes, this material probably was obtained under torture but the CIA didn't see that a problem.'"

The CIA disputes that. The agency told 60 Minutes the meeting Murray described didn’t happen. The CIA also says it does not knowingly receive intelligence obtained by torture.

Mike Scheuer says that, in his experience, the U.S. asks receiving countries to promise that suspects will be treated according to the laws of that country.

"I personally think that any information gotten through extreme methods of torture would probably be pretty useless because it would be someone telling you what you wanted to hear. The information we have received as a result of these programs has been very useful to the United States," says Scheuer.

Scheuer says if some of that useful information is gleaned by torture, it's okay with him. "I'm responsible for protecting Americans," he says.

Last week, al-Masri filed suit against the CIA’s former director, George Tenet, and three of its front airline companies. He alleges he was kidnapped, beaten, drugged, held incommunicado and humiliated. He appeared at a news conference via satellite because the U.S. wouldn’t let him in the country.

In Germany, the German chancellor says the U.S. has admitted privately that al-Masri was abducted in error, but Dr. Rice wouldn’t talk about it. An intelligence official told 60 Minutes the agency is investigating a handful of cases – fewer than ten – in which other suspects may have been rendered by mistake.

How does the CIA know if they are picking up the right people?

"You do the best you can. It's not a science. It's gathering as much information as you can, deciding on the quality of it and then determining the risks the person poses. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake," says Scheuer.

After five months in captivity, al-Masri finally made his way back home only to find his wife and four children had moved to Lebanon to be with her parents. All they knew was that he had disappeared.

Did his wife believe him?

"She did. I never lied to her, and my appearance showed that I had been in prison," says al-Masri.

He says he also told his seven-year-old son what happened to him and that his son understood. Who did he tell his son did this to him?

"I said it was the Americans," says al-Masri.