WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2009
New Unit Will Question Key Terror Suspects
Washington Post: President Obama Shifts Interrogation Oversight From the CIA to the White House
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(AP)
From Our Partner:
President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday.
Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council -- shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight.
Seeking to signal a clean break from the Bush administration, Obama moved to overhaul interrogation and detention guidelines soon after taking office, including the creation of a task force on interrogation and transfer policies. The task force, whose findings will be made public Monday, recommended the new interrogation unit, along with other changes regarding the way prisoners are transferred overseas.
A separate task force on detainees, which will determine the fate of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and future regulations about the duration and location of detentions of suspected terrorists, has not concluded its work.
Under the new guidelines, interrogators must stay within the parameters of the Army Field Manual when questioning suspects. The task force concluded -- unanimously, officials said -- that "the Army Field Manual provides appropriate guidance on interrogation for military interrogators and that no additional or different guidance was necessary for other agencies," according to a three-page summary of the findings. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters freely.
Using the Army Field Manual means certain techniques in the gray zone between torture and legal questioning -- such as playing loud music or depriving prisoners of sleep -- will not be allowed. Which tactics are acceptable was an issue "looked at thoroughly," one senior official said. Obama had already banned certain severe measures that the Bush administration had permitted, such as waterboarding.
Still, the Obama task force advised that the group develop a "scientific research program for interrogation" to develop new techniques and study existing ones to see whether they work. In essence, the unit would determine a set of best practices on interrogation and share them with other agencies that question prisoners.
The administration is releasing the new guidelines on the day when what it sees as the worst practices of the Bush administration are being given another public airing. New details of prisoner treatment are expected to be included in a long-awaited CIA inspector general's report being unveiled Monday about the spy agency's interrogation program. The report could set off a fresh debate between members of the current administration and the previous one over whether such tactics are necessary to prod detainees into cooperation and, ultimately, keep the country safe.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is also considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate past interrogation abuses. Obama and White House officials have stated their desire to look ahead on national security; White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that the administration is eager to keep "going forward" and that "a hefty litigation looking backward is not what we believe is in the country's best interest."
But a steady drip of stories about past practices has focused attention on the Bush administratio n. According to recent reports, the CIA hired the private contracting firm Blackwater USA as part of a program to kill top al-Qaeda operatives.
In addition to the new interrogation unit, the Obama task force recommended that the State Department play a more active role in transferring detainees between countries. When the United States is moving a prisoner to another country, it "may rely on assurances" from the foreign government that the detainee will not be tortured. But the State Department will now be involved in evaluating whether such assurances are sincere, the officials said, and the United States will also seek new ways of monitoring treatment of prisoners in foreign custody. Other recommendations involve prisoner transfers that are classified, the summary said.
Members of the new interrogation unit will have the authority to travel around the world to talk to suspects and will be trained to handle certain high-interest people, such as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Linguists and cultural and interrogation specialists will be assigned to the group and will have "some division of responsibility" regarding types of detainees, a senior administration official said. Most of the group's members will work there full time, although they will have part-time support from the FBI.
Interrogators will not necessarily read detainees their rights before questioning, instead making that decision on a case-by-case basis, officials said. That could affect whether some material can be used in a U.S. court of law. The main purpose of the new unit, however, is to glean intelligence, especially about potential terrorist attacks, the officials said.
"It is not going to, certainly, be automatic in any regard that they are going to be Mirandized," one official said, referring to the practice of reading defendants their rights. "Nor will it be automatic that they are not Mirandized."
The director of the HIG is expected to come from the FBI, and the deputy will be selected from one of the intelligence agencies, such as the CIA. Although past CIA techniques have come under fire in the debate over torture, the agency will continue to play "a very important role," one official said.
The CIA had recommended to the presidential task force that the agency, the FBI and the Defense Department establish a joint interrogation training center so that all agencies understand the rules under which they operate.
Staff writer Peter Finn contributed to this report.
By Anne E. Kornblut
© 2009 The Washington Post Company
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Add a Comment See all 54 Comments
- Better name is HUGG. Highly Unsuccessful Group Grilling
Hot off the wire..comment from terrorists:
LOOOOOLOOOOLLLOOOOLLOOOOOOOOO - Reply to this comment
- by whosaid1 August 24, 2009 3:33 PM EDT
Just when I thought "he" had finished his list of "stupid" things to do....he starts on a new one.
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You seriously didn't think he was going to let Bush one-up him did ya? - Reply to this comment
- How could you blame Panetta if he says "I'm out of here"....!!
- Reply to this comment
- Just when I thought "he" had finished his list of "stupid" things to do....he starts on a new one.
- Reply to this comment
- by cheerup91 August 24, 2009 1:52 PM EDT
What's "goping???"
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It's the term used to to indicate when a member of the Republican party relieves their bladder.
A 'larf' is a large guttural or belly laugh. - Reply to this comment
- The stimulus package is living up to its provocative name by funding a bacchanalia of behavioral sex research. Unbelievable!
The next fiscal year is set to be one of the friskiest ever in the nation's science labs, as researchers probe the ins and outs of sex patterns among humans and even some of our four-legged friends.
Among the most titillating grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health are studies that would:
* Examine "barriers to correct condom use" at Indiana University, at a cost of $221,000.
* Study "hookups" among adolescents at Syracuse University. Study's cost: $219,000.
* Evaluate "drug use as a sex enhancer" in an analysis of "high-risk community sex networks" at the University of Illinois, Chicago. That study will cost $123,000.
* Study how methamphetamine, thought to produce an "insatiable need" for sex among users, "enhances the motivation for female rat sexual behavior." Some $28,000 has been awarded for the University of Maryland at Baltimore study. - Reply to this comment
- You know what's silly? Me sitting here wasting my time with extremists like you. Good day.
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- by Mortarman29 August 24, 2009 1:43 PM EDT
Wait a minute. I just re-read the Constitution. Nowhere in there did it give Bush the power to appropriate money.
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LMAO You needed to "re-read" the Constitution to be sure??? ROTFLMAO!!!!! You neos are too much.
Theres an old saying: "It is better to thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".
Why do republicans like you always want to remove that doubt? - Reply to this comment
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- Please show me the line in the Constitution that gives the power to appropriate (spend) money to the executive branch.
- by Mortarman29 August 24, 2009 1:45 PM EDT
Silly.
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This is not a church. The confession hall is down the street. - Reply to this comment
- by Mortarman29 August 24, 2009 1:37 PM EDT
And Obama's way is to be a coward. Like the Scots.
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Yeah. Obama bought them all tickets to Scotland right? - Reply to this comment
- Notice how all the fanatical extremists from the American Taliban Revolutionary Republican Party leave when they are put in their place. Typical republican cowards.
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- Neo-cons are gifted at being ignorant.
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and arrogant. - Reply to this comment
- by Mortarman29 August 24, 2009 1:27 PM EDT
This coming fro ma typical arrogant Democrat.
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What's a "fro ma"?????? And, I am not a democrat. Are you goping to say anything today that's right? - Reply to this comment
- by Mortarman29 August 24, 2009 1:21 PM EDT
You havent read the article! This article is about what and who will do interrogation of detainees we get in the war on terror...not the ones we already have! The guys we have already have been interrogated and have no more active intelligence that we can get, due to them being locked up so long.
This is about who is going to interrogate new prisoners and how we will interrogate them.
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Right. And the reason Obama is doing this???????? To distance himself from the BUSH...that's GEORGE BUSHS' Administration and the way BUSH did things. Get it extremist????? Geeeesh - Reply to this comment
- by woeisme1 August 24, 2009 1:04 PM EDT
by cheerup91 August 24, 2009 12:51 PM EDT
Obama admin seeks to re-open detainee abuse cases.
Whenever his polls are slipping the O-team calls for more partisan witch hunts.
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Sort of like Bush ordering Ridge to raise terror threat levels for voter manipulation?
Besides, if all goes awry, Obama can have them over for a few beers.
Like This Reply to this comment by cheerup91 August 24, 2009 1:06 PM EDT
So, what you're saying is, Obama is as bad as Bush?
You can never defend Obama without mentioning Bush.
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Is that what I said????? Gee. I do not see those words ANYWHERE in my post.
Why do you republican extremists always use that tactic: "So...in other words..."??????
Listen my little intellectual twit friend. If I had meant to say that I would have. You guys just love to tell people what they "meant" to say. Typical republican extremist arrogance. - Reply to this comment
- Well, the college kid president continues to be wee-weed up.
- Reply to this comment
- by cheerup91 August 24, 2009 12:51 PM EDT
Obama admin seeks to re-open detainee abuse cases.
Whenever his polls are slipping the O-team calls for more partisan witch hunts.
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Witch hunts? That's nothin'. Wait until election time rolls around; he'll raise the terror alert level. That'll show 'em. - Reply to this comment
- by Mortarman29 August 24, 2009 1:17 PM EDT
What about the guys we capture today in Afghanistan?
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What about them? They have nothing to do with this thread. Read the story before you comment, for once. - Reply to this comment
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- You havent read the article! This article is about what and who will do interrogation of detainees we get in the war on terror...not the ones we already have! The guys we have already have been interrogated and have no more active intelligence that we can get, due to them being locked up so long.
This is about who is going to interrogate new prisoners and how we will interrogate them.
- You havent read the article! This article is about what and who will do interrogation of detainees we get in the war on terror...not the ones we already have! The guys we have already have been interrogated and have no more active intelligence that we can get, due to them being locked up so long.
- by cheerup91 August 24, 2009 1:06 PM EDT
So, what you're saying is, Obama is as bad as Bush?
You can never defend Obama without mentioning Bush.
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Well in this case I rightly mention BUSH because BUSH did what BUSH did because BUSH let CHENEY takeover the BUSH presidency and BUSH is the base reason this is all happening. - Reply to this comment
- by cheerup91 August 24, 2009 1:06 PM EDT
So, what you're saying is, Obama is as bad as Bush?
You can never defend Obama without mentioning Bush.
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Well now in this case maybe I mentioned Bush because that is what THE DAM STORY IS ABOUT. Bush and his illegal war is the base matter behind these prisoners. Who do you think sent them to Gitmo??? - Reply to this comment
