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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Bush spells out how tough CIA can get in questioning (torture) Torture rules The White House said conditions of confinement and interrogation practices could not include: Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation and cruel or inhuman treatment. Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would "deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation." Acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices or religious objects of an individual. The order also says that detainees must receive basic necessities, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extreme heat and cold and essential medical care. The Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Bush signed an order Friday that clears the way for the CIA to resume some harsh interrogation methods against terrorism suspects — but prohibits techniques that had caused an international outcry, including sexual humiliation and denigration of religious symbols. The executive order ends months of legal skirmishing within the government over how to comply with laws barring mistreatment of detainees and a Supreme Court ruling last year requiring the U.S. government to treat terrorism prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention. In practical terms, the document places significant new limits on the CIA yet makes it clear that the agency will continue to operate under special rules that set it apart. The order places no restriction on coercive methods — such as sleep deprivation and the use of so-called "stress positions" — that are expressly off-limits for the military and domestic law-enforcement agencies. On another level, the order represents an attempt by the Bush administration to straddle two competing mandates by bringing the CIA program into line with court rulings and legislative requirements without disabling an operation that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have defended as one of the most valuable weapons in the war on terrorism. The order does not specifically address waterboarding, one of the most controversial methods employed by the CIA, in which a prisoner is strapped to a board and doused with water to simulate the sensation of drowning. A separate document spelling out specific techniques remains classified. No Red Cross provision The agency suspended its use of harsh methods three years ago as the Bush administration's legal justifications began to crumble and CIA operatives working in secret detention facilities overseas became worried that they might face lawsuits or even prosecution. Administration officials involved in drafting the order said it was designed to preserve flexibility for the CIA and to avoid spelling out boundaries that might be studied by al-Qaida or other terrorists. An administration official stressed that the order contains "red lines which I think we can all agree are beyond the pale" but acknowledged that there is no provision for allowing the Red Cross to visit CIA facilities or allow prisoners to contact their families. The order forbids "acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices or religious objects of the individual," a provision that appears designed to address complaints that U.S. interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had mistreated prisoners' copies of the Quran. A provision requiring that detainees be given "essential medical care" might have applied to Abu Zubayda, an al-Qaida operative who reportedly was denied pain medication after he was badly injured in a shootout during his 2002 capture in Pakistan. advertising Former U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged that waterboarding was used on Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after he was captured in 2003. But officials said the method was abandoned years ago. Critics said the document is frustratingly vague, reserving its most specific language for abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib and other military facilities that were never part of the CIA's program. "The stuff they rule out is stuff they've always been willing to rule out," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch. Compliance with Geneva The executive order is designed to bring the CIA program into compliance with the Supreme Court ruling last year in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, a case brought against the government by a detainee. In Hamdan, the court said that even if detainees did not deserve full status as prisoners of war, they still must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3, which prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." The administration previously had contended that terrorism suspects were unlawful combatants and did not warrant the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Congressional critics Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and John Warner (Va.), who helped draft legislation last year requiring the executive order, issued a joint statement that they needed more information before making a judgment. They said the administration has not responded to the questions. Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said further explanation was required to determine what the order "really means and how it will translate into actual conduct by the CIA." In a statement, Rockefeller repeated a committee demand made last spring that the White House turn over a copy of the Justice Department's legal analysis. Similar congressional demands for internal legal documents related to the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program have been rebuffed by the White House, provoking an ongoing confrontation.
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