Toni Locy writes in USA Today: "Americans strongly disapprove of harsh interrogation tactics the US government has used to try to extract information about possible terrorist attacks from detainees held in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, a new USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll says. The poll found that sizeable majorities of Americans disagree with tactics ranging from leaving prisoners naked and chained in uncomfortable positions for hours to trying to make a prisoner think he was being drowned. Most Americans surveyed also said they believe the abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi detainees by US army reservists at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison have damaged the USA's reputation as a protector of civil liberties -- and made it more likely that US soldiers captured by America's enemies will be tortured."
Douglas Jehl and David Johnston write in The New York Times: "At the urging of the White House, congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, congressional officials say. The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most obscure arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the Central Intelligence Agency's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.
"The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the CIA as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using. But in intense closed-door negotiations, congressional officials said, four senior members from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition. In a letter to members of Congress, sent in October and made available by the White House on Wednesday in response to inquiries, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, expressed opposition to the measure on the grounds that it `provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy'."
The Associated Press reports that the Bush administration should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to regain the United States' credibility around the world, according to a human rights group.
"Special prosecutors have been appointed for far lesser crimes," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch. "All that's happened is a flurry of self-investigation," he added, as the group released its annual report on human rights in 60 countries.
"There is an urgent need to (reinstate) the prohibition of torture and to redeem the United States' credibility."
Jennifer Garza writes in the Sacramento Bee: "In recent weeks, there has been a growing concern that some groups are offering more than secular aid, and their primary intention is to share their religious beliefs and seek converts among the victims, who are mostly Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist. Most of the larger relief agencies, such as Catholic Relief Services and the Red Cross, have policies against proselytising. But others, particularly those who practise religions that emphasise conversion, say it is their duty to share their beliefs..."
"I don't like the idea of anyone -- Muslims or non-Muslims -- taking advantage of someone in difficult conditions," says Rashid Ahmad, president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Sacramento Valley. "They should preach by their actions, not by their tongues."
Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes: "The man President Bush wants as homeland security chief is now in the crosshairs of civil-rights advocates who say he eroded freedoms in pursuit of terrorists. But, before Sept. 11, Michael Chertoff was a powerful ally in the battle against racial profiling in the pursuit of drug traffickers."
"I think in evaluating Mike's record, you need to look not only at his handling of the war on terrorism in Sept. 11, but also at the role he played in dealing with racial profiling in New Jersey -- very different roles at very different times," said former Assistant US Attorney Robert A. Mintz, who worked under Chertoff in the early 1990s.
Kimi Yoshino of The Los Angeles Times reports that a Muslim cleric suspected of terrorist ties has agreed to leave the US rather than fight a legal battle with immigration officials.
"I came to this country in peace," Imam Wagdy Mohamed Ghoneim said during a court hearing at which the deal was struck. "I did not come here to scare anybody."
Ghoneim, whose case has drawn widespread support from Muslims in Southern California, agreed to leave by Jan. 7 for Qatar or Bahrain, where he holds visas, in exchange for his release. His family, including his wife and seven children, also must leave. US Immigration judge D.D. Sitgraves approved the agreement, which bars Ghoneim's return for 10 years. The government alleges that Ghoneim, who came to the US in 2001 from Egypt, participated in fund-raising activities around the country that could have helped terrorist organisations, said Bill Odencrantz, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement director of field legal operations.
A Nevada man has pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation resulting from threatening e-mail messages he sent to a prominent Washington-based Islamic advocacy group. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) received the e-mailed threats in 2003 from an insurance broker in Reno, Nev. One e-mail stated: "We can deal with you easily especially because you are on our soil. You have taught us much about terrorism so get ready to be the receiver."
Another message said: "You are making a lot of people angry and you idiots are sitting ducks."
Under the plea agreement, the man will serve one year's probation and must perform 50 hours of community service for "interfering with federally protected activities".
Reuters reports that Capt. James Yee, the Muslim Guantanamo Bay chaplain accused of espionage but later fully exonerated, will leave the US army when his honourable discharge takes effect, his lawyer said. Yee, who ministered to foreign terrorism suspects imprisoned at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay was arrested in September 2003 in Florida as he returned from the base. He spent 76 days in a navy brig. In March 2004, the army dropped all criminal charges against Yee, abandoning a case that once included accusations in court documents of spying, mutiny, sedition, aiding the enemy and espionage.
By William Fisher
© Jordan Times 2005
