CIA Renditions of Terror Suspects Are 'Out of Control'

Agence France-Presse

The Central Intelligence Agency's 'rendition' of suspected terrorists has spiralled 'out of control' according to a former FBI agent, cited in a report which examined how CIA detainees are spirited to states suspected of using torture.

Michael Scheuer a former CIA counterterrorism agent told The New Yorker magazine "all we've done is create a nightmare," with regard to the top secret practice of renditions.In an article titled 'Outsourcing Torture' due to hit newsstands this week, the magazine claims suspects, sometimes picked up by the CIA, are often flown to Egypt , Morocco, Syria and Jordan, "each of which is known to use torture in interrogations."

The report said suspects are given few, if any, legal protections.

Despite US laws that ban America from expelling or extraditing individuals to countries where torture occurs, Scott Horton -- an expert on international law who has examined CIA renditions -- estimates that 150 people have been picked up in the CIA dragnet since 2001.

The New Yorker report said that suspects in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East "have been abducted by hooded or masked American agents" and then sometimes forced onto a white Gulfstream V jet.

The jet -- marked on its tail by the code N379P which has recently been changed to N8068V -- "has been registered to a series of dummy American corporations ... (and) has clearance to land at US military bases," it said.

Maher Arar was arrested in 2002 by US officials at John F. Kennedy airport and then claims he was put on a "executive jet" which flew him to Amman, Jordan , before he was driven to Syria.

Arar says he was tortured in Syria — and told his interrogators anything they wanted due to the beatings He was released without charge in 2003 and is suing the US government for his mistreatment.

He claims that the crew onboard the Gulfstream identified themselves as "the Special Removal Unit" during radio communications on his flight to Jordan .

"The most common destinations for rendered suspects are Egypt , Morocco, Syria ?and Jordan, all of which have been cited for human rights violations by the (US) State Department," the report said.

By holding detainees without counsel or charges of wrongdoing, the administration of US President George W. Bush "has jeopardized its chances of convicting hundreds of suspected terrorists, or even of using them as witnesses in almost any court in the world," the report said.

The article cited Dan Coleman, an ex Federal Bureau of Investigation counterterrorism expert who retired in July 2003.

Coleman told The New Yorker that torture "has become bureaucratized," by the Bush administration, and that the practice of renditions is "out of control."

Scheuer said there had been a legal process underlying early renditions, but as more suspects were rounded up following the September 11, 2001, attacks, "all we've done is create a nightmare."

Abductees are effectively classified as "illegal enemy combatants," by the US government, which is how it also classifies the estimated 550 'war on terror' detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba .

Such a classifiction, the US argues, exempts such detainees from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, part of which govern the treatment of prisoners.

The report also cited the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, as saying Washington "has accepted intelligence from Uzkbekistan that was 'largely rubbish'."

The ambassador claims to know of at least three individuals rendered to Uzbekistan by the United States, where cases of the authorities boiling prisoners' body parts have been documented.

Washington has admitted it is holding some suspects, including top Al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but it does not say where he is detained.

Mohammed has reportedly been "water boarded" during interrogations: So called 'water boarding' refers to a practice whereby a detainee is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns.