Hayden denies reality on interrogations
By Nat Hentoff
November 13, 2006
Along with the president, CIA Director Michael
Hayden was very pleased when the Military Commissions
Act of 2006 was passed by Congress and signed into
law. Not only is the CIA free to continue its
"coercive" interrogations and secret prisons," but
also, said Mr. Hayden to his staff, "We can be
confident that our program remains -- as it always has
been -- fully compliant with U.S. law, the
Constitution and our international treaty
obligations."
This denial of reality by Mr. Hayden is a pristine
example of doublespeak -- as when White House press
secretary Tony Snow said on Oct. 27: "We don't
torture, we don't condone torture, we don't do
torture." We have heard the same indignant
protestations from President Bush, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney (who
acknowledges wryly that he has been described as "the
vice president for torture" as he dismissed such
nonsense).
With regard to future likelihood of torture, the
Republican-controlled Congress -- in passing the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- has given the
president considerable leeway in deciding what forms
of interrogation are not war crimes under our War
Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions.
Congress' trust in the president was so strong
that when Sen. Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia
Democrat, offered an amendment to the legislation
requiring the CIA to at least keep the Senate and
House Intelligence Committees informed about its
resourceful techniques on prisoners, the amendment was
defeated with only one Republican vote against it,
Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Even Mr. Rockefeller finally
voted for the Military Commissions Act.
Had there been a public hearing before the
Rockefeller amendment was cast aside, the New
York-based Center for Constitutional Rights would have
told the illuminating story of its client, Canadian
citizen Maher Arar, one of the many victims of the
CIA's "extraordinary renditions" by which it sends
prisoners -- outside of U.S. law -- to countries where
they've been tortured to extract information.
Canadian intelligence officials had given the CIA
what turned out to be false information that Mr. Arar
had al Qaeda connections, and he was flown to Syria in
a CIA-hired plane. Held for more than 10 months in a
cell 7 feet high, 3 feet wide and 6 feet deep, Mr.
Arar was viciously tortured continually, and still
bears the psychological wounds.
The Syrians finally released Mr. Arar because of
total lack of evidence against him. On Sept. 18, after
a long, exhaustive investigation, the Canadian
government, in a 1,200-page report, also declared Mr.
Arar innocent of any terrorist connections, stating
"categorically, there is no evidence" that he was or
is a security risk. There was no apology to him from
the top level of the Canadian government, but Royal
Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Giuliano
Zaccardelli did, at an Ottawa news conference,
apologize "for the terrible injustices that you
experienced and the pain that you and your family
endured."
There has been no apology to Mr. Arar from the CIA
or the rest of our government. Indeed, as Sen. Patrick
Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said in a Sept. 26 letter to
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: "Public reports
indicate that the United States 'refused to cooperate
with the (Canadian) commission' " conducting the
investigation on Canada's turning Mr. Arar over to the
CIA.
And then -- in a statement that should shame this
country around the world -- our chief law enforcer,
Mr. Gonzales, actually said, when asked at a press
conference if the Department of Justice owes an
apology to Mr. Arar:
"We were not responsible for [Mr. Arar's] removal
to Syria. I'm not aware that he was tortured, and I
haven't read the commission report ... He was
initially detained because his name appeared on
terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our
[immigration] laws." (By the way, Mr. Arar is now
banned from entering the United States. Why?)
Mr. Gonzales wasn't aware that Mr. Arar was
tortured? The story, in detail, was in mainstream
American newspapers, as well as in the foreign press.
Also, in a new, fully documented and footnoted book,
Mr. Arar's "terrible injustice" appears, along with
those suffered by other victims of CIA renditions."
The book, which I particularly recommend to the
attorney general and the CIA director, is "Ghost
Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program" by
Stephen Grey, who has reported for the New York Times,
CNN, CBS' "60 Minutes," the BBC, et al.
The plane that took Mr. Arar to his Syrian cell,
Mr. Grey notes, was a CIA-hired chartered jet, among
others the CIA has used for its "renditions."
On Oct. 31, a tiny New York Times item reported
that the secretary of state, answering an official
Canadian protest on our treatment of Mr. Arar, pledged
that any future taking of Canadians against their will
by the United States to a third country will be
preceded by our consultation with the Canadian
government.
The news story ended: "Ms. Rice did not address a
request that the United States acknowledge
'inappropriate conduct.' " Of course, there was no
apology to Mr. Arar from her. Is there any wonder why
-- among citizens of countries who are U.S. allies --
our leaders are regarded as hypocrites when they
preach democracy and such American values as the rule
of law?
