54 countries helped the CIA after 9/11 attack: Report
Some 54 countries helped facilitate the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret detention, rendition and interrogation programme in years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new human rights report that documents broad international involvement in the American campaign against al-Qaeda.
The report, titled Globalizing Torture and authored by Amrit Singh, daughter of Indian PM Manmohan Singh, was to be made public Tuesday by the Open Society Justice Initiative, a rights advocacy group. It is the most detailed external account of other countries’ assistance to the US, including things like permitting the CIA to run secret interrogation prisons on their soil and allowing the agency to use their airports for refuelling while moving prisoners around the world.
The report identifies 136 people held or transferred by the CIA, the largest list compiled to date, and describes what is known about when and where they were held. It adds new detail to what is known about the handling of both dedicated Qaeda operatives and innocent people caught up by accident in the global machinery of counter-terrorism.
Some of the harsh interrogation methods the CIA used on prisoners under President George W Bush remain the subject of fierce debate, with Bush administration officials asserting they were necessary to keep the country safe and critics saying the brutal interrogation techniques were illegal and ineffective. The debate has been renewed most recently with the release of Zero Dark Thirty, which portrays the use of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
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