United States: President Bush acknowledged yesterday that the CIA has run a secret detention programme for terrorism suspects overseas and said 14 of those held have been transferred to the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay.
With human rights organisations suspicious about a programme that has remained in the shadows, Mr Bush strongly defended the detention and questioning of terrorism suspects through this method and said the CIA treats them humanely and does not torture.
"Were it not for this programme, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else. This programme has saved innocent lives." He announced that the 14 suspects held by the CIA had been transferred to Guantánamo for prosecution by military commissions he hopes Congress will establish.
His administration has been forced to come up with a new method to try foreign terrorist suspects after the Supreme Court in June rejected the military tribunal system set up by Washington to try Guantánamo prisoners, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan.
Among the 14, Mr Bush said, are the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and two al-Qaeda leaders, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah. "As soon as Congress acts to authorise the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans . . . can face justice."
In a separate move, the Pentagon has issued new guidelines for the treatment of prisoners in military custody, embracing Geneva Convention safeguards and banning some controversial interrogation practices. The new field manual abandons the practice of having two interrogation standards - one for traditional prisoners of war and another for "unlawful combatants".
Among the practices banned are forcing prisoners to endure long periods of solitary confinement, using military dogs to threaten prisoners, putting hoods over inmates' heads and "water-boarding" - strapping detainees to boards and dipping them in water to simulate drowning.