CIA torture report: nothing new on Thailand's role

The US Senate report released early Wednesday describes in damning detail the pain and suffering CIA interrogators inflicted on prisoners, but offers no new information on Thailand's role.

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Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (C), a Democrat from California, speaks to reporters about the committee's report on CIA interrogations at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, December 9, 2014. The CIA's interrogation of Al-Qaeda suspects was far more brutal than acknowledged and did not produce useful intelligence, a damning and long-delayed US Senate report said Tuesday. AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB

Note: You can read the Bangkok Post's full and very long report here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/448563/details-still-secret-on-thailand-role-in-cia-torture

Details still secret on Thailand's role in CIA torture

Online reporters, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The US Senate report released early Wednesday delivered a damning indictment of CIA practices, accusing the spy agency of inflicting pain and suffering on prisoners beyond legal limits – but offered no new information on the location or Thai government involvement in its first waterboarding facility.

Treatment in secret prisons a decade ago was worse than the government told Congress or the public, said the report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the first official public accounting after years of debate about the CIA's brutal handling of prisoners.

Tactics included weeks of sleep deprivation, slapping and slamming of detainees against walls, confining them to small boxes, keeping them isolated for prolonged periods and threatening them with death. Three detainees faced the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. Many developed psychological problems.

File photo of a demonstration of the controversial waterboarding technique.

In Thailand, there was disappointment, as the report blanked out all information about the country's role in waterboarding, housing terrorist suspects from around the world – and the exact involvement of the Thaksin Shinawatra government, National Security Agency and Royal Thai Army.

The Bangkok Post learned recently that the US Senate's unedited report claims the CIA chose Thailand as the site of its safe house because of the close ties between the US agency and Thai intelligence officers. According to this report, then-prime minister Thaksin was not informed until after the safe house was actually operating.

Then-president George W Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney knew that the site was in Thailand, the report says. But the heavily censored version released Wednesday provides no information about the Thai government, intelligence or military involvement.

Thaksin was prime minister at the time and committed Thailand to helping the US, including sending Thai troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Thailand offered to help the CIA," said a US source familiar with the contents of the uncensored US Senate report. As the number of detainees in US hands grew, the US refurbished a large compound in Poland that replaced the Thailand safe house, and torture on Thai soil ended when the temporary detention site closed in December, 2002, or January, 2003.

A lengthy section of the redacted report released Wednesday – just 499 pages of the original 6,700, and most of those blotched by blacked-out sections – contains extensive details on the capture in Ayutthaya in August, 2003, of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist chief Hambali.

A typical page from the report, in the section about the capture of Hambali in Ayutthaya. Almost every page of the 500-page report is similarly "edited" to take out still classified material.

The section is presented as a "debate" about whether the harsh interrogation of another terrorist was necessary to find out where Hambali was staying.

But it is the only mention of Thailand in the entire report.


Thailand's 'detention Site Green'

After al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was arrested in Pakistan, the CIA received permission to use waterboarding, sleep deprivation, close confinement and other techniques. Agency officials added unauthorised methods into the mix, the report says.

Zubaydah was held in a secret facility in Thailand, called "Detention Site Green". Early on, with CIA officials believing he had information on an imminent plot, Zubaydah was left isolated for 47 days without questioning, the report says. Later, he was subjected to the panoply of techniques. He later suffered mental problems.

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