Bush gave CIA power to send suspects abroad

The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government’s efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticised by human rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration’s public pledge to provide safeguards against torture. In providing a detailed description of the program, a senior US official said it had been aimed only at those suspected of having knowledge of terrorist operations, and emphasised that the CIA has gone to great lengths to ensure that they are detained under humane conditions and not subjected to torture.

The official would not discuss any legal directive under which the agency operates, but said that the ‘‘CIA has existing authorities to lawfully conduct these operations.’’

The official declined to be named but agreed to discuss the program to rebut the assertions that the United States uses the program to secretly send people to other countries for the purpose of torture. The transfers were portrayed as an alternative to what American officials have said is the costly, manpower-intensive process of housing them in United States or in American-run facilities in other countries.

In recent weeks, several former detainees have described being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and brutal treatment during months spent in detention under the program in Egypt and other countries. The official would not discuss specific cases, but did not dispute that there had been instances in which prisoners were mistreated. The official said none had died.

The official said the CIA’s inspector general was reviewing the rendition program as one of at least a half-dozen inquiries under way within the agency of possible misconduct involving the detention, interrogation and rendition of suspected terrorists.

In public, the Bush administration has refused to confirm that the rendition programme exists, saying only in response to questions about it that the United States did not hand over people to face torture. The official refused to say how many prisoners had been transferred as part of the programme. But former government officials say that the CIA has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists to other countries since the Sept. 11 attacks, including Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan.

Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons. But the official said that guidelines enforced within the CIA require that no transfer take place before the receiving country provides assurances that the prisoner will be treated humanely, and that US personnel are assigned to monitor compliance with those promises.

It has long been known that the CIA has held a small group of high-ranking Al-Qaeda leaders in secret sites overseas, and that the US military continues to detain hundreds of suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The rendition program was intended to augment those operations, according to former government officials, by allowing the US to gain intelligence from the prisoners, most of whom were sent to their countries of birth or citizenship. —NYT