TORTURE

Villagevoice: The CIA's Kidnapping Ring

U.S. ally Uzbekistan teaches interrogators how to boil suspected terrorists to death

The president: "[In] the post-9-11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack. . . . One way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured. That's the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture."
Question: "As commander in chief, what is it that Uzbekistan can do in interrogating an individual that the United States can't?"
George W. Bush repeated his talking point: "We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured."
Actually, there is much that U.S. interrogators can learn from their counterparts in Uzbekistan on how to break down prisoners. One of the CIA's jet planes used to render purported terrorists to other countries—where information is extracted by any means necessary—made 10 trips to Uzbekistan. In a segment of CBS's 60 Minutes on these CIA torture missions (March 5), former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray told of the range of advanced techniques used by Uzbek interrogators:
"drowning and suffocation, rape was used . . . and also immersion of limbs in boiling liquid."
Two nights later on ABC's World News Tonight, Craig Murray told of photos he received of an Uzbek interrogation that ended with the prisoner actually being boiled to death!