Forumchem - Forum with AI(ALICE BOT & HAL9000) and TTS

A former acting director of the agency, Mike Morell, tells Scott Pelley key details werent reported

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Psychologist tells ABC News: Senate report is "bull****."

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Did enhanced interrogation help the CIA find Osama Bin Laden?

The Senates so-called "torture report" says most of the useful information used to find the al Qaeda leader was gleaned from detainees before coercive measures were used

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"Enhanced interrogation" - the subject of todays Senate report and part of this 60 Minutes interview with a former CIA director, George Tenet

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The CIA chief mounted a vigorous defense of the agency.

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Head of UK torture probe requests CIA data on British role in rendition

The head of the Intelligence and Security Committee of the House of Commons is requesting classified information allegedly inked out of the 480-page summary of the US Senate report on torture interrogation techniques.

Sir Malcolm is chairing an inquiry into the involvement of British intelligence agencies in the CIAs post-9/11 program of detaining and interrogating Al-Qaeda suspects. The MP believes it is possible to persuade Washington to release the classified information, though it is going to be a tough task.

I am not going to go into the details of how we might try and achieve this, there are various ways we can try and advance it, but at the end of the day the actual decision on the American redacted material is for the Americans to take, Sir Malcolm said, speaking to the Observer newspaper.

The British inquiry is only interested in issues relevant to the United Kingdom, he said, so the Americans might feel safe about the rest of the classified contents. We dont need to see the whole of their redacted report, Sir Malcolm said.

Once a summary of the classified report, prepared by Democrats on the US Senate Intelligence Committee, was published earlier this week, news came that Britain had contacted the US, demanding to strike out any mention of UK intelligence.

Initially, the British cabinet insisted the redaction had nothing to do with the UK being involved in the abuse of imprisoned terror suspects.

Later on the British government said that any UK-related edits of the document were made for reasons of Britains national security, and had no connection to torture allegations. Downing Street stressed this request was from British intelligence agencies not the government.

The report maintained that for years after the 9/11 attacks, arrested terror suspects were subject to a number of brutal interrogation techniques.

Among the many harsh examples, the report mentions sleep deprivation, slapping, stress positions, waterboarding etc. The prisoners were also threatened with severe psychological harm and in some cases sexual abuse.

The CIA continued to insist that torture interrogations played an indispensable role in understanding Al-Qaeda.
The inquiry into Britains role in the inhumane handling of terror suspects is gaining momentum. British MPs and human rights groups are demanding a judicial inquiry into Britains involvement in CIA abductions of suspected terrorists.

The initial judicial inquiry into allegations that UK intelligence agencies had been involved in the torture process was ordered by David Cameron in 2010, following public pressure.

However, major human right groups boycotted it for a number of reasons, such as lack of independence and impartiality, and insisted that the inquiry was a waste of public money, because it would be a whitewash.

After a long delay, the inquiry was finished in 2013, coming to the conclusion that British intelligence services had been complicit in extraordinary rendition. The fresh investigation has been passed over to the Intelligence and Security Committee of the House of Commons.

Human rights advocates have renewed calls on the UK to investigate its role in the torture scandal.

Britains Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has demanded former Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw come clean on what they knew about the CIAs torture and rendition program when they were in office.

I hope they will cooperate with any parliamentary inquiry, Fallon said, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

Former FM Straw reacted to the demand, saying that he was never complicit in any of the CIA illegal processes.

I consider it to be revolting, unlawful and also unproductive, Straw said, stressing that when the time for a full inquiry comes, he will cooperate as I always have done.

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Suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist dies just before trial in New York

Libyan Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai (also known as Abu Anas al-Libi) was due to begin trial for the bombings outside the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya during which 224 people died, 12 of whom were Americans, and two of whom had been CIA employees. Jury selection would have begun on January 12.

Indicted by a New York grand jury in 2000, Ruqai has been on the Federal Bureau of Investigations Most Wanted Terrorist list for over a decade with a $5m (3.1m) bounty on his head.

Ruqai had been suffering from advanced liver cancer at the point of his capture in October 2013, and he was also known to have been suffering from hepatitis C. He was 50 when he died.

READ MORE :Libyan Al-Qaeda suspect suffering from serious illness to be charged in New York

US officials have maintained that Ruqai had al-Qaeda links and had been working for Osama Bin Laden after seeking him out in 1992. However, Ruqais lawyer, Kleinman, has said that he had left al-Qaeda prior to the blasts in 1998. However, the indictment says that he had been plotting the explosions as early as 1993 with the militant organization.

US Attorney, Preet Bharara, said that Ruqai died on Friday night after being taken from New Yorks Metropolitan Correctional Center to a local hospital, according to a court filing on Saturday due to sudden complications arising out of his long-standing medical problems. Bharara added that his condition deteriorated rapidly.

His widow, Um Abdullah said that his US capture exacerbated existing problems. I accuse the American government of kidnapping, mistreating, and killing an innocent man. He did nothing, Um Abdullah told AP.

Libis wife said that he had undergone liver surgery some three weeks ago, slipped into a coma temporarily, but had been transferred back to prison too early. She had spoken with him last on Thursday.

His voice was weak and he was in a bad condition, she said. It seems they didnt keep him for enough time in hospital.

Ruqais case had been the subject of prolonged debate because of his illness, and the judge responsible for his case would not see his case separately from a second defendant.

Facing charges of conspiracy to murder US citizens and destroy US property, he had pleaded not guilty on both counts.

An Egyptian man, Adel Abdel Bary, and a Saudi, Khalid Al Fawwaz, were extradited from the UK regarding the same bombings. Bary pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism and was given 25 years in prison.

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A new site is gaining attention for being the Angies List of hacking, but its small potatoes in the global market for on demand digital espionage

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Former acting director of the CIA Michael Morell explains the mentality behind terror groups latest execution

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CIA bought, destroyed chemical weapons in Iraq following invasion - report

Operation Avarice led to the destruction of at least 400 Borak warheads, chemical weapons used by Saddam Husseins government that were reportedly manufactured domestically for Iraqs war against Iran during the 1980s.

Pieces of the leftover cache acquired in 2005 and 2006 by the CIA are believed to have been those not accounted for by the United Nations following the 1991 Persian Gulf war, according to the New York Times.

The program was run out of the CIAs Baghdad station with the aid of the US Armys 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion as well as chemical-defense and explosive ordnance disposal troops, according to anonymous US officials that spoke to the Times.

Many of the 40-inch Borak rockets recovered were exhaust, others in poor manipulate or contained nonlethal material. Still others were found to have a higher level of sarin than was expected.

The amount of money paid to the secretive Iraqi Borak seller, the only person to offer the chemical munitions to the CIA, is unknown, as are his affiliations.

READ MORE: Washington concealed US troops exposure to chemical weapons in Iraq intel docs

Without speaking to any specific programs, it is fair to say that together with our coalition partners in Iraq, the U.S. military worked diligently to find and remove weapons that could be used against our troops and the Iraqi people, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Times reported.

Lauding the programs success, retired Army Lt. Gen. Richard P. Zahner, the highest-ranking American military intelligence officer in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, said Operation Avarice neutralized what could have become an arsenal used against the US and its allies.

This was a timely and effective initiative by our national intelligence partners that negated the use of these unique munitions, he said.

Yet the disclosure of the program again highlighted the US militarys secrecy regarding chemical weapons US troops were or could have been exposed to during the war.

READ MORE: Veterans at risk: 6 key elements of suicide-prevention law

It was revealed in October that American soldiers discovered more than 4,990 mostly degraded chemical munitions in Iraq, yet veterans are now grappling with the effects of chemical exposure that the military did not adequately share with troops or the public.

Veterans have claimed their medical care following this exposure has been substandard, partly because military doctors were unaware of the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq.

If we were aware of these compounds, and as it became understandable over the course of the war that our troops had been exposed to them, why wasnt more done to protect the guys on the ground? said Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

It speaks to the broader failure.

The US support for Iraq in its war against neighboring Iran is well documented.

"Reagan/Bush administrations permittedand frequently encouragedthe flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq, ABCs Nightline reported in 1992.

In 1994, US Sen. Donald Riegle released a report -- "U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War" -- that detailed how the US supplied biological research materials to Iraq.

"Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this time, pathogenic, toxigenic, and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Records prior to 1985 were not available, according to the supplier. These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were competent of reproduction."

READ MORE: 4 in 10 Americans erroneously believe US found active WMDs in Iraq survey

Operation Avarice began after the US military recovered a small collection of Borak warheads in 2005. The seller would occasionally notify the CIA when he had more for sale, officials said, meeting with American handlers of the program in Iraqs southeast region to hand off the weapons.

The Boraks were disposed of afterwards, most by detonation, officials said. Some were taken to Camp Slayer, near Baghdads airport, for testing.

Sarin analysis of the warheads in 2005 found purity level as high as 13 percent, higher than expected. Borak sarin samples found in 2004 had yielded purity levels no more than 4 percent. One internal record from 2006 referenced agent purity of up to 25 percent for recovered unitary sarin weapons.

The relationship between the Borak seller and his American negotiators began to acrid, NYT indicated, as the CIA and US troops increasingly pushed for more information on the cache.

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