Mohammed, who has been demonized in the U.S. media, was captured by Pakistani cops during a March 1 raid in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. U.S. officials allege that as Al Qaeda’s "operational commander" he planned "the September 11 attacks on the United States," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Officials told the New York Times that "they expected the Central Intelligence Agency to use every means at its disposal, short of what it considers outright torture, to try to crack him." Mohammed’s "American captors are likely to use tactics like sleep deprivation and psychological manipulation in trying to pry information from him," reported the big-business daily on March 4.

Other Al Qaeda members have been treated with similar methods, it noted, including keeping them "in awkward physical positions for hours."

Amnesty International stated on March 5 that "despite claims to the contrary by U.S. officials, the use of sensory deprivation (hooding), prolonged physical restraint (shackling) and denial of needed medical care are all characteristic elements of torture, and like psychological torture, are prohibited under international law."

Such tactics, supposedly falling short of "outright torture," are in regular use at the U.S.-controlled Bagram air base in Afghanistan, reported the Washington Post last December.

The paper’s sources said that prisoners are held in metal shipping containers and subjected to "stress and duress techniques" that include forcing them to stand or kneel for hours with black hoods over their heads or spray-painted goggles covering their eyes, and bombarding them with lights for 24 hours while depriving them of sleep.

Two inmates who were beaten while in U.S. custody at the air base died last December. The autopsies concluded that both were homicides, and that "blunt force trauma" was involved in the deaths. One of the prisoners died of a heart attack and the other of a blocked artery in the lungs.

Currently there are 3,000 "terrorist suspects" imprisoned at the Bagram air base and elsewhere. Washington has sent some of them to Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan, whose governments are notorious for using torture. "I am allowed to use all means in my possession" to force confessions, a senior Moroccan intelligence official told reporters. "You have to fight...resistance at all levels.... We break them, yes."

Democratic senator John Rockefeller of West Virginia told CNN that he "wouldn’t rule out" sending Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to one of the countries where torture is legal. "I wouldn’t take anything off the table where he is concerned," he said.

Amnesty International has also raised criticism of the abuse of inmates at the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. One detainee at Guantánamo tried to commit suicide March 3--the 20th such attempt since the U.S. government began bringing captives there.

Most of the 650 people incarcerated at Guantánamo, which is illegally sited on Cuban land, were captured during Washington’s war on Afghanistan. They come from more than 40 countries. Many have been jailed for more than a year, subject to interrogation by the military without charges, trial, or access to lawyers.

The prisoners are held in seven-by-eight-foot cages made of welded metal mesh. They are allowed out only for medical treatment, interrogations, and twice a week for a 40-minute shower and exercise break.

On March 11 a federal appeals court ruled that the prisoners have no legal rights to challenge their imprisonment. U.S. laws do not have jurisdiction over the naval base, the court said, since it is located on Cuban soil. Sixteen prisoners had filed a lawsuit stating that since the U.S. government controls the 45-square-mile base, it has sovereignty there. This would give them the right to challenge their incarceration as unconstitutional or illegal. The lawsuit was filed by lawyers representing 12 Kuwaitis, two British citizens, and two Australians.  
 
 
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