US gives details on CIA detention program

WASHINGTON, Sep 7 (Reuters) The US government released details about its secretive CIA detention program for top al Qaeda suspects, as President George W Bush said the last 14 detainees had been transferred to military custody.

The program provoked European anger and accusations that the United States violated international law on the treatment of prisoners, after The Washington Post reported last year that detainees were secretly held in Eastern Europe.

Bush said in a White House speech the 14 suspects had been handed over to Pentagon custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. But he insisted the program would remain in place for future terrorism detainees.

The administration had not previously acknowledged the program's existence. It started in 2002 with the capture of Abu Zubaydah, a top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. The CIA adopted techniques that intelligence officials say persuaded him to talk to interrogators.

The CIA requested and obtained a ruling by US Justice Department lawyers that none of its methods violated US statutes prohibiting torture.

The procedures, which remain classified, were later used on other high-level detainees.

Despite Bush's assertion that the program remained in place, its future is in doubt after the Supreme Court ruled in June that all detainees must be protected against degrading treatment under the Geneva Conventions.

US officials and legal experts said the program, which has held less than 100 suspects all told, is unlikely to continue unless and until Congress states explicitly that CIA interrogation techniques meet Geneva Conventions safeguards.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the program appears to be suspended.

''Plenty of folks say those techniques are clearly in violation.

Others say they're not. But it's at least a question in dispute and that's the uncertainty,'' said Robert Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest University.

The intelligence document released by US intelligence director John Negroponte described closely controlled procedures that rely on screened personnel and techniques requiring prior approval by the CIA director.

It said interrogations were observed by ''non-participants'' authorized to end any session that appeared to violate procedures.

Deviations from the rules were to be reported to the CIA inspector general and the Justice Department.

Around the time the CIA received its guidance from the Justice Department, administration lawyers also produced a controversial memo outlining how to avoid violating US and international law while interrogating prisoners.

The memo, which human rights advocates criticized as sanctioning torture, was withdrawn in 2004.

REUTERS DH PM0608