Torture | featured news

In a reversal, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would fight the release of dozens of photographs showing the abuse of terrorism suspects, over concern the images could ignite a backlash against U.S. troops.

A congressional hearing on terrorism-era interrogation practices has opened with harsh partisan recriminations.

Records do little to settle a dispute over whether the speaker of the House knew in 2002 that waterboarding had already been used against one prisoner.

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government's use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

Current and former U.S. officials say the failure to carefully examine the value of 'enhanced' methods like waterboarding -- despite calls to do so as early as 2003 -- was part of a broader trend.

The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on alleged Al Qaeda prisoners for nearly seven years without ever seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S.

The Pentagon will release hundreds of photographs showing alleged abuse of prisoners in detention in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001 and 2006, Pentagon officials said Friday, but they said the photos did not show a systemic problem.

Senate Democratic leaders said they would resist efforts to create a special panel to investigate harsh interrogation methods.

Former Bush adviser Condoleezza Rice verbally approved CIA's request to waterboard suspected Al Qaeda terrorist.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took aim on Wednesday at former Vice President Dick Cheney, telling lawmakers she did not view him as a "particularly reliable source" on issues of torture.

CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the September 11 attacks, 183 times and 83 times on another al Qaeda suspect, The New York Times said on Sunday.