WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said Thursday that he had banned the agency's use of contract employees to interrogate prisoners or provide security at detention facilities, ending a practice that had drawn frequent criticism from human rights groups and key members of Congress.
Panetta also spelled out new obligations for officers to safeguard the well-being of detainees when working with U.S. partners in Pakistan and other countries that frequently capture terrorism suspects with CIA help. The rules require agency employees to report abuses even if they take place "in the custody of an American partner."
The new policies come amid fresh disclosures about the CIA's harsh treatment of detainees in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A previously secret Red Cross report based on interviews with prisoners who had been in CIA custody concluded that the agency's methods "constituted torture."
President Obama banned the CIA's use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques during his first week in office, and the White House has continued to take high-profile steps to distance itself from the practices adopted by the Bush administration.
Panetta outlined the latest measures in a note distributed to the CIA's workforce, as well as in a letter to congressional intelligence committees.
A copy of the memo to CIA workers, which also was given to reporters, cited a desire to address ongoing media and congressional scrutiny of the agency's interrogation activities.
The CIA's pursuit of extremists "continues undiminished," Panetta said. But CIA officers "do not tolerate, and will continue to promptly report, any inappropriate behavior or allegations of abuse."
Under the new directive, Panetta said that "no CIA contractors will conduct interrogations" and that he had ordered the agency to sever its contracts with companies that provided security at secret CIA facilities.
Agency officials declined to elaborate, but Panetta said that the contract decision would save the CIA as much as $4 million.
Panetta said that the agency had not had a prisoner in custody since he became director two months ago. The CIA still has the authority to detain terrorism suspects temporarily, and question them, before transferring them to the U.S. military or the custody of another country.
