Torture

If Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. believes that crimes may have been committed in the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against suspected terrorists, he has no choice but to ask a respected prosecutor to weigh the evidence and, if appropriate, bring charges. But the appointment of such a figure, which The Times has reported is imminent, won't provide critics of the CIA with the legal equivalent of a wide-ranging "truth commission" they have been seeking. Nor is it likely to illuminate the conduct of White House lawyers or policymakers.

Nearly a month later, she can't erase images of the dying young man from her mind. All but two of his upper teeth had been knocked out. His nails had been pulled out. His head had been bashed in. His kidneys had stopped working. But what most disturbed her, she said, were the stitches around his anus -- a sign, the nurses told her, that he had been raped. Iranian reformist websites and activists in recent days had identified 19-year-old Mohammad K. as one of the protesters arrested during Iran's postelection unrest, locked up in the Kahrizak detention facility and severely beaten.

The Obama administration Monday set the country on a course to confront whether actions taken in the name of defending Americans instead crossed criminal lines. In simultaneous moves, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. opened an investigation into whether CIA interrogators broke the law and the administration complied with a judge's order and released a long-secret CIA report that cataloged allegations of agency prisoner abuse. The administration also released memos sought in recent months by former Vice President Dick Cheney that he argued attest to the success of the CIA's controversial methods, but that appeared inconclusive in part because the agency had blacked out large portions of the memos.

For months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has argued that the worth of the Bush administration's aggressive interrogation program was proved in two secret CIA memos that he urged be released. But those documents, and others that were finally unsealed Monday, are at best inconclusive -- attesting that captured terrorism suspects provided crucial intelligence on Al Qaeda and its plans, but offering little to support the argument that harsh or abusive methods played a key role.

Eric H. Holder Jr. is an attorney general of great integrity and deep experience, but he did neither President Obama nor the country a service Monday when he appointed a longtime federal prosecutor to investigate whether CIA interrogators should be criminally prosecuted for abusive interrogation of Al Qaeda prisoners. The president himself -- with the unqualified support of Leon Panetta, the new director of Central Intelligence -- has already ordered an end to the use of torture against suspected terrorists.

The Justice Department prosecutor appointed this week to examine the CIA's interrogation program will revisit long-dormant abuse cases involving the agency's civilian contractors, bringing new attention to a little-known but controversial element of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Civilian contractors used by the CIA at secret overseas facilities were accused of detainee abuses and deaths in a series of cases in the years following the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but only one was ever prosecuted.

Their transformations took place in a sensory cocoon: aboard a CIA aircraft, shackled in place, deprived of sight and sound by blindfolds, headsets and hoods. They emerged into an existence that was hidden for most of the last eight years, but now is possible to glimpse through dozens of declassified files released by the Obama administration last week. Scattered throughout, in the CIA's clinical style, are descriptions of the prisoners' surroundings, the extraordinary security measures with which they were handled, the often brutal search for answers they were thought to possess, and what passed for everyday life.

An American document that allegedly describes the torture of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate should be made public, a British court ruled Friday, dismissing Britain's argument that it was suppressing the information to preserve its intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and to uphold national safety. The document contains a seven-paragraph summary of the treatment that Binyam Mohamed received in 2002 after being detained as a suspected terrorist. Mohamed, 31, a British resident, alleges that he was subjected to torture, including beatings and sexual mutilation, by interrogators in Pakistan and elsewhere with the full knowledge of American and British intelligence agents.

The video of the beating and sexual abuse of five young alleged thieves at the hands of vigilantes has provoked widespread outrage here. But in some quarters, there have been disquieting voices of approval. The video landed on YouTube. It shows the cowering teenage boys being slapped in the face and forced to French kiss one another. Each is forced to say that they are about to be raped as punishment for robbing houses. In the state of Nayarit, where the incident took place, many people suspect that the abusers might be police officers.

A La Cañada Flintridge couple trying to save their home from foreclosure were arrested along with three others on suspicion of beating, torturing and robbing a pair of loan modification agents they believed had done nothing to help them rescue the residence. Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee, both 52, allegedly sought mortgage assistance from Lamond Dean and Luis Garcia, two loan modification specialists, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Authorities said the homeowners thought agents had taken their money and done nothing to help them.