Bush was responding to a question about a Washington Post report last week that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was running secret prisons in Eastern European countries and Afghanistan and Thailand for holding detainees.
Bush and other U.S. officials have not confirmed or denied the report. Bush told reporters in Panama City, where he was visiting after attending the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, that his administration was aggressively pursuing terrorists but only by legal means.
'We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans,' he said. 'Any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.'
The Washington Post would not identify the Eastern European countries at the request of U.S. officials who fear those nations could be targeted by terrorists. The European Union has vowed to investigate the report.
The covert prison system was set up nearly four years ago in the U.S. war on terror after the September 11 attacks. At times it has included sites in eight countries, the Post said, citing unnamed U.S. and foreign officials.
The existence and locations of the facilities are known only a handful of officials in the United States and typically only to the president and a few top intelligence officials in each host country, the report said.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the White House have used national security concerns to convince key members of Congress from raising the issue publicly, and nearly nothing is known about who is being held in the facilities and what interrogation methods are being used, the Post said.
The CIA does not acknowledge the existence of the 'black sites', the terminology used to describe the arrangement in classified documents, the paper said.
© 2003 - 2006 by Monsters and Critics.com, WotR Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All photos are copyright their respective owners and are used under license or with permission. * Note M&C cannot be held responsible for the content on other Web Sites.
Arts - Books - DVD - Forums - Home - Movies - Music - People & Celebrity - Science - Soundtracks - Sport - Tech - TV - World News
About Us - The Team - Advertise - Contact - Join the Team - Privacy - RSS Feeds - Site Map - Terms & Conditions - Webmasters
Servers supplied by Servint
