WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday that CIA officials would not be prosecuted for having used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects under the Bush administration.
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama, who ordered a halt to such internationally condemned interrogation techniques after he took office, said in a statement.
Obama made the assurances to CIA officials that they would not face criminal charges, as he approved release of government memos issues during President George W. Bush's administration that authorized tough interrogation of terrorism detainees held at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba and in secret CIA jails overseas.
International human rights groups had denounced waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and other harsh methods as amounting to torture.
"In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution," Obama said in a written statement released shortly after he arrived on a visit to Mexico.
"The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world," he said. "We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.
But Obama made clear that his decision did not take away from his own disapproval of the interrogation methods that had been employed in the name of Bush's U.S.-led "war on terrorism."
"In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer," he said.
"Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past," he added.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
By giving torturers a free pass, Obama is keeping in place the institution that will allow it to go on unabated. Already, there is indication that the dictator is lying through his teeth when he claims that officials no longer torture prisoners. A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, captured in 2003 when he was fourteen, somehow managed to get a phone call out to the Arab news network al-Jazeera that the abuse is still happening, which was followed by a letter from a second inmate.
More claims of mistreatment of detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay have emerged after Al Jazeera obtained a letter from an inmate saying he had been abused since the Obama administration came to power.
Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national held since 2001, said in a letter to his lawyer dated to April that "oppression has increased, torture has increased and insults have increased".
"I have seen death so many times," he wrote. "Everything is over, life is going to hell in my situation. America, what has happened to you?"
The letter emerged on Thursday, two days after another inmate, Mohammad al-Qurani, told Al Jazeera in a phone call that he had been mistreated since Barack Obama, the US president, was elected last November.
David Remes, one of Abdul Latif's lawyers, said he had seen evidence of abuse on his client during meetings at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba.
"We have met with our clients, we know the men and the experiences are uniform and universal," he said.
"I've seen the marks on these men, I've taken inventories that show the scars, that show the open wounds, that show the rashes.
"Adnan Latif ... has a badly dislocated shoulder blade. I've seen the evidence of physical torture and I've also heard about the evidence of psychological torture."
'Beaten and tear-gassed'
Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday that Mohammad al-Qurani had been beaten and tear-gassed by guards after Barack Obama, the US president, pledged to end abuse at the camp in January.
Al-Qurani said in a phone call to Al Jazeera that the alleged ill-treatment "started about 20 days" before Barack Obama became US president and "since then I've been subjected to it almost every day".
He made the call to Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who was himself held at Guantanamo Bay for more than six years.
On Thursday Robert Wood, a US state department spokesman, said he had not seen the allegations regarding al-Qurani and "did not want to get into specific cases".
However, he did say that the state department would "certainly have been looking into a number of these issues".
The call is believed to be the first made from a Guantanamo Bay inmate to a media organisation.
Secrecy 'ramped up'
In January, a US judge ordered the release of al-Qurani, who was only 15-years old when he was captured in Pakistan in 2001, after saying there was no evidence to justify his detention.
He is currently in the Camp Iguana area of Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners go after they have been approved for release before being transferred.
Cory Crider, a member of al-Qurani's legal team, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday it was hard to ascertain how al-Qurani had been treated in recent months as the situation varied from camp to camp within the facility and also there had been "ramping up" of secrecy under the new administration.
However, Crider said the last time she saw al-Qurani before his transfer to Camp Iguana she had seen abrasions on his hands "that I don't really think he did himself".
"I think that where he is now is a significant, significant improvement over where he was before, but there's no question ... that over the years this kid has been seriously mistreated," she said.
Chad concerns
The ambassador of Chad to the US told Al Jazeera on Tuesday he would raise the claims of abuse of one of its citizens with the US authorities.
"I will bring these allegations to my authorities and also will talk to my counterparts at the state department," Mahmoud al-Bashir said.
The allegations by al-Qurani come after claims by several other Guantanamo inmates that they had been subjected to mistreatment, in violation of international law.
On his second day in office, Obama ordered the closure of the prison, which has been heavily criticised by rights groups over reports of ill-treatment of detainees.
He also ordered that prisoners held there be treated in line with the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the abuse of detainees.
