Fox News' Smith Loses Cool Over Torture

Holder orders pair of inquiries but drops nearly 100 others

(NEWSER) - The is-it-torture debate is probably going to rev up again: The Justice Department says it will launch criminal inquiries into the deaths of two detainees in US custody in 2002 and 2003, reports the Washington Post . Eric Holder gave the green light on the recommendation of federal prosecutor John Durham, who has been looking into CIA interrogations for two years now. Durham, however, said no charges were warranted in 99 other cases. More»

Report from ethics groups says docs in interrogation program guilty of war crimes

(NEWSER) - CIA doctors who monitored the agency's "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects may be guilty of war crimes linked to human experimentation, according to a new report from a medical ethics group. The report from Physicians for Human Rights accuses the doctors and psychologists of being involved at every stage of the interrogation, the Guardian reports. It labels their recording of information on the effectiveness of the techniques as human experimentation, outlawed after the prosecution of Nazi doctors at Nuremberg. More»

Former VP's defense of torture full of half-truths, falsehoods: Froomkin

(NEWSER) - Since leaving government, Dick Cheney has realized that TV and newspapers will report anything he says, writes Dan Froomkin for the Huffington Post, even though "he is a monstrous liar”—remember Saddam's WMDs? "After years of speaking in whispers, operating by proxy, and leaving as few fingerprints as possible," Cheney can't seem to shut up—and no matter what he's selling, the media "will fail to put it in any context whatsoever." More»

Probes are 'outrageous political act,' says ex-VP

(NEWSER) - The Obama administration should be asking CIA interrogators how they managed to ward off terrorist attacks for 8 years rather than investigating possible breaches of law while doing so, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News today. Investigating interrogators is an "outrageous political act" that will do long-term damage, said Cheney. More»

(AP) - In late 2007, a year after the Bush administration abandoned its harshest interrogation methods, CIA operatives used severe sleep deprivation tactics against a terror detainee twice, keeping him awake for 5 and then 6 straight days, with permission from government lawyers to go over the 4-day limit. Interrogators kept the unidentified detainee awake by forcing him to stand with his arms chained above heart level, jerking on the chains if he nodded out, according to an internal CIA report released this week. More»