The Bush administration's secret program transferring scores of suspected terrorists to foreign countries to be imprisoned and interrogated has been carried out by the CIA under broad authority to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice departments, according to current and former government officials.
The unusually expansive authority for the CIA to operate independently since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by US President George W. Bush within days of the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.
The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government's efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticized by human-rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration's public pledge to provide safeguards against torture.
In providing a detailed description of the program, a senior US official said it had been aimed only at those suspected of having knowledge of terrorist operations, and emphasized that the CIA has gone to great lengths to ensure that they are detained under humane conditions and not subjected to torture.
Meanwhile, the CIA has been accused of secretly using a jet to ferry terror suspects for interrogation to countries known to use torture, according to a report aired late on Sunday.
CBS television's 60 Minutes program videotaped the Boeing 737 on a runway at Glasgow Airport in Scotland, saying it was able to trace it through a series of companies and executives that apparently exist only on paper.
It said the plane had made at least 600 flights to 40 countries, all after the Sept. 11 attacks, including 30 trips to Jordan, 19 to Afghanistan, 17 to Morocco and 16 to Iraq.
The plane also went to Egypt, Libya and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the report.
The aircraft is part of the CIA's so-called "rendition" program, in which suspects are sent to foreign governments for interrogation.
The agency has not formally acknowledged the program's existence.
A German national, which CBS identified as Khalid El-Masri, told a reporter he was on vacation in Macedonia when he was arrested by police and held in Macedonia for three weeks and then brought to the airport, beaten by masked men, drugged and put aboard the 737.
The plane left Skopje, Macedonia, and went to Baghdad and then Kabul, with El-Masri saying he awoke in a jail cell where his captors said, "You're in a country without laws and no one knows where you are," CBS News quoted the former detainee as saying.
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