An Alternate “Rendition”

When Egyptian born terrorism suspect, Anwar El-Ibrahimi disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington DC, his American wife, Isabella travels to Washington to try and learn the reason for his disappearance. Meanwhile, at a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US, CIA analyst Douglas Freeman is forced to question his assignment in an attempt to save thousands as he becomes a party to the unorthodox interrogation of El-Ibrahim. When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.

AMY GOODMAN: As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to vote today on the nomination of retired judge Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, the issue of waterboarding and torture is at the top of the agenda. Mukasey has refused to condemn waterboarding as a form of torture, yet his approval by the Judiciary Committee seems all but assured, after two Democrats on the panel said they will support him--that's Schumer and Feinstein.

While the practice of waterboarding is getting mainstream coverage, another controversial Bush administration tactic is also being thrust into the mainstream spotlight: extraordinary rendition. A new Hollywood movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon is called Rendition, centers around the story of an Egyptian US resident who is captured by US agents at a US airport, flown to a North African country to be tortured.

Then, tonight PBS's FRONTLINE/World program is featuring a new documentary called Extraordinary Rendition. It's an international investigation by the award-winning journalist Stephen Grey, who first tracked the CIA's rendition flights in 2004. His book is called Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program. The documentary features interviews with victims of extraordinary rendition speaking for the first time on US television. This is an excerpt of Stephen Grey's investigation. STEPHEN GREY: For years, I pursued the story of Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi-born British resident who once acted as a messenger between an al-Qaeda suspect in London and British Intelligence. In 2002, while he was on a business trip to Gambia in Africa, the CIA had al-Rawi and several colleagues arrested. He says he was betrayed by his British handlers, who turned him over to the Americans. Al-Rawi now finds it painful to recall his treatment by the CIA. BISHER AL-RAWI: They took me into a room. They sort of stripped me, cut off my clothes. And, you know, they just did their stuff, which I don't feel comfortable or necessary to go through, but it's not very pleasant, not very nice, and very, very humiliating, very intrusive. STEPHEN GREY: Al-Rawi was bound, gagged and hooded by the Americans. They drugged him with a suppository, dressed him in a diaper and a jumpsuit and put him on a plane. He was tied down in the same way as the US military secure enemy combatants captured on the battlefield. BISHER AL-RAWI: I was restrained from all--you know, feet, torso, chest. Of course, I can't see anything, like, you know, I can't see. I can't hear. You know, my ears are blocked. I was in a lot of pain. And I was sort of counting the seconds, actually just counting one second, two seconds, just like that, really, just hoping that it's going to be over soon, it's going to be over soon. And then the aircraft landed. Now, they're going to take us out of the aircraft. Now, now, now. They didn't. AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the FRONTLINE/World investigation into extraordinary rendition, airing tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern time on PBS stations around the country.

"In December 2005, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, assured the world that the flights of CIA private jets that have criss-crossed Europe since 9/11 had no role in the sending of prisoners to be tortured. 'The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured,' she said. Tony Blair assured Parliament: 'I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all.'" "But as Stephen Grey reveals in "Ghost Plane", Rice's claims were a falsehood - and Britain's government has also turned a blind eye to a CIA operation that systematically out-sourced the harsh interrogation of its captives. Interviewing sources from the most senior levels of the current and former US administration, from the CIA's department of operations, Grey reveals how the agency's program, known by the euphemism 'extraordinary rendition', has transported hundreds of prisoners to foreign jails and its own secret facilities in the full knowledge they will face harsh torture. 'Of course we do torture', one former senior CIA operative told Grey."

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