Den nye CIA-sjefen Porter J Goss forsikret overfor en Senatskomite at CIA ikke torturer fanger, men han forsvarte en teknikk hvor fanger holdes under vann til de nesten drukner, og kalte det «profesjonell forhørsteknikk».

Goss nektet å svare på om CIA hadde krysset grensen til tortur i en tidligere periode.

Under sharp questioning at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Goss sought to reassure lawmakers that all interrogations «at this time» were legal and that no methods now in use constituted torture. But he declined, when asked, to make the same broad assertions about practices used over the last few years.

Goss sa han kunne fortelle om dette bak lukkede dører.

Mr. Goss’s comments came closer than previous statements from the agency to an admission that at least some of its practices might have crossed the legal limits, and had the effect of raising new questions about the C.I.A.’s conduct in detaining and questioning terror suspects, and in transferring them to foreign governments, in what re2_kommentars one of the most secretive areas of the government’s efforts to combat terrorism.

Pentagon har gjennomført flere interne granskninger av enkelttilfeller av overgrep mot fanger. CIAs generalinspektør holder på, men Goss kunne ikke si når han blir ferdig.

Blant praksisene generalinspektøren skal se på er de såkalte «renditions»; overføring av fanger til tredjeland, som Egypt, Jordan og Syria, Pakistan, hvor det mistenkes at de blir utsatt for tortur.

I tillegg kommer fanger CIA selv holder i utlandet.

an estimated three dozen people suspected of being terrorist leaders, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is suspected of being the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, re2_kommentar in C.I.A. custody in secret sites around the world. Intelligence officials have acknowledged that the C.I.A. has used coercive techniques against those suspects, drawing from a list of practices approved within the Bush administration, including some not authorized for use by the military.

-We don’t do torture, slå Goss fast. Men i en disputt med John McCain kom det frem at han forsvarer en teknikk hvor fangen blir holdt under vann til han begynner å bli kvalt.

In the session, Mr. Goss was challenged by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When Mr. McCain asked Mr. Goss about the C.I.A.’s previously reported use of a technique known as waterboarding, in which a prisoner is made to believe that he will drown, Mr. Goss replied only that the approach fell into «an area of what I will call professional interrogation techniques.»