U.S. Accused of 'Torture Flights'

The Sunday Times claims to have obtained confidential flight logs from a 14-seat Gulfstream jet which indicate it was used by U.S. intelligence agencies to transport terrorist suspects to countries that "routinely use torture in their prisons."

Analysis of the plane's flight plans, covering more than two years, shows that it always departs from Washington DC. It has flown to 49 destinations outside America, including the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba and other US military bases, as well as Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Afghanistan, Libya and Uzbekistan.

Witnesses have claimed that the suspects are frequently bound, gagged and sedated before being put on board the planes, which do not have special facilities for prisoners ...."

The alleged prisoner transfer flights were first reported by a Swedish television program called Cold Facts which contended that witnesses saw prisoners handed over to U.S. agents for "extradition" to Egypt. The prisoners later claimed they were tortured.

The article also states that former CIA agents claim the Pentagon uses a process called "rendition" where prisoners are sent to Jordan or Egypt for aggressive interrogation.

Bob Baer, a former CIA operative in the Middle East, said: "If you want a serious interrogation you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear ... you send them to Egypt."

Among the countries where prisoners have been sent by America is Uzbekistan, a close ally and a dictatorship whose secret police are notorious for their interrogation methods, including the alleged boiling of prisoners. The Gulfstream made at least seven trips to the Uzbek capital.

U.S. authorities have denied any complicity in the torture of prisoners.

As food for thought, it would be nice to have Kenneth Bigley, Jack Hensley, Paul Johnson, Daniel Pearl, Kim Sun-il, Shosei Koda, and others who've been beheaded provide their thoughts on "aggressive interrogation" of terrorists. Surely, they would be strongly opinionated about the subject.