‘OUTSOURCING TORTURE’

The title of Jane Mayer’s long article in the current New Yorker magazine says it in short: “Outsourcing Terror.” The Bush administration has been farming out the interrogation of its key prisoners to Egypt and other countries that routinely use torture.

Ms. Mayer starts off with the tale of a 34-year-old Syrian-born Canadian engineer who was detained at John F. Kennedy Airport on suspicion of terrorism. He told of being questioned for 13 days and then shipped off to Syria in an executive jet by Americans whom he overheard calling themselves members of “the Special Removal Unit.” In Syria, he said he was questioned and beaten on his hands with electric cables until he gave up and told them anything they wanted to hear. But he was released after a year without charge. He is suing the United States government.

The New York Times last Sunday told of an Egyptian-born Australian who was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He said Americans held him for 40 months and shipped him to Egypt, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, Cuba. He told of physical and psychological abuse at each place, including kicking, electrical shock, cigarette burns and beatings while he was hung from the ceiling. He said American woman soldiers in Afghanistan “touched me in the private area.” In one interrogation, he said, a woman reached under her skirt and threw what appeared to be blood in his face. He plans to sue the Egyptian government.

Both cases are described as involving a little known U.S. government program called rendition. Secret for many years, it is now coming to light, through ac-counts by victims, investigations by their lawyers, and disclosures by American officials who believe rendition is illegal, damages America’s reputation around the world, and is fundamentally unproductive for useful intelligence, since tortured prisoners eventually will admit to anything to stop the abuse.

Such stories, of course, may be exaggerations or outright fabrications. American officials and those of the other countries involved all deny that any such thing takes place. President Bush told The Times on Jan. 27 that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to the countries that do torture.” Still, Mr. Bush’s assurances that the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was merely the work of a few bad apples has proven to be inaccurate.

The horror stories, whether exactly true or not, have blackened America’s reputation throughout the world, just as did the torture pictures from Abu Ghraib. The world’s growing belief that the United States government commits or condones torture as an interrogation aid has become an infection that must somehow be cured. Victims and lawyers and newspaper and magazine and television accounts can’t be expected to do the whole job.

The task of clearing America’s good name is up to the government. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has proposed a formal investigation into detention, interrogation and rendition. The Republican chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, told The Times that a review rather than a formal investigation might suffice, but that he anticipated

no disagreement on the subject.

A full investigation is essential. The facts must be established. Any wrongs must be punished. And the world must be assured that the United States abhors torture and will have no part in it.