In the News

Poll Shows Divide on Question of Torture

WASHINGTON – Most people in eight countries that are American allies don’t want the United States conducting secret interrogations of terror suspects on their soil, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Anxiety about recent reports of secret prisons run by the CIA in eastern Europe has been heightened by the ongoing debate on the use of torture. The poll found Americans and residents of many of the allied countries divided on the question of torture, with about as many saying it’s OK in some cases as those saying it never should be used.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday the United States is following all laws and treaties on the treatment of terrorism suspects and has shared intelligence with its allies that has “helped protect European countries from attack, saving European lives.”

Like other U.S. officials, Rice has refused to answer the underlying question of whether the CIA operated secret, Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe and whether CIA flights carried al-Qaida prisoners through European airports. She said the U.S. “will use every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists.”

About two-thirds of the people living in Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Spain said they would oppose allowing the U.S. to secretly interrogate terror suspects in their countries. Almost that many in Britain, France, Germany and Italy said they feel the same way. Almost two-thirds in the United States support such interrogations in the U.S. by their own government.

Saddam Trial Hears From Woman Who Accuses Former Leader

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A woman whose identity was kept secret and voice masked took the stand in the trial of Saddam Hussein on Tuesday, testifying through tears that Saddam’s men beat her as a teenager and forced her to take her clothes off.

Saddam sat stone-faced as the woman, identified only as “Witness A,” told the court from behind a light blue curtain that she was taken into custody after the 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi president in the town of Dujail.

The woman often cried during her testimony and repeated that she was forced to undress, implying that she had been raped but not saying so outright.

“I begged them, but they hit with their pistols,” she said. “They made me put my legs up. There were five or more and they treated me like a banquet. Is that what happens to the virtuous woman that Saddam speaks about?”

Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin then advised her to stick to the facts.

Letters Show FEMA Feared Miss. Riots

WASHINGTON – Facing a growing body count and shortages of food, water and ice, federal emergency officials braced for riots in Mississippi in the days following Hurricane Katrina, new documents reveal.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials knew their response system had been shattered by the Aug. 29 storm and were unable to provide fast help – even when the needs were obvious.

“This is unlike what we have seen before,” William Carwile, FEMA’s former top responder in Mississippi, said in a Sept. 1 e-mail to officials at the agency’s headquarters. He was describing difficulties in getting body bags and refrigerated trucks to Hancock County, Miss., which was badly damaged by the storm.

Carwile wrote that he personally authorized Hancock County to buy refrigeration trucks because “the coroner was going to have to start putting bodies out in the parking lot.”

The next day, in another e-mail to headquarters about substandard levels of food, water and ice being distributed in Mississippi, Carwile reported, “System appears broken.”