Rep. Markey said “diplomatic assurances not to torture are not credible, and the administration knows it.”

CAIRO, March 17, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The system adopted by CIA to verify that countries, to which terror suspects are forcibly flown, abide by anti-torture statutes is ineffective, concluded current and former American intelligence officers and counterterrorism officials.

“It's widely understood that interrogation practices that would be illegal in the US are being used”, a US government official who visited several foreign prisons where suspects were rendered by the CIA, told The Washington Post Thursday, March 17.

Since 9/11, the CIA has rendered more than 100 people from one country to another, usually with well-documented records of abuse, without legal proceedings, an operation known as rendition, according to the daily.

The CIA asks for “a verbal assurance” from each nation that detainees will be treated humanely, it quoted several recently retired CIA officials familiar with such transfers as saying.

On Wednesday, March 16, the House of Representatives voted 420 to 2 to prohibit the use of supplemental appropriations to support actions that contravene anti-torture statutes.

The measure's co-author, Rep. Edward J. Markey, singled out renditions, saying “diplomatic assurances not to torture are not credible, and the administration knows it.”

However, US President George Bush strongly defended such transfers as “vital to the nation's defence”.

Authorities in Canada, Sweden, Germany and Italy are investigating whether the CIA-sponsored operations violated local laws.

The Post said that the CIA inspector general recently launched a review of renditions, a system first authorized by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

It was used by the Clinton administration to transfer drug lords and terrorists to the US or other countries for military or criminal trials.

“Once they (terror suspects) are in the jurisdiction of another country, we have no rights to follow up”, said Walker.

One CIA officer involved with renditions called the assurances from other countries “a farce”.

The US official who visited foreign detention sites said the issue “goes far beyond” the assurance.

“They say they are not abusing them, and that satisfies the legal requirement, but we all know they do.”

CIA Director Porter J. Goss told Congress a month ago that the CIA has “an accountability program” to monitor rendered prisoners.

However, he admitted that “of course, once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do.”

CIA has little control over prisoners once they leave CIA custody, three recently retired CIA officials and other intelligence officials who have dealt with foreign intelligence services on detainee matters told the paper.

“These are sovereign countries,” said pro-renditions Michael Scheuer, a recently retired CIA officer.

“They are not going to let you into their prisons.”

Edward S. Walker Jr., a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and now president of the Middle East Institute, agreed.

“Once they are in the jurisdiction of another country, we have no rights to follow up”.

An Arab diplomat, whose country is actively engaged in counterterrorism operations and shares intelligence with the CIA, told the paper that it is unrealistic to believe the Americans rally want to follow up on the assurances.

“It would be stupid to keep track of them because then you would know what's going on,” he said. “It's really more like ‘Don't ask, don't tell.’”