This May 5, 2004 transcript from ABC World News Tonight: ABC TV reports on the CIA's investigation into the death of "Mon Adel Al-Jamadi" and "Abed Amid Mahoush" in Iraq as well as the death of a detainee in Afghanistan. It describes the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and U.S. "rules on torture."
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT ABC TV
7:00 PM MAY 5, 2004
PETER JENNINGS: ABC News has confirmed today that the CIA is now investigating
the death of three men during interrogation, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. We've
become very aware in the last several days that the attitude, if not the rules for
interrogating prisoners has changed since 9/11.
ABC's Brian Ross reports tonight there are rules and there is reality.
BRIAN ROSS: The CIA also used Abu Ghraib Prison and its makeshift interrogation
rooms, shown to reporters in Iraq today. One of the deaths involved this man, Mon Adel
Al-Jamadi, captured by U.S. Navy Seals last November 4th and turned over to the CIA in
good health, according to the Navy.
According to intelligence sources, 15 minutes after his CIA interrogation began, he was
dead, seen here with his body packed in ice.
Intelligence sources tell ABC News a second CIA-connected death under investigation is
that of an Iraqi Army major general, Abed Amid Mahoush (sp), also last November.
At the time, U.S. officials had said he died of natural causes. If the allegations are true, it
would represent a huge departure from what had been CIA possibility on the use of
torture.
BOB BAER [Former CIA officer]: It was absolutely barred. No torture. You don't
participate, you don't do it, you don't watch it.
ROSS: Former CIA officer Bob Baer was one of the first outsiders into the Abu Ghraib
Prison last year after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Baer says the rules on torture seem to
have changed after the 9/11 attacks.
BAER: It was systematic, and the policy has changed since I was in the CIA It's changed
in the military as well.
ROSS: The U.S. Army's own report on the abuse at the Abu Ghraib Prison found that
Army MPs were, quote, "directed to change facility procedures to set the conditions for
military interrogations." And there's evidence the changes began in Afghanistan, where
one of the three deaths now under CIA investigation occurred.
One official said the death of the prisoner in Afghanistan in the custody of a CIA contract
employee was nothing short of a straight-out murder. The CIA says it notified the
Department of Justice about all three cases and told members of Congress about them in
January, Peter.