Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No.1in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),The New York Times reported Thursday.
The system is a secretive universe and made up of large and small facilities scattered throughout the world to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of al Qaeda,Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government since the Sept.11attacks and the war in Iraq,government officials were quoted as saying.
Many of the prisoners are being held in a network of detention centers ranging from Afghanistan to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The prison system has its own unique hierarchy,in which most important captives are kept at the greatest distance from the prying eyes of the public and the media,and in which the jailers refine the arts of interrogation to drain the detainees of crucialinformation,the paper quoted officials as reporting.
Saddam is still in Iraq,but his exact location is still a closely guarded secret,officials said.The report said it seems likely that Saddam is at a highly secure detention facility established at Baghdad International Airport,where the United States is holding the other top Iraqi leaders it has captured.
The CIA has quietly established its own detention system to handle especially important prisoners,the report said,with the most important Qaeda leaders held in small groups in undisclosed locations in friendly countries in the developing world,where they face long interrogations with no promise of ever gaining release.
In dealing with its captives,the CIA has the advantage of almost complete isolation,according to the report.Officials saidthat allows the agency's interrogators to alter the physical surroundings of al Qaeda detainees to try to disorient them.
US military officials said Wednesday that 38of the 55most wanted Iraqi leaders had either been killed or captured,and several hundred lower-level government officials and Baath Party operatives are being held.
