UN Torture Panel To Report On U.S.
May 19, 2006 -- The UN Committee on Torture is to issue a report today on the way the United States is conducting its war on terror concerning detainees.
In a draft of the report obtained by the Associated Press, the panel says the United States must eradicate torture and ill-treatment of detainees by its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At a hearing earlier this month, the U.S. delegation answered questions on issues ranging from Washington's treatment of detainees to its definition of torture.
The U.S. State Department legal adviser, John Bellinger, told the panel that all U.S. officials are "prohibited from engaging in torture at all times and in all places."
Bellinger said that most of the "regrettable incidents or allegations" of detainee mistreatment had occurred several years ago and that laws, training, and monitoring have since been improved.
(AP)