A Rendition Test

(h/t How Appealing) "Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots" at WaPo. This is a profile of the screwy case of Abu Zubaydah and the US government not knowing what to do with him. The story has a number of points of interest but this in particular caught my eye:

"The Palestinian, 38 and now in captivity for more than seven years, had
alleged links with Ahmed Ressam, an al-Qaeda member dubbed the 'Millennium
Bomber' for his plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve
1999. Jordanian officials tied him to terrorist plots to attack a hotel and
Christian holy sites in their country. And he was involved in discussions, after
the Taliban government fell in Afghanistan, to strike back at the United States,
including with attacks on American soil, according to law enforcement and
military sources.

Others in the U.S. government, including CIA officials, fear the
consequences of taking a man into court who was waterboarded on largely false
assumptions, because of the prospect of interrogation methods being revealed in
detail and because of the chance of an acquittal that might set a legal
precedent. Instead, they would prefer to send him to Jordan."

People in the CIA are continuing to advocate rendition to torture, which is what rendition to Jordan is. Here you can read a Human Rights Watch report on the conditions in Jordanian prisons.

That Jordan is off-limits to any proposed rendition program should be obvious from reading Obama's executive orders. Apparently though the desire to perform such renditions lives on. It will be interesting to see if Obama is able to keep his promise not to render to torture. Hopefully he will.