By David Johnston in Washington
THE CIA has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including one signed by the US President, George Bush, that it used as guidelines in the interrogation and imprisonment of terrorist suspects.
The CIA referred to the documents in a letter sent to American Civil Liberties Union lawyers by the agency's associate general counsel, John McPherson,
The contents of the documents were not revealed, but one of them is "a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the US and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees", the rights group said.
The union says that the second document is a Justice Department legal analysis "specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top al-Qaeda members".
The directive from Mr Bush is thought to have been issued soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Justice Department memo about a year later.
Jameel Jaffer, one of the union's lawyers, said they intended to press for release of both of these documents.
"If President Bush and the Justice Department authorised the CIA to torture prisoners, the public has a right to know," Mr Jaffer said in a statement.
A spokesman for the CIA declined to discuss the matter.
In the CIA letter sent on Friday, Mr McPherson confirmed the existence of the documents but refused to release them, saying that essentially all of their contents were exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act as this would damage national security and violate attorney-client privilege.
"The documents are withheld … because there is no meaningful non-exempt information that can be segregated from the exempt material," he wrote.
The New York Times