By Guy Dinmore -- Financial Times
Sept. 20, 2006 -- WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme.
The former officials said the CIA interrogators’ refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier than it might have wished.
When Mr Bush announced the suspension of the secret prison programme in a speech before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, some analysts thought he was trying to gain political momentum before the November midterm congressional elections.
The administration publicly explained its decision in light of the legal uncertainty surrounding permissible interrogation techniques following the June Supreme Court ruling that all terrorist suspects in detention were entitled to protection under Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.
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