WASHINGTON — By all accounts, the interrogation of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush went terribly wrong. Military guards accused his interrogators of beating the detainee and stuffing his body into a sleeping bag bound with electrical cord until he suffocated.

When it came time for a CIA employee to testify during the court-martial of Army Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, however, officials went to great lengths to protect the employee's identity, erecting a high, Army-green tarpaulin to shield him from spectators. Even the unidentified man's employment by the CIA was off-limits, until Welshofer's civilian attorney mentioned it in a slip of the tongue.

"The CIA was a kind of specter hanging on the edge of the case the entire time," said David Danzig, of the advocacy group Human Rights First, who attended the trial. The CIA's role in questioning Mowhoush "was not being investigated, not being discussed," he said. » read more

WASHINGTON -- Reps. John Spratt and Jim Clyburn have recommended to President Barack Obama that he appoint Bill Nettles, a prominent Columbia criminal defense lawyer, as the top federal prosecutor in South Carolina.

Nettles, 48, would replace Walt Wilkins, appointed by President George W. Bush last year as the U.S. attorney for South Carolina.

"I am not a nominee at this point," Nettles said Thursday. "The nomination process is for the White House to determine." » read more