Rendition in the "War on Terror"

The CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation (RDI) programme was a central component of the first phase of the ‘war on terror’, from 2001-2008. Through constructing a global network of secret prisons, wherein hundreds of terror suspects were tortured, the US and its allies embarked upon a concerted campaign of state terrorism in pursuit of their wider political goals. This chapter provides an account of the employment of state terror through the CIA’s RDI programme. We outline the main features of the programme, and the involvement of a range of other states, many of which were Western democracies. We also show that the attempt to secure valuable intelligence through coercion, torture and terror proved to be a clear failure, resulting in the detention and torture of dozens of individuals who posed no threat and the use of barbaric methods which did nothing but produce poor intelligence and dehumanise all those involved.