WASHINGTON, Dec 26: CIA interrogators have been using “stress and duress” techniques on captured enemies in Afghanistan that blur the line between legal and inhumane, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The Post described a cluster of metal shipping containers it said constituted a secret CIA interrogation center at Bagram Air Base, headquarters of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Captives who refused to cooperate were sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, the Post said, citing intelligence specialists said to be familiar with CIA interrogation methods.

At times they were held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights — subject to what are known as “stress and duress” techniques, the paper said.

Those who cooperated were rewarded with “creature comforts” as well as feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity and, in some cases, money, from their interrogators, it said.

On the other hand, some who did not cooperate were turned over — “rendered,” in official parlance — to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations, the Post said.

“In the multifaceted global war on terrorism waged by the Bush administration, one of the most opaque — yet vital — fronts is the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects,” the paper said.

U.S. officials have said little publicly about the captives’ names, numbers or whereabouts, and virtually nothing about interrogation methods.

But the Post said it had gained insights thanks to interviews with several former intelligence officials and 10 current U.S. national security officials — including several people who said they had witnessed the handling of prisoners.

“The picture that emerges is of a brass-knuckled quest for information, often in concert with allies of dubious human rights reputation, in which the traditional lines between right and wrong, legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred,” the Post reported.

The U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture. But each of the current national security officials interviewed for the article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary, the Post said.

The off-limits patch of ground at Bagram was described by the Post as one of a number of secret detention centres overseas where U.S. due process does not apply, where the CIA undertakes or manages the interrogation of suspected terrorists. Another was reported to be Diego Garcia, a British-owned island in the Indian Ocean.—Reuters