FBI assists with detainee cases, differs with CIA

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI is helping to get information from detainees and prepare terrorism cases against suspects at Guantanamo Bay, despite differences with the CIA over harsh interrogation techniques, the bureau's director said on Friday.

But, in an appearance at the National Press Club, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller declined to say whether a single U.S. interrogation standard was needed to prohibit coercive tactics like waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning widely criticized as torture.

"The policy of the bureau ... is not to use coercion," he said. "I will speak for the FBI."

Mueller spoke before the release of a Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's role in harsh questioning of detainees, which is expected as early as Tuesday. A U.S. military commission is also preparing to try several terrorism suspects held at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mueller was asked whether the FBI was still interrogating "enemy combatants" in cases of suspected terrorism and at what point agents would leave the room to avoid taking part in coercive techniques.

"We still are participating in the preparation of cases in Guantanamo, and yes we are participating in debriefings elsewhere in the world, but I'm not going to get into details," he said.

FBI agents are known to have objected to the questioning of detainees at Guantanamo, but critics say they should have sought to stop abuses.

President George W. Bush vetoed a bill in March that would have banned waterboarding by the CIA.

At a congressional hearing in February, CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged that three foreign terrorism suspects had been subjected to waterboarding five years earlier. The technique was used under the agency's detention and interrogation program launched after the September 11.

Mueller told the same hearing the FBI did not use coercion, and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said the CIA was the only U.S. agency that uses harsh techniques.

Hayden said the CIA's questioning sought to uncover impending attacks, unlike the FBI's job before the September 11 attacks, which was to gather evidence of past crimes.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the bureau works with other U.S. intelligence agencies but follows its own guidelines. "In coordination with our intelligence community partners, and in accordance with those guidelines and policies, the FBI conducts interviews of potential terrorism subjects in different locations," he said.