New Damning Torture Revelations, Same Old Collective Shrug

[G_j]

:shrug:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17883-2004Dec21?language=printer

washingtonpost.com

New Papers Suggest Detainee Abuse Was Widespread

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 22, 2004; Page A01


The Bush administration is facing a wave of new allegations that the abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody was more widespread, varied and grave in the past three years than the Defense Department has long maintained.

New documents released yesterday detail a series of probes by Army criminal investigators into multiple cases of threatened executions of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers, as well as of thefts of currency and other private property, physical assaults, and deadly shootings of detainees at detention camps in Iraq.

In many of the newly disclosed cases, Army commanders chose noncriminal punishments for those involved in the abuse, or the investigations were so flawed that prosecutions could not go forward, the documents show. Human rights groups said yesterday that, as a result, the penalties imposed were too light to suit the offenses.

The complaints arose from several thousand new pages of internal reports, investigations and e-mails from different agencies, which, with other documents released in the past two weeks, paint a finer-grained picture of military abuse and criminal behavior at prisons in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan than previously available.

The documents disclosed by a coalition of groups that had sued the government to obtain them make it clear that both regular and Special Forces soldiers took part in the abuse, and that the misconduct included shocking detainees with electric guns, shackling them without food and water, and wrapping a detainee in an Israeli flag.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1221-04.htm

Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

FBI Agents Complained of Prisoner Abuse, Records Say
Documents obtained by ACLU show continued reports of mistreatment in Iraq and Cuba

by Richard Serrano

WASHINGTON — FBI agents have lodged repeated complaints of physical and mental mistreatment of prisoners held in Iraq and Cuba, saying in reports that military officials have placed lighted cigarettes in detainees' ears and humiliated Arab captives by wrapping Israeli flags around them, according to new documents released Monday.

The FBI records, which are among the latest set of documents obtained by the ACLU in its lawsuit against the federal government, also include instances in which bureau officials said they were disgusted by military interrogators who pretended to be FBI agents as a "ruse" to glean intelligence from prisoners.

The FBI complained that military interrogators had gone beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Convention that prohibit torture; the agents cited Bush administration guidelines that permit the use of dogs and other techniques to harass prisoners.


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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1221-01.htm

Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 by the Associated Press
Group Says FBI Ruse Used at Guantanamo
by John J Lumpkin

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is investigating new allegations by a civil liberties group that military interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay posed as FBI agents while using abusive techniques to question detainees.

The American Civil Liberties Union released e-mails that showed FBI officials disapproved of the practice and suggested the military interrogators posed as FBI agents in part to take advantage of the rapport the FBI had established with some detainees at the prison.


Suspected Taliban and al-Qaida detainees sit in a holding area at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during in-processing to the temporary detention facility in this Jan. 11, 2002, file photo. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Shane T.McCoy)

The e-mails, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, also describe some harsh interrogation techniques and a suggestion they were approved by President Bush — a charge the White House vigorously denied.


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http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122204B.shtml

Torture's Path

By Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
27 December to 03 January 2004 Issue

The paper trail is long, and it isn't pretty. But it's sure to produce some tough Senate questions for Alberto Gonzales.

The CIA had a question for the top lawyers in the Bush administration: how far could the agency go in interrogating terror suspects-in particular, Abu Zubaydah, the close-mouthed Qaeda lieutenant who was resisting standard methods? So in July of 2002 the president's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, convened his colleagues in his cozy, wood-paneled White House office. One by one, the lawyers went over five or six pressure techniques proposed by the CIA. One such technique, a participant recalls, was "waterboarding" (making a suspect think he might drown). Another, mock burial, was nixed as too harsh. A third, the open-handed slapping of suspects, drew much discussion. The idea was "just to shock someone with the physical impact," one lawyer explained, with "little chance of bone damage or tissue damage." Gonzales and the lawyers also discussed in great detail how to legally justify such methods.

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http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17216&c=206



December 20, 2004

NEW YORK -- A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

"These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers."

The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

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