July 12, 2006
Pentagon Memo: A Way To Stave Off Congress?
A July 12 new analysis piece in the San Francisco Chronicle sees the Pentagon memo concerning Geneva protections for detainees as part of an attempt by the administration to convince Congress not to get involved in the adjutication process at the base. Chronicle legal analyst Mark Sandalow writes:
The Defense Department memo seemed designed, in part, to quell congressional appetite to reign in the administration. The memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England to all branches of the armed forces was written Friday and reported in Tuesday's editions of the Financial Times. It became public Tuesday morning when two administration officials testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked for legislation that would permit them to proceed with military tribunals, rather than a system that would place more burdens on the prosecution.
New York Times Challenges Administration Statement on Detainee Treatment
A July 12 New York Times editorial takes the Bush Administration to task for claiming that the detainees at Guantanamo have always been treated "as if the Geneva Conventions applied" in the groundbreaking July 11 Pentagon memo that stated detainees would now follow Geneva at Guantanamo. The Times wrote:
We were pleased to see the U.S. Defense Department finally recognize the power of the Supreme Court over prisoners of the military and order the armed forces to follow the Geneva Conventions requirement of decent treatment for all prisoners, even terrorism suspects. It was a real step forward for an administration that tossed aside the Geneva rules years ago and then tried to place itself beyond the reach of the courts.
However, the Pentagon memo released Tuesday claimed, falsely, that its prisoner policies already generally complied with the Geneva Conventions - the sole exception being the military commissions created by President George W. Bush and struck down by the high court. That disingenuousness may have simply been an attempt to save face. If so, it was distressing but ultimately not all that significant. What really matters is that Congress brings the military prisons back under the rule of law, and create military tribunals for terrorism suspects that will meet the requirements of the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.
July 10, 2006
Chicago Tribune: Ditch the Commmissions
A July 10 editorialin the Chicago Tribune argues that the Bush Administration's attempt to find a way to keep the military commissions alive is a waste of time. The Tribune writes:
Immediately after the court's decision, Bush and members of Congress scrambled to find a face-saving legislative fix that would overcome the illegal procedures of the military commissions.
That could be a futile endeavor.
By the time all the illegalities of the commissions are addressed, the result probably will appear very much like courts-martial anyway. The court said as much: "Nothing in the record before us demonstrates that it would be impracticable to apply court-martial rules in this case," Stevens wrote.
With that in mind, the president and Congress should focus on rewriting the Bush administration's flawed judicial and detention policies in the war on terror.
June 22, 2006
Washington Post Editorial: "Closing Time"
A June 20th Washington Post editorial by Op-Ed columnist Eugene Robinson calls for the closure of the base, but also lambasts the administration for barring press from the base in the wake of three detainees suicides. Robinson argues that the Pentagon's decision called their own accounting of events into question:
"Four journalists -- from the Charlotte Observer, the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times -- who happened to be at Guantanamo on other business and whose reporting could have independently confirmed the Pentagon's version of the suicides were unceremoniously put on a plane home last Wednesday. The Pentagon's rationale -- that it was unfair to allow the reporters to stay, because others who wanted to come and cover the story were being turned away -- is one of those masterpieces of faux logic for which Donald Rumsfeld is justly famous. Wouldn't the solution be to let other journalists in, rather than kick those four out?"
June 14, 2006
Journalists Banned from Gitmo After Detainee Suicides
Following press coverage of the suicide of two Saudis and a Yemeni who hanged themselves in their cells early on the morning of June 10th, journalists have been ordered to leave Guantánamo Bay and local military authorities have had their permission to invite reporters to the base overruled.
A June 14 Guardian article links the ban to a June 13 Charlotte Observer article that went far beyond the usual press conference coverage of affairs at the base. The article, written by Observer reporter Michael Gordon, focused on the military response to the suicides. Gordon described scenes of officials discussing harsh treatment of detainees, as well as a staff meeting in which a prison commander told his offices, "Right now, we are at ground zero...The trust level is gone. They have shown time and time again that we can't trust them any farther than we can throw them. There is not a trustworthy son of a ... in the entire bunch."
Though the colonel's comments reflect a level of frustration usually smoothed over in official pronoucements about the base, his framing of the suicides as an act of betrayal or treachery seems to indicate a general response at the base, at it echoes the response of current Guantanamo Bay prison commander Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris. Harris told reporters in the wake of the suicides that "(the detainees) are smart, they are creative, they are committed...They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."
There is an interesting commentary on Harris's words in the June 13 edition of Counterpunch
June 13, 2006
New York Times "Prisoner's Ruse" Article Tows Administration Line
Two days after three detainees at Guantanamo Bay committed suicide, a front page New York Times article chose to focus on what were described as the strategies of deception used by the prisoners who killed themselves, closely echoing administration attempts to characterize the deaths as devious behavior -- or, as one State Department Official noted, a "good PR move" rather than the desperate acts of men jailed for years without trial. The Times also, oddly, described the international reaction to the suicides as "muted."
The tone of the Times article ran somewhat counter to an editorial denouncing the detention center which ran the same day on the Times editorial page, and it generated both puzzled and outraged responses in the left media.
January 24, 2006
Pentagon Ordered to Release Detainee Identities
As The New York Times reports, in response to a 2005 lawsuit filed by The Associated Press, a federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to release the names and nationalities of hundreds of terror suspects picked up in the War on Terror and detained at the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In April 2005, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request granted the AP access to 2,000 pages of information related to the military tribunals held at Guantanamo. While the Pentagon did in fact release transcripts of 558 tribunals, prisoners' names were blacked out, and other identifying information was altered. As a result, the news agency contends it was only able to report anecdotally on the proceedings, which it maintained were "unquestionably of great interest to the public." The organization then filed a federal lawsuit against the DoD, asking the court for the release of all transcripts and documents related to the military hearings, as well as written statements and other documentation submitted by detainees.
The Pentagon must provide the AP with unredacted copies of the transcripts by January 30. As Reuters reports, the government has until tomorrow to ask the judge to suspend the order if an appeal is to be made.
Judge Jed Rakoff's ruling rejects the Pentagon's contention that privacy issues are the raison d'etre for witholding information. The government has maintained that prisoners' identities should not be disclosed to ensure the safety of detainees as well as their families, citing the threat of retailiation should terrorist groups become displeased by something a detainee reveals during his tribunal.
However, in a six-page order issued earlier this month, Judge Rakoff wrote, "The Department of Defense has failed on this motion to establish any cognizable privacy interest on the part of the detainees Accordingly, the defendant's summary judgment motion is denied," ABC News reports.
In August, the judge ordered the Defense Department to poll the 317 detainees who had undergone enemy combatant hearings to see whether they objected to having their names published. According to a January 4th ruling, the judge said there was not a significant number of detainees in opposition to such disclosure.
July 02, 2005
Pentagon Disputes Medical Journal Findings
During a news briefing conducted by Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, questions were raised regarding the use of medical information during interrogations at Guantanamo, and specifically, what departmental policy is for sharing a detainee's medical information for purposes of devising interrogation strategies specific to that detainee. A partial transcript of that briefing is as follows:
Q: Larry, with regard to the controversy over the use of medical information in interrogations in Guantanamo, can you clarify, is it department policy that information provided by detainees to their medical care givers can be routinely shared with interrogators in devising strategies and tactics for those specific detainees?
MR. DI RITA: Well, I think we've briefed on this extensively. And there's a transcript available -- you haven't had a chance to look at it. But we have medical professionals down there that are there for the purposes of treating the detainees. And, you know, they've described what they do, which is medical care as you would understand it.
It is not uncommon to use behavioral science specialists, people that are known to have sort of an expertise in -- the kinds of things -- I wouldn't want to use this term to make the direct comparison, but others have -- profiling, so that as you understand what an individual is like, you might be able to affect the approaches that the interrogators would take on him. It's quite a different thing from saying we're using information out of his medical record. That's not really what, as I understand it -- and as I said, we've briefed this, so if there's -- we can maybe provide you some additional information. But it's more of a generic use of the specialty than it is specific knowledge of an individual's medical records.
Q: Actually, it's both. But the New England Journal article and its author specifically alleged that that sort of normally private medical information is funneled into that process. And my question was whether that is allowable under DOD policy.
MR. DI RITA: Well, I don't want to speak to it in terms of what DOD policy is. What it is is a matter of what the medical professionals at Guantanamo assisting the interrogators might determine might be necessary. Remember, we are talking about people who are known or suspected terrorists. So, there is a well respected and well regarded -- and it's been observed by a lot of people -- care that's being provided to these terrorists. And they are terrorists, by our assessment. On the other hand, there may be information that can be gleaned from the knowledge of who these people are that can help -- or, the knowledge of how these people are behaving that can help the interrogators. And we're -- and we try and walk that line, and we try and be careful about it. But we are talking about people like UBL's bodyguards, like somebody who would have been on an airplane on 9/11, and the balance that we strike will be toward getting more intelligence and stopping future attacks on the United States. And that's the balance that we're challenged -- that we're working on.
There is no handbook on how to do this. It's never been done before. So we're trying to be very careful about it. I think we've now had over 200 members of Congress who have observed what's going on in Guantanamo. They're observed interrogations. They've observed the medical facilities. We, as a matter of routine, try and provide exposure to the way that the medical treatments are being conducted down in Guantanamo when members of Congress go down there. There's an awful lot of oversight. But there is not a textbook on how to do this, and we're being very careful -- with the objective of gaining intelligence to stop Americans from being killed. And that's the balance we need to strike.
June 20, 2005
Former President Clinton on GITMO: Close it or Clean it Up
As did former President Jimmy Carter last week, former President Bill Clinton added his voice to the debate mounting in the U.S. and abroad over the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, calling for the U.S.-run facility in Cuba to "be closed down or cleaned up."
During an interview with the U.K.'s Financial Times, in addition to ethical concerns President Clinton cited practical reasons for the irreproachable treatment of detainees opining,
�If we get a reputation for abusing people it puts our own soldiers much more at risk and second, if you rough up somebody bad enough, they'll eventually tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to stop doing it."
Amid the public relations nightmare fomented by alleged and confirmed instances of detainee abuse, the White House appears to be divided over the issue of Guantanamo's future, with President George Bush hinting at the facility's possible scale-down or closure. Nevertheless, senior officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretatary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld remain steadfast in their position that the prison facility is essential, no practical alternative to Guantanamo exists, and "enemy combatants" detained at the camp continue to provide valuable intelligence, crucial to winning the ;'War on Terror.'
February 16, 2005
Armed Forces Press Service on Current Conditions at GITMO
Reporter Kathleen T. Rhem of the American Forces Press Service provides a glimpse into the conditions under which terror suspects are currently being held. In an article posted to the Department of Defense website, the tarnished image of a scandalized Guantanamo is replaced by a detention facility in compliance with correctional, legal and humanitarian standards; a detention facility that embodies the mission of the Joint Task Force, ensuring "the safe, secure, humane custody of the detainees."
As Rhem reports, at the base's detention camps prisoners are divided into 4 levels. The levels are unrelated to detainee's intelligence value but rather, they are based on how well detainees comply with camp rules and cooperate with guards instructions.
Typically, level 1 detainees are obedient, and are inclined to follow camp rules. They occupy communal living quarters, and wear uniforms that are white - a culturally respected color that serves as an incentive to detainees in other camps.
In contrast, level 4 detainees often have a history of offenses, ranging from threatening guards and other detainees, to hurling bodily fluids, to refusing to exit their cell when ordered. Level 4 detainees wear orange, hospital type uniforms, and are granted fewer privileges than level 1 detainees.
For detainees who cooperate, privileges may include extended access (7-9 hours per day) to an outside exercise area, which features picnic and ping-pong tables, a soccer area and volleyball court. Games, books and other reading material, as well as electric fans and ice water may also be made available.
With regard to the camp's physical structure, the article illustrates how the concrete and open-air chain-link enclosures of the crude and hastily built Camp X-Ray have been replaced by more modern and permanent structures. Construction of Camp Delta began in 2002, eventually replacing the make-shift Camp X-Ray, which had never been intended for long-term detentions. Then in spring of 2004, a state-of-the-art $16 million detention facility was completed. Camp 5 was composed of four wings consisting of 12 to 14 individual cells each.
Last month, plans for a new prison - Camp 6 - were announced. The $25 million, 200 bed, medium-security facility will be restructured with an improved medical facility, including a $1.7 million psychiatric wing.
Together Camps 5 and 6 are said to represent 'the future of Guantanamo Bay,' which is being revamped to house those prisoners found to pose a continuing security threat.
Despite official pronouncements of its intentions to reduce prisoner population - as well as the contention held by many that GITMO will probably not become a fully-functional detention facility - the millions spent and earmarked for the construction of state of the art facilities suggests that the Department of Defense does in fact, have long-term plans for the U.S.- run prison in Cuba.
December 18, 2004
C.I.A.'s "Prison w/in a Prison," Reports Washington Post
The Washington Post reports that the C.I.A. operated a covert holding and interrogation facility for suspected senior al Qaeda operatives within the larger American military-run prison facility at Guantanamo.
As the article explains, the buildings used by the C.I.A. were off-limits to most personnel on the base, “shrouded by high fences covered with thick green mesh plastic and ringed with floodlights” within the larger Camp Echo complex, which was constructed to house the DoD’s high-value detainees, as well as those awaiting military trials.
Those picked up during the U.S.-led “War on Terrorism” and detained at Guantanamo are technically held not by the C.I.A. but by the Defense Department. They are guaranteed access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and, as a result of June’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, may challenge their detentions through the U.S. courts.
C.I.A. detainees - by contrast - are governed by distinct rules, and with far greater secrecy.
“Under a presidential directive and authorities approved by administration lawyers,” the article explains, “the CIA is allowed to capture and hold certain classes of suspects without accounting for them in any public way and without revealing the rules for their treatment. The roster of CIA prisoners is not public, but current and former U.S. intelligence officials say the agency holds the most valuable al Qaeda leaders and many mid-level members with knowledge of the group's logistics, financing and regional operations.”
Officials from neither the C.I.A. nor the DoD were willing to discuss any aspect of the operation. When questioned about the arrangement between the C.I.A. and the U.S. military at Guantanamo, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he was not at liberty to comment on operations of other agencies.
“As we have stated since the beginning of detention operations at Guantanamo, the ICRC has access to detainees at Guantanamo and is permitted to meet with them, consistent with military necessity.”
Whitman added, “all [Defense] detainees, including those at Guantanamo, are treated humanely, and in accordance with applicable law.”
While ICRC officials declined to divulge where - or with whom - they had been permitted to visit, a spokesman submitted “We have been granted broad access to the camp.”
He continued, “We are confident we have visited all of the people detained at Guantanamo, in all of the places they are being detained.”
Yet the Post article points out that the ICRC has not, in fact, been granted access to high-value detainees held at secret locations around the world.
It is unclear whether the facility is still in operation today.
November 05, 2004
New Pentagon Report Details Abuses at Guantanamo
In an 800-word response to a query made two months ago by The Associated Press, the Department of Defense released details of eight confirmed acts of prisoner abuse - previously cited in the Schlesinger Commission Report - that took place at Guantanamo. As The Associated Press and Knight Ridder report, it is the most detailed accounting of prisoner abuses at Guantanamo to date.
Without releasing the names of those responsible - who have since received reductions in rank, reprimands, or additional training - the behavior revealed reportedly ranges from “the petty to the bizarre.” While in stark contrast to the severity of abuse confirmed at Abu Ghraib, the acts detailed nevertheless reflect an abuse of power by the guards in charge.
Among those acts detailed:
•A female interrogator exposed her T-shirt to a detainee, ran her fingers through his hair and climbed on his lap in April 2003. A supervisor monitoring the session terminated it, and the woman was reprimanded and sent for more training;
• A prison barber gave two inmates "unusual haircuts," described as reverse Mohawks, in February, in an apparent attempt to humiliate them. The barber and his company were reprimanded;
• An interrogator in April 2003 told military police to repeatedly bring a detainee from a standing to kneeling position, so much that his knees were bruised. The interrogator received a written reprimand;
• In reprisal for a prisoner throwing toilet water at his guard, the guard "attempted to spray the detainee with a hose" in September 2002. The guard was reduced in rank and reassigned;
• A guard punched a prisoner while holding a walkie-talkie in his fist after the prisoner was subdued in a struggle for biting his guard in April 2003. The guard was demoted;
• An interrogator stained a prisoner's shirt with a red magic marker and told him it was blood in early 2003. The interrogator received a verbal reprimand;
• A guard squirted water from a bottle on a prisoner in February, engaging in "inappropriate casual conversation“; and
• A guard used pepper spray on a prisoner who was poised to throw unidentified liquid on an officer in March 2003. The guard was acquitted by a court-martial.
Brigadier General Jay Hood - commander of the taskforce that runs Guantanamo - says lessons have been learned from past abuses cases and detainees are being treated humanely.
“They’ve not been mistreated, they’ve not been tortured in any respect,” he said.
October 24, 2004
Washington Post: Justice Memo Permits CIA to Take Detainees Out of Iraq
At the request of the CIA, the U.S. Justice Department drafted a confidential memo authorizing the transfer of detainees out of Iraq for interrogation, The Washington Post reports. Without notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross, congressional oversight committees, the Defense Department or CIA investigators, such furtive practice - international legal specialists submit - is in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
The Post article says the memo authorizes intelligence officers to permanently remove persons deemed to be "illegal aliens" under "local immigration law."
Written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and dated March 19, 2004, the draft opinion refers both to Iraqi citizens and foreigners in Iraq, who the memo says are protected by the Geneva Conventions.
Lawyers interviewed by The Washington Post contend the memo contravenes Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians during wartime and occupation, including insurgents who were not part of Iraq' military.
The treaty prohibits the "individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory... regardless of their motive."
During the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration declared Al Qaeda fighters were not considered "protected persons" under the Geneva Convention. Nevertheless, administration attorneys have been divided over detainee status, and whether the Geneva Conventions apply to hundreds of detained members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. White House spokesman Sean McCormick said U.S. policy is in fact to comply with the international treaty, which protects civilians during war and occupation.
"The Geneva Conventions are applicable to the conflict in Iraq," McCormick assured.
The CIA, the Justice Department and the author of the draft memo declined to comment for the article.
September 13, 2004
Latest Hersh Book Alleges Administration Knew of Detainee Abuses
The New York Times reports that in his latest book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins), author and investigative journalist Seymour Hersh asserts that senior White House officials failed to heed repeated warnings of detainee abuse at U.S.-run detention facilities in Iraq and Cuba.
Specifically, Hersh writes that a C.I.A. analyst who visited Guantanamo in 2002 filed a report documenting abuses, drawing the attention of a deputy to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. In a Chapter Excerpt posted to the publisher’s website, Hersh explains that upon receipt of the "devastating findings" Dr. Rice’s deputy, retired four-star General John A. Gordon
"…was deeply troubled and distressed by the analyst's report, and by its implications for the treatment, in retaliation, of captured American soldiers. Gordon, according to a former Administration official, told colleagues that he thought "it was totally out of character with the American value system," and "that if the actions at Guantánamo ever became public, it'd be damaging to the President." The issue was not only direct torture, but the Administration's obligations under federal law and under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, ratified by the United States in 1994, that barred torture as well as other "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The C.I.A. analyst's report, in Gordon's view, provided clear evidence of degrading treatment. Things in Cuba were getting out of control."
Yet as The Times article reports, Hersh’s book contends that once the matter was brought to the National Security Advisor's attention, and it was discussed with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, “no significant change resulted.”
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Dr. Rice denied Hersh’s allegations, averring
“In the fall of 2002, we were made aware that there were some concerns that people might have been held at Guantanamo who didn’t meet the definition of unlawful combatant. There were also early on some concerns about conditions of overcrowding. But nothing that suggested, to my recollection, that there were abuses, anything -- abuses going on at Guantanamo, and certainly nothing that would suggest the kind of thing that went on in Abu Ghraib. What we did when we learned that there might be people who were being held there who didn’t meet the standard is that we went back, we looked at the cases, we put together a process to try and make sure that the right people were being held. So we have worked hard on Guantanamo to improve conditions there, to make sure that the right people are being held. But no, I do not recall being told of anything concerning prisoner abuse.”
Hersh - who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of Vietnam’s My Lai massacre - authored a series of exposes for The New Yorker including “Torture at Abu Ghraib” , "Chain of Command" and “The Gray Zone,” describing in vivid detail the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. Military Police at Abu Ghraib. He accuses the Pentagon of implementing a “secret system” to seize and interrogate terrorist leaders. Such furtive system of detention and interrogation Hersh claims, paved the way for prisoner abuses.
In anticipation of Hersh's latest book - released today - the Defense Department issued a statement decrying the “numerous unsubstantiated allegations and inaccuracies which he has made in the past based upon unnamed sources.“ The Pentagon then added “If any of Mr. Hersh’s anonymous sources wish to come forward and offer evidence to the contrary, the department welcomes them to do so.”
July 27, 2004
NPR’s Jackie Northam on Widened Access At Guantanamo
In the past, visitors were allowed only restricted access to the buildings and people at Guantanamo - a point of contention for the International Committee of the Red Cross, legal and human rights advocates, and the international community at large. In light of the photos of sexual humiliation and abuse that surfaced over Abu Ghraib, and the Pentagon’s public relations nightmare that ensued, Guantanamo commander Brigadier General Jay Hood stated recently that widening the access to Guantanamo presented a means by which the stigma of sanctioned abuse could be confronted, submitting “It’s a challenge every day... the only way to overcome it is to invite people here and to have them look for themselves.” Reporting on her recent week-long visit to the military base, NPR’s Jackie Northam discusses how much has changed - and how much remains the same - in light of the prison abuse scandal, and heightened concerns that international human rights standards are being breached.
Northam spoke with chief of interrogations Steve Rodriquez who, with an “air of secrecy” about him, remarked that since the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib broke, his operation has been subjected to increased scrutiny. “In my opinion - and this is just my opinion only,” Rodriquez said, “there’s been a tremendous amount of negative publicity that’s gone about abuses - possible abuses - how we treat the detainees. And this is I believe a concerted effort to try to open up to the press and to the public to say this is what we’re doing, so don’t speculate about what we are doing - we want to show you what we are doing.”
Despite official assurances of “openness” at Guantanamo, the veil of secrecy has not completely been removed, as Northam reports access at the facility is still quite selective. Security remains tight, camp officials screen all photographs, audio and video taken at the base, and visitors are constantly in the company of a “minder.”
They are nevertheless allowed more access than before, as Northam and other reporters observed an interrogation in progress from a small, darkened room with 2-way mirrors that provided a view of the adjoining room. Despite the absence of audio, the scene in the other room between an older detainee and his much young interrogator appeared calm from Northam’s vantage point, referring to it as an "unexciting process.”
During the interrogation process, Rodriquez explained that interrogators employ standard, “pretty benign” elicitation techniques. Such approaches he avers, are psychological rather than physical or coercive. Interrogation is fundamental to the mission at Guantanamo, and while he admits there are times when a “tougher approach” is necessitated, Rodriquez won’t expound except to buttress the prison’s official position - that all prisoners are treated humanely.
July 26, 2004
New York Times & Washington Post: Army Report a “Whitewash”
Concluding that prison abuses were neither the result of systematic failures of policy, nor the fault of senior military leadership but rather, the result of “unauthorized actions taken by a few individuals,” the Army’s recently released summary of its investigation into detainee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan was discredited by two of the nation’s leading newspapers. As Voice of America points out, both The New York Times and The Washington Post published editorials this past Saturday summarily dismissing the Army's detainee probe as a “whitewash.”
The New York Times pulled no punches, claiming “Mr. Rumsfeld's team may be turning over stones, but it's not looking under them.”
The paper then took issue with the report’s calculated release, portraying it as “an exercise in misdirection, timed to be overshadowed by the 9-11 report.”
The Washington Post contended that the Army’s attempt to hold itself accountable for detainee abuse “is off to a terrible start,” deeming its findings "implausible and unacceptable."
The paper notes that in the midst of downplaying its findings, the report nevertheless contradicts itself, pointing out “commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan ordered ‘high-risk’ interrogation procedures to be used on prisoners without adequate safeguards, training or regard for the Geneva Conventions.”
The editorials concur that the only way to expose the source of the abuses is through formal Congressional inquiry, complete with subpoena power, as The Washington Post suggested the Pentagon “cannot be counted on to reliably or thoroughly investigate the prisoner abuse affair. An independent probe by an outside authority is desperately needed.”
July 20, 2004
Seymour Hersh ACLU Speech Alleges Abu Ghraib Abuse Videos Depict Sodomy
UPI reports that investigative journalist Seymour Hersh - who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of Vietnam’s My Lai massacre, and broke the story of the Abu Ghraib prison abuses - claims there are videotapes of young Iraqi boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison. UPI also reported — incorrectly — that Hersch claimed that these video depicted acts of sodomy performed by American soldiers: what Hersch did say, apparently, was the military had possession of these tapes and that they were part of the general pattern of abuse at the prison.
Speaking at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 2004 Membership Conference the reporter told the audience, “The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war.”
Hersh’s latest revelation follows his series of articles written for The New Yorker on detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib, whereby he accuses the Pentagon of implementing a “secret system” to seize and interrogate terrorist leaders. Such furtive system of detention and interrogation Hersh claims, paved the way for prisoner abuses.
Hersh takes issues with the administration’s characterization of the abuses as an anomaly - “disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values” - as well as their continued focus on seven military police as instigators of the abuse. As CNN reports, Hersh contends it simply was not probable for the responsibility to lay with the MPs, insisting “If you think a bunch of kids from rural West Virginia and Pennsylvania” took it upon themselves to treat detainees in such manner, to subject detainees to sexual humiliation as an instrument for blackmail “…absolutely not,” contending there is a whitewashing of criminal wrongdoing that ascends up the chain of command.
The Pentagon categorically denies Hersh’s latest allegations. “Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture,” Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said.
July 15, 2004
Dems Press Bush on Secret Prisoner Exchange
The Hill reports that 5 Senate Democrats headed by Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) asked President Bush in a letter yesterday to confirm or deny reports that the administration swapped five terrorism suspects detained at Guantanamo with Saudi Arabia in the months leading up to the 2003 U.S. led invasion of Iraq.
The New York Times broke the story of the exchange on July 4th. Unnamed sources cited by the times claimed the secret swap involved the U.S., Great Britain and Saudi Arabia. In an effort to garner support from key allies, The Times reported the U.S. exchanged five Saudi terror suspects for five Britons, a Belgian and a Canadian. The Saudi prisoners were repatriated to Riyadh in May 2003; three months later the Westerners were freed.
ABC News reports that the Saudis deny the swap. “We would never swap our nationals...but we use all possible means to bring them back from Guantanamo or any other prison,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a news conference aired on the Al-Ekhbaria news channel.
However, the AFP reports that Canadian newspapers claim to have evidence of the exchange.
If it is determined that the media reports are true, the democrats then seek
to understand why Saudi detainees were released, and who made such
authorization. Likewise, they want to know whether other prisoners had been
released from Guantanamo, and whether administration officials objected to
the terrorism suspects being freed.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has been asked to brief all
senators on the issue as soon as possible.
July 07, 2004
Two-Day Tour of Guantanamo for AP Journalists
According to an Associated Press article, AP journalists were afforded unprecedented, two-day access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Previously, the International Committee of the Red Cross had been the only independent group allowed to visit detainees.
Since it opened 2 ½ years ago, Guantanamo Bay has attracted much opprobrium
for the civil and physical mistreatment of its detainees, the latter
evidenced by early photographs of manacled captives - some blindfolded other
disoriented - kneeling in barbed-wire holding areas and restrictive
cellblocks. Such imagery, coupled with pictures that surfaced in April
depicting prison guard abuses at the Abu Ghraib facility prompted
allegations of widespread mistreatment at U.S. military detention
facilities. Guantanamo commander Brigadier General Jay Hood presented a
means by which the stigma of sanctioned abuse could be confronted,
submitting, “The photos that came out of Abu Ghraib were so terrible that I
think it causes people to stop and wonder.” Hood then offered, “It’s a
challenge every day... the only way to overcome it is to invite people here
and to have them look for themselves.”
As such, AP journalists were granted view of some 50 detainees, including
those in a new maximum-security prison. Journalists observed the daily
operations at the facility, from calls to prayer, to daily exercise and
games of chess, and were allowed a glimpse into the interrogation process.
Although witnessed through mirrored glass and without audio, no armed guards
the journalists reported, were present as the terror suspects received
questioning. The journalists’ observations appear in stark contrast to the
graphic and often inhumane representations previously circulated throughout
the world press. Nevertheless, prison officers retain tight restrictions on
pictures leaving the base and upon review of the AP’s photo portfolio, they
would not permit the publication of pictures they said might reveal
detainees’ identities.
June 10, 2004
CNN: Did John Yoo "Aid and Abet" War Crimes?
A June 7 CNN column by legal analyst Julie Hilden explores the question of whether UC Berkeley Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who co-authored the leaked 2002 memo that suggested President Bush would not be held responsible for acts of torture during the present conflict, actively encouraged the administration to commit what others might see as war crimes. Hilden writes:
"It's important to stress that under Yoo's approach, the class of those unprotected by the Geneva Conventions includes not only well-known leaders thought to have information about terrorist attacks, but also any person suspected of being an al Qaeda or Taliban member. Effectively, the logic of Yoo's memo strips all persons deemed to be possible terrorists of Geneva Convention protections (unless, as in Iraq, the president has specifically deemed the Conventions to apply).
Human rights attorneys have complained that Yoo's Geneva Conventions argument, with respect to al Qaeda and the Taliban, is not only wrong, but, in their view, specious -- a misreading of the law. They have also noted that Yoo's memo leaves out an important treaty that the U.S. has ratified: The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Granted, Yoo and his co-author did not specifically take up the issue of abuse and torture, and were very clear that their memo covered only legal, not policy issues. But they must have known the possibility of torture was a real one, and the memo lacked any stern caveats about legal or moral issues. And in the international law arena, the lines between law, policy, and ethics can be unclear -- suggesting an especially great need for caveats."
June 09, 2004
Washington Post Q and A on Torture Memos
A June 9 Washington Post online chat session featured Dana Priest, the Post reported who has been writing about reports of torture during interrogations since the beginning of 2002. An excerpt:
Question: Are these memos for real? Does the administration believe that the president can just wave a wand and laws that interfere with his conduct of "war" just become moot?
Dana Priest: Apparently the Office of Legal Counsel attorney Jay S. Bybee, now a judge, believes the president could make the case that the torture statutes are unconstitutional because they interfere, in certain circumstances (e.g. counterterrorism ops against al Qaeda), with his ability to wage war because it takes away one of his weapons (harsh interrogations) My question to Bybee would be, well, what about US-signed treaties on the use of nuclear or chemical weapons. Those do too. Are they, too, unconstitutional if the president decides he wants to use them? In that case, what good are weapons treaties?
June 05, 2004
E&P Criticizes Media Coverage of Soldier Injured at Gitmo
In a June 05 Editor and Publisher article, Greg Mitchell points out that virtually no U.S. news outlets have updated a May 25 report from the Associated Press in which Maj. Laurie Arellano of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, which oversees the detention center at Guantanomo, declared that Baker’s discharge last month was completely unrelated to the head injury sustained during the exercise, in which he portrayed an uncooperative prisoner.
The exception has been a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof, in which Kristof revealed that the Physical Evaluation Board of the Army stated in a document dated Sept. 29, 2003: “The TBI [traumatic brain injury] was due to soldier playing role of detainee who was non-cooperative and was being extracted from detention cell in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, during a training exercise.”
According to Kristof, Maj. Arellano now acknowledges that she misstated the facts and claims she had been misinformed by medical personnel. Still, she continues to call the abuse an “accident.”
May 10, 2004
Seymour Hersch On Abu Ghraib
The first two media venues for the now-ubiquitous photographs of torture victims at Abu Ghraib were the news program Sixty Minutes and a Seymour Hersch article in the May 1 online issue of the New Yorker. Hersch has followed this piece with a second titled Chain of Command in The New Yorker which details who should have been in the know about what happened in the prison. An excellent diagram of this command structure is at the diagramming blog site uggabugga (Thanks to Cursor for this information).
May 02, 2004
Major Washington Post Article on Gitmo
Today's Washington Post has a long, detailed investigative piece on Guantanamo, based on three month's worth of research by a pool of reporters. The article traces in detail the history of the choice to situate prisoners in Guantanamo: according to Post reporters, the detention center resulted from "a cascading series of decisions, made on the fly in the face of tremendous pressure."
Overall, the Post article is a valuable addition to the Guantanamo story, with one caveat — it seems markedly skittish about the possible mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. The reporters suggest that, at least at present, interrogators seem to be practicing the "good cop" approach, and they identify various accusations of abuse as unsubstantiated. As evidence of how good it gets down in Gitmo, they repeat the by-now famous tale of the young detainees from Camp Iguana who allegedly became enamored of their American captors. Any mention of these Iguana boys should be framed by a discussion of the way in which their situation was exceptional, not exemplary: using them as an example of fair treatment of detainees is a troubling indicator that the Post reporters were searching for a way to write a "neutral" story about the treatment of prisoners in the wake of recent events in Iraq.
April 06, 2004
Guantanamojo
An essay by Tom Englehardt in the April 6 edition of Mother Jones, Guantanamojo, comments on the links between Guantanamo and other "outsourced" detention centers springing up around the globe. In the essay, Englehardt links and comments on several articles written in the Post and New York times over the past few years, including a recent Times article by Neil A. Lewis headlined "Guantanamo Detainees Deliver Intelligence Gains."
Concerning the Times article, Englehardt writes:
The "sources" of this definitive headline turn out to be unnamed "military officials" from an "arranged tour" of the prison complex and two named figures: Maj. Gen. Miller (you remember him) and Steve Rodriguez, "a veteran intelligence officer who oversees the interrogation teams." Of course, they deny all the lurid charges of mistreatment from released prisoners that recently appeared in the British press and claim that, even after up to two years of incarceration and isolation, prisoners at Guantanamo continue to provide "a stream of intelligence." On the face of it, this is an absurd claim and nothing in the piece justifies the headline. Though the piece itself has various caveats ("There is no way so far to verify the situation of the detainees as described by the American officials, nor the charges of mistreatment."), I think the headline alone might put it among my nominees for this year's Judith Miller Single-Sourced Government Informant Award in the Journalism Hall of Shame.
Common sense would call on any reasonable person to question, rather than highlight, the claim that (even if the Guantanamo detainees are exactly who the Americans claim they are) a population of al Qaeda and Taliban foot soldiers held in utter isolation for long periods would be offering a "stream" of useful intelligence at this point or even, for that matter, reliable information.
In the conclusion of his article, Englehardt notes:
Terror is, of course, all too real. Ask the inhabitants of Madrid or Istanbul. Ask us New Yorkers. But its enemy is the light, not the shadows. Its perpetrators of horrors should be brought to trial in the bright light of day according to legal systems we have pride in. They should be brought to account publicly for acts of horror in a place where they can be seen, not tortured privately until they fess up truth, or lies, for a chosen few.