A series of U.S. government documents obtained by the ACLU through Freedom of Information Act inquiries reveal the extent to which the U.S. systematically used torture and other illegal forms of prisoner abuse and mistreatment during interrogations and detentions like the abuses revealed last spring at the Abu Ghraib prison facility near Baghdad, Iraq.
Many of the documents, posted to the ACLU’s website (ACLU.org), detail information about beatings, shootings, hooding, threats, humiliation, extensive isolation (months at a time), physical intimidation, deprivation and other forms of mistreatment that appear to violate international conventions and treaties regarding torture and prisoner mistreatment.
ACLU Releases FOIA Documents
On June 2, 2004, the ACLU and its allies filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act demanding the release of information about detainees held by the United States at military bases and other detention facilities overseas. The lawsuit relates to a Freedom of Information Act request that was filed in October 2003 – almost eight months ago – with the Defense Department and other government agencies. The request seeks records concerning the treatment and interrogation of detainees in United States custody, the deaths of detainees in United States custody, and the “rendition” of detainees to countries known to use torture.
The documents describe incidents and events that took place in Sarpooza prison, Bagram Air Field, and U.S. detention facilities in Kandahar – all in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003. Prison facilities in Uzbekistan, the detention camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other sites in Iraq are also discussed. The events described take place as early as spring 2002 and go through much of 2004.
Of special concern to the ACLU and to some U.S. politicians is that Pentagon officials suppressed internal reports of this widespread abuse and mistreatment.
Reuters reports recently that one Defense Intelligence Agency official wrote that intelligence officers were threatened not to go public with information about these abuses. Apparently, after the Abu Ghraib scandal became public, Pentagon officials tried to keep a lid on how widespread torture and mistreatment has been.
Some speculate that the Pentagon’s internal clean up operation coincided with the Bush administration’s portrayal of the Abu Ghraib scandal as the work of "a few bad apples."
In his testimony before a U.S. Senate committee in May 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed to be surprised by the Abu Ghraib torture incidents and insisted, following Mr. Bush’s own statement, that the revelations only reflected the actions of a few. In this sworn statement that appears to be contradicted by new revelations, Rumsfeld said, "I wish we had known more sooner and been able to tell you more sooner, but we didn’t."
The publication of these documents by the ACLU comes just days after a video made by US Navy SEALS shows they were engaged in similar activities as those documented at the Abu Ghraib prison. Beatings, sexual humiliation, deprivation and more appear to be what the SEALS were involved with.
US okays evidence gained through torture
Last week US military panels reviewing the detention of
prisoners at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay were given the
green light to use evidence gained by torture to keep them
imprisoned.
The announcement was made by Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle during a hearing of a US District Court into lawsuits brought by 550 prisoners who have been held without charge on Guantanamo for up to three years. Answering allegations that some foreigners were being held solely on the basis of evidence obtained under torture, Boyle argued that the detainees "have no constitutional rights enforceable in this court."
Boyle also insisted that there is nothing in the US Constitution
to prevent the military's Combatant Status Review Tribunals
(CSRTs) from relying on evidence of "questionable provenance" if
those in authority were to deem it reliable.
After Rumsfeld testified last May, internationally respected human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, all made public the fact that they had repeatedly warned the U.S. government and military throughout 2003 – just months before the Abu Ghraib photos were publicized – about torture and abuse at numerous prisons and detention facilities operated by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba.
The documents released by the ACLU provoked a sharp rebuke from Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). Bingaman stated that revelations of torture and prisoner abuse were bad enough, but suppression of how widespread it has been deserved further investigation. Because "subsequent reports of abuse appear to have been suppressed," Bingaman noted, an immediate public investigation needs to be undertaken.
The ACLU’s work to bring these human rights abuses to light reveal the systematic nature of torture and abuse and its status as policy.
Knowledge of this intelligence policy goes as far up the chain of command as the White House, even the Oval Office. While Rumsfeld took responsibility for the Abu Ghraib scandal, he rejected direct knowledge of or any claim that torture was the Pentagon’s policy.
However, the Gonzales memo, a document conjured up by then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, now tapped for Attorney General, reveals the extent to which the administration, including the president, designed a policy of interrogation that discarded international conventions about torture and definitions of illegal mistreatment.
Gonzales prepared a legal brief that attempted to redefine torture so as to provide a legal footing for using the types of interrogation methods undertaken at Abu Ghraib and described in the ACLU documents without legal repercussions. Many of the reported incidents of torture and mistreatment took place during the period the memo was being written.
Gonzales also argued for extending immunity and protection to intelligence officials accused by other governments or the international community of war crimes or human rights abuses.
While Bush denied knowledge of the contents of the Gonzales memo, his long-term closeness to Gonzales and recent appointment to head the Justice Department indicate his tacit support for the ideology and rationale that fueled the memo’s arguments.
The Bush administration’s attempt to sideline the international agreements and conventions, to which the U.S. is a party, that govern the treatment of prisoners and detainees, comes amidst a growing conflict between the administration and the United Nations, which oversees enforcement of these conventions.
Administration attacks, according some observers, on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan over his perceived role in the oil-for-food program with Iraq beginning in the late 1990s is part of a tactic of turning the spotlight away from international criticisms of U.S. torture policy.
Of specific perhaps to the U.S. administration is a UN report on written by a member of the UN Commission on Human Rights and presented by the secretary general’s office to the General Assembly on September 1, 2004.
This report, among other things, challenged and denounced almost point by point the arguments of the Gonzales memo. Of note, the report states:
…[L]egal arguments of necessity and self-defense, invoking domestic law, have recently been put forward, aimed at providing a justification to exempt officials suspected of having committed or instigated acts of torture against suspected terrorists from criminal liability….[The author of the UN report] would like to reiterate that the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment means that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of emergency or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.
The report continues that even condoning torture is a violation of the prohibition on torture. It condemns the use of indirect methods such as allowing interrogations of suspects to take place in countries that haven’t agreed to anti-torture conventions and use such methods. The report also urged heads of state to publicly order those under their authority to not use these methods for any reason.
Meanwhile the Bush administration continues to reject reports of widespread or systematic torture, abuse or mistreatment. It further seems eager to focus international attention elsewhere.
While human rights organizations have painted abuses carried on in U.S.-operated prisons and detention facilities as criminal and the UN highlights their illegality, many human rights advocates in the U.S. and abroad wonder if justice will be served on the authors of and the leaders who implemented this policy of torture.
--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
