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Issue # 1399  18 February 2009
Documents reveal prisoners tortured to death
Stephen C Webster
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has released
previously classified excerpts of a government report on harsh interrogation
techniques used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These previously
unreported pages detail repeated use of “abusive” behaviour, even to the
point of prisoner deaths.
The documents, obtained by the ACLU under a Freedom of Information
(FOI) Act request, contain a report by Vice Admiral Albert T Church, who
was ordered to conduct a comprehensive review of Defence Department interrogation
operations. Church specifically calls interrogations at Bagram Air base
in Afghanistan as “clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any
approved interrogation policy or guidance.”
The ACLU’s release comes on the same day as a major FOI
document dump by three other leading human rights groups: documents which
reveal the Pentagon ran secret prisons in Bagram and Iraq, that it cooperated
with the CIA’s “ghost detention” program and that Defence personnel delayed
a prisoner’s release to avoid bad press.
“In both cases, for example, [prisoners] were handcuffed
to fixed objects above their heads in order to keep them awake,” reads the
document. “Additionally, interrogations in both incidents involved the use
of physical violence, including kicking, beating, and the use of ‘compliance
blows’ which involved striking the [prisoners] legs with the [interrogators]
knees. In both cases, blunt force trauma to the legs was implicated in the
deaths. In one case, a pulmonary embolism developed as a consequence of
the blunt force trauma, and in the other case pre-existing coronary artery
disease was complicated by the blunt force trauma.”
In a press release, the ACLU summarised the documents as
detailing, “[An] investigation of two deaths at Bagram. Both detainees were
determined to have been killed by pulmonary embolism caused as a result
of standing chained in place, sleep depravation and dozens of beatings by
guards and possibly interrogators. (Also reveals the use of torture at Guantánamo
and American-Afghani prisons in Kabul).
“[An] investigation into the homicide or involuntary manslaughter
of detainee Dilar Dababa by US forces in 2003 in Iraq.
“[An] investigation launched after allegations that an Iraqi
prisoner was subjected to torture and abuse at ‘The Disco’ (located in the
Special Operations Force Compound in Mosul Airfield, Mosul, Iraq).
“The abuse consisted of filling his jumpsuit with ice, then
hosing him down and making him stand for long periods of time, sometimes
in front of an air conditioner; forcing him to lay down and drink water
until he gagged, vomited or choked, having his head banged against a hot
steel plate while hooded and interrogated; being forced to do leg lifts
with bags of ice placed on his ankles, and being kicked when he could not
do more.
“[An] investigation of allegations of torture and abuse
that took place in 2003 at Abu Ghraib.
“[And an] investigation that established probable cause
to believe that US forces committed homicide in 2003 when they participated
in the binding of detainee Abed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag during an interrogation,
causing him to die of asphyxiation.”
“A large portion of the torture, maiming, and murder of
detainees occurred under authority issued under secret rules of engagement
in the Pentagon,” wrote Scott Horton, a contributing editor with Harper’s
magazine. “Much of this flowed through Undersecretary of Defence
for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, a figure who has so far evaded scrutiny
in the torture scandal and now serves as vice president for strategy of
QinetiQ North America, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based defence
contractor QinetiQ.
“Even the Senate Armed Services Committee review fails to
get to the bottom of Dr Cambone, his interrogations ROEs for special operations
units he controlled, and the death, disfigurement and torture of prisoners
they handled. This is one of many reasons why a comprehensive investigation
with subpoena power is urgently needed. But full airing of the internal
investigations already conducted by the Department of Defence is an essential
next step.”
Information Clearing House
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