Homegrown Torture Editorial

Homegrown Torture BY JASON LAURITZEN

In November 2005, President Bush said, “We do not torture.” However, a large volume of reporting shows that the United States does torture people and has been sloppy in covering the trail.

The Start of the Trail A man is dragged from his home, a black hood is thrown over his head—he is not told what he has done wrong or where he is going—he only knows that he is in trouble. He is thrown in a cell. Guards come in and interrogate him constantly, using verbal and psychological abuse, sexual humiliation and threaten him with violence. The black hood and tactics may remind some of reporting on Abu Ghraib prison in late 2004, but this story comes from another Middle Eastern country which associates itself with democracy—Israel. Before Abu Ghraib, before Guantanamo, the Israeli government had its own “off the map” secret prison: Facility 1391. “Off the map” is an appropriate term. According to London’s The Guardian, the facility has been removed from modern maps and airbrushed from satellite photos. The facility serves a disturbing purpose: “Our main conclusion is that it exists to make torture possible—a particular kind of torture that creates progressive states of dread, dependency, debility,” said Manal Hazzan, a human rights lawyer who helped expose the prison’s existence. The Guardian article reveals that prisoners at the facility are stripped before interrogation, blindfolded and handcuffed and threatened with rape. The coercive tactics do not stop there. “They kept me there in a solitary cell for about 67 days … They did not let me sleep more than two hours a day. When I started to get drowsy, they woke me up by making noise or by throwing water on me. As a result of the torture, they were able to get me to admit to all kinds of offences,” said one former prisoner. The U.S. government—instead of reprimanding Israel for these abuses—sought to learn from the Israelis. Israel has experimented for decades with ways of suppressing the Palestinian uprising. The Israelis came up with a patented system for interrogation known to insiders as “R2I,” which stands for resistance to interrogation. According to Lebanon’s The Daily Star, this includes such methods as “hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation and depriving prisoners not only of dignity, but of fundamental human needs, such as warmth, water and food.”

The First Steps and the First Excuse: National Security Sept. 11 provided the U.S. Department of Justice with pretexts for arresting Muslim men:

National Security and the Material Witness Law. The national security claim freed agents from informing suspects of the reason for their arrest, while the Material Witness Law, which was passed in 1984 to secure testimony of witnesses who might flee before a criminal proceeding, allowed the government to detain suspects indefinitely. According to Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, the Justice Department held 70 men for indefinite periods of time on “baseless accusations of terrorists links.” Many of the suspects were not informed of the reason for their arrest, presented with evidence used against them or allowed to see a lawyer. Any proceedings related to the suspects were conducted behind closed doors. Human Rights Watch described the tactics: “Witnesses were typically arrested at gunpoint, held around the clock in solitary confinement, and subjected to the harsh and degrading high-security conditions usually reserved for prisoners accused or convicted of the most dangerous crimes. Corrections staff verbally harassed the detainees and, in some cases, physically abused them.”

Descending Down the Slippery Slope While Muslim men were being detained on baseless accusations of being linked to Sept. 11 suspects, an actual suspect of Sept. 11—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—was being treated in a more extreme manner. Cofer Black, former head of the CIA’s counter-intelligence center summarized the change in law in regards to terrorism suspects: “There was before 9/11 and there is after 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves came off.” “The gloves came off” and the CIA threw regard for the law to wind. As they started interrogating al Qaeda suspects such as Mohammed, they showed little concern for what they said were “namby pamby sensitivities of do-gooders who know nothing of America's suffering at the hands of al-Qa'eda.” One CIA official gave an opinion on the interrogation of prisoners: “Let's just say we are not averse to a little smacky face. After all, if you don't violate a prisoner's human rights some of the time then you aren't doing your job.” While Mohammed was suspected to “stress and duress” interrogation techniques—which the CIA said included tactics such as sleep deprivation—threats were expanding beyond Mohammed to his family. Mohammed’s two young sons were held by the CIA and dangled in front of the captive as a bargaining chip. "His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him," said a CIA official.

A former CIA official, acknowledged that CIA knew it was on—at best—shaky legal ground: “We do what we do with our eyes open. I don’t think the Bush administration is going to be wasting much time investigating this.” The official was right: The Bush administration would not investigate the matter, but would instead find ways of stretching U.S. and international law so it could apply brutal methods of interrogation.

Bending the Law: It’s All About Classification In January 2002 memos starting floating around the upper chains of command at the White House and Department of Defense. The central topic was abominable: How to strip potential terrorism suspects of the rights. One of the first circulated memos—written by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee—stated that the Geneva Conventions should not be applied to prisoners from the Afghanistan conflict because Afghanistan was a “failed state.” On February 1, 2002, former Attorney General John Ashcroft summarized the position of the Justice Department and said the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners. The memo specifically warns that U.S. officials will be subject to “substantial and ongoing legal challenges” and that the best way to avoid these “legal challenges” was to not entitle prisoners to the rights afforded by the Geneva Conventions. On December 2, 2002, the Defense Department started to weigh in on the topic and a handful of interrogation tactics were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld approved the following tactics for use during interrogation: Allowing an interrogator to falsely identify himself as an interrogator from a country “with a reputation for harsh treatment”; The use of falsified documents; Deprivation of light; The removal of all religious items; Removal of clothing; “The use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences are imminent for him and/or his family”; and the “Use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation.” Rumsfeld rescinded the tactics a month later, but added a caveat: “Should you determine that particular techniques in either of these categories are warranted in an individual case, you should forward that request to me.”

The Proving Grounds: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Amnesty International called it a “legal black hole” and there is no more fitting description. Guantanamo was purposely setup as a proving ground or testing area for the U.S. government to experiment with harsh interrogation methods as well as torture that was eventually used in Iraq. Martin Mubanga spent 33 months in Guantanamo and attested to the horrible conditions and

methods of torture used by the U.S. government. He spoke to London’s The Observer in 2005. Mubanga described how one interrogator refused to let him go to the bathroom. After trying to hold it, but failing, Mubanga relieved himself in the corner of his cell. The interrogator looked on this situation as an opportunity. “He comes back with a mop and dips it in the pool of urine. Then he starts covering me with my own waste, like he's using a big paintbrush, working methodically, beginning with my feet and ankles and working his way up my legs. All the while he's racially abusing me, cussing me … He seemed to think it was funny,” said Mubanga. A 24-year-old detainee said an American interrogator “threatened me with a gun to my mouth, to try to make me say something,” according to the Associated Press. Authorities claimed his interrogation to be a success. They thought they obtained information on a militant group in Afghanistan, but the 24-year-old detainee said he gave them the information because he was under torture. The most notorious element at Guantanamo may not be the interrogators who abuse and torture detainees, but the IRF or Internal Reaction Force. Special Sean Baker, a 38-year-old military policeman at Guantanamo, was recruited for an internal drill to pose as a captive. He wore an orange jumpsuit and posed as an unruly prisoner. The IRF came to deal with Baker. The five-man team choked him, slammed his head against the concrete floor and sprayed him with pepper gas, according to officials from the Pentagon. The news began to filter out about the beatings and harsh interrogation methods, as well as the indefinite imprisonment of suspects. The U.S. government set up two methods to quell critics: staged interrogations and military commissions or tribunals. The Weekend Australian reported on a former US Army translator who said that authorities at Guantanamo “staged interrogations of detainees for visiting politicians and generals to give the impression that valuable intelligence was regularly being gathered.” The translator, Sergeant Erik Saar, said that it was “fictitious world” created for visitors and that of the 600 detainees at the camp “only a few dozen” were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them. Military commissions setup to try suspects were ineffective. According to leaked e-mails, the commissions were “rigged, fraudulent and based on ‘half-assed’ evidence.” One of the prosecutors, Captain John Carr, said, “I find a half-hearted and disorganized effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged." Carr also accused the panel sitting on cases to be “handpicked” to ensure convictions.

Iraq: The Tactics Get Pushed Further Weeks ago new photos from Abu Ghraib prison emerged. According to the Associated Press, the photos include images of naked prisoners—some with bloodied bodies. Several images showed dead bodies, wounded prisoners and prisoners performing forced sex acts. The photos are reminiscent of photos released in 2004 on the news program 60 Minutes. Tony Lagouranis, a U.S. Army interrogator stationed at Abu Ghraib, told the Public Broadcasting Service’s news program Frontline about the torture he saw at the prison between 2004 and 2005. He said hypothermia was a widespread technique. Other techniques included beatings, burnings and a discotheque, which was a room with strobe lights and loud music meant to disorient the prisoner Lagouranis was shocked when he arrived at Abu Ghraib and was briefed by an Army psychiatrist who provided inaccurate information based on false stereotypes. The psychiatrist said, “Arabs, it’s part of their culture to lie. They just lie all the time and don't even know that they're doing it.” Interrogations got out of hand and Lagouranis said, “We weren't concerned with intel anymore; we just wanted confessions from people.” At least two prisoners died because interrogation sessions went too far. Manadel al-Jamadi died after 90 minutes of interrogation by CIA officials due to “blunt force injuries” and “asphyxiation” according to Time magazine. Blood from the body was mopped up with a chlorine solution and a bloodied bag that had covered al-Jamadi’s head disappeared. Asad Abdul Kareem Abdul Jaleel was also tortured to death. According to German Spiegel TV, a pathologist wrote that Jaleel died in his sleep, but photographs of Jaleel’s body show that he was severely beaten. Spiegel TV found the majority of bodies the Forensic Pathology Institute in Baghdad received were victims of torture. Iraqi pathologists were forbidden to investigate the cause of death if there was an American death certificate—even if the information regarding the cause of death was “obviously false.” Outside of Abu Ghraib, near Fallujah, similar harsh interrogation practices were being pushed as well. Three soldiers testified to Human Rights Watch that prisoners were tortured as a “form of stress relief” and “as a way of breaking them for interrogation sessions.” Two terms were used to torture and forced physical exertion: “Fucking a PUC” and “smoking a PUC.” “To ‘fuck a PUC’ means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and

stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To ‘smoke’ someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day,” a sergeant told Scotland’s Sunday Herald.

Plausible Deniability: Outsourcing Accountability is a necessity when 44 people may have died in US custody overseas, according to an analysis of Defense Department Data by the American Civil Liberties Union. However, the government’s solution was not to stop torture, but outsource the work to other countries. The CIA began exporting terrorism suspects to other countries, so they could be tortured in countries known for brutal interrogation methods. “When the C.I.A. is given a task, it's usually because national policy makers don't want 'U.S. government' written all over it," said Jim Glerum, a retired C.I.A. officer. The CIA employed civilian planes instead of military aircraft because it allowed the agency to “circumvent reporting requirements most countries impose on flights operated by other governments,” reported the New York Times. The outsourcing of interrogation did not stop with the CIA’s secret flights. In November 2005, the Washington Post reported that CIA was holding terrorism suspects at “black sites” or covert prisons in at least eight countries that include Thailand, Afghanistan and several eastern European countries. Top republican leaders called for an immediate investigation into the matter. However, leaders did not want to know where these prisons were and what the conditions were like—they wanted to know who leaked the information to the press.

An Ineffective Method No matter how it’s classified to circumvent the law; No matter how many times and to how many places it is exported and outsourced—there is a bottom line: Torture does not work. "There's a huge body of literature showing not only that torture doesn't work, but that it's counterproductive," said U.S. doctor Steve Miles, the author of a study on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. According to Miles, the intelligence system is overloaded with data. Torture induces suspects to give out false information to make the torture stop, which floods “the analytic system with bad data.” In an article reported on by Agence France-Presse, retired US brigadier general David Irvine, a former military interrogation professor, echoed Miles’ comments. “No one has yet offered any validated evidence that torture produces reliable intelligence. While

torture apologists frequently make the claim that torture saves lives, that assertion is directly contradicted by many Army, FBI, and CIA professionals who have actually interrogated AlQaeda captives,” said Irvine. President Bush recently signed a bill introduced by Sen. John McCain to outlaw torture of detainees, but the president issued a signing statement, which means that the president can interpret the law how he pleases “in the context of his broader powers to protect national security.” A clear time line of harsh interrogation, abuse, torture and legal sidestepping is apparent in the U.S. government. All this is done under the guise of national security—protecting the American people. However, it has the opposite effect and floods the intelligence system with false data, breeds hatred for the United States and above all, undermines fundamental rights entitled to all under the Geneva Conventions.