| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 9:25 am Post subject: Revealed: Britain's role in Guantanamo abduction |
| http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1407040,00.html
Revealed: Britain's role in Guantanamo abduction
Freed detainee tells of horrors in US terror camp
David Rose
Sunday February 6, 2005
The Observer
British intelligence officials played a crucial part in the secret abduction of UK citizen Martin Mubanga to Guantanamo Bay. There, he reveals today in an exclusive interview, he endured 33 months of ill-treatment and often abusive interrogation.
Documents seen by The Observer disclose that even the Pentagon's own lawyers now accept that the intelligence that consigned him to Guantanamo may have been deeply flawed. Mubanga, who was released without charge after his return to Britain on 25 January, now plans to sue the British government.
In his interview today, the first by any of the four Britons who returned from Guantanamo last month, Mubanga, 32, describes a horrifying catalogue of abuse:
· In one interrogation session, he was forced to urinate in the corner of the interview room while chained hand and foot.
· He was treated to a regime known as 'BI [basic item] loss'. This meant his thin mattress, trousers, shirts, towel, blankets, and flipflops were all taken away, leaving him naked except for boxer shorts in an empty metal box.
· Last autumn, while Pentagon lawyers were writing memos suggesting that Mubanga may not have had any involvement in terrorism at all and may not have been given a fair hearing, the Guantanamo authorities subjected him to the harshest treatment in his 33 months in Guantanamo, with three brutal assaults by the 'Instant Reaction Force' riot squad for trivial violations of the camp rules.
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· Mubanga's worst moment came last March, when the first five British detainees were sent home. He had at first been told he would be joining them, but was instead confined in a block with prisoners he could not communicate with, and told he would be held there for many more years.
The disclosure that British intelligence was instrumental in consigning Mubanga to Guantanamo raises serious questions about the consistency of British policy towards the controversial US camp. In public, ministers, led by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, negotiated for months with the Pentagon for the release of British detainees.
Mubanga's solicitor, Louise Christian, said yesterday that she planned to take legal action against the government. His arrest, detention and transfer had clearly breached British, Zambian and international law, she said. 'We are hoping to issue proceedings for the misfeasance of officials who colluded with the Americans in effectively kidnapping him and taking him to Guantanamo.'
Mubanga, a former motorcycle courier, says he went to Afghanistan at the end of 2001 to study Islam. He was never, he insists, a sympathiser with al-Qaeda, and he condemned the 9/11 attacks. 'I do not approve of the killing of innocent men, women and children,' he said.
He says he fled to Pakistan after the beginning of the war against the Taliban, but says that someone stole his passport. A dual British-Zambian national, he phoned his family from Karachi and asked them to post him his Zambian passport. He says he used this in February 2002 to go to Zambia, where he was joined by his sister and stayed with other relatives.
However, on 2 March the Sunday Times claimed Mubanga had been arrested in Afghanistan, fighting with the Taliban - presumably this referred to the man who stole or was handed his passport. Soon afterwards, he was seized by Zambian security men.
He was held in a series of guarded motels, where he was interrogated for days by a female American official and a Briton who called himself Martin and said he worked for MI6. 'Martin' produced Mubanga's British passport, together with a list of Jewish organisations in New York and a military training manual that he claimed Mubanga had handwritten. They had been found with the passport in a cave in Afghanistan, he said. Mubanga pointed out that his handwriting was nothing like that in the manual, and said he had never seen the documents before, or been to any caves.
A few days later, Mubanga was loaded on to a plane by men in balaclavas and flown to Guantanamo. For more than two years, the claims made by the MI6 man - that he had been on a mission to reconnoitre targets in New York and had travelled to Zambia on false documents - were the main grounds for his detention.
Last October, this was confirmed by a Guantanamo Combatant Status Review Tribunal, a panel of military officers. Later, however, this decision was reviewed by a US military lawyer, who found it deeply flawed. His report shows that Mubanga had asked to call members of his family in his defence, saying they prove that he had not travelled to Zambia on false documents for a terrorist mission, but to visit relatives on his own passport.
Last night a Foreign Office spokesman said he could not comment on the activities of British intelligence or security agencies. He said Mubanga's 'transfer to Guantanamo Bay is a matter for the Zambian and American authorities'.
Special reports
Guantánamo Bay
Al-Qaida
United States
Full text
Detention in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay: statement by Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed (pdf)
Read the letter from Moazzam Begg (pdf)
Useful links
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
Centre for Constitutional Rights
Office of Military Commissions | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 7:14 am Post subject: Abu Ghraib Translator Unschooled in Geneva Conventions |
| http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/sg042105-iraq.htm
Abu Ghraib Translator Unschooled in Geneva Conventions
By Leon Worden
Signal Multimedia Editor
Thursday, April 21, 2005
*MEDIA—MANDATORY CREDIT: The Signal newspaper of Santa Clarita, Calif.
M
ore than a year after he gave it, John B. Israel's sworn testimony in the initial Army investigation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has found its way into the public domain.
Testimony of the Canyon Country copier and printer technician-turned-Army intelligence translator, still considered classified, paints a picture of a man who received little training in military procedures before being pushed into service, and minded his own business to the extent that he was oblivious to the abuses that were going on around him.
During the questioning, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba gives Israel no indication that he thinks Israel is lying.
In fact, at the conclusion of the Feb. 12, 2004, interview, Taguba tells Israel reassuringly, "For now, sir, you are not being suspected of anything. We just want to gain your knowledge of conditions and information associated with Abu Ghraib."
However, in his final report less than a month later, Taguba said he "suspected" that Israel, along with the interrogator with whom Israel worked most closely and the two senior Army intelligence officers at the prison, "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib."
Taguba recommended "immediate disciplinary action" and a second inquiry "to determine the full extent of their culpability."
While several military police officers were court-martialed for offenses at Abu Ghraib, no intelligence officer has been court-martialed, and no charges are known to have been brought against Israel or any other private military contractor.
The second investigation was conducted, but all names were omitted from reports released to the public.
q q q
Israel told Taguba he had no prior experience as a military translator before going to work at the notorious prison.
Born in Baghdad in 1955, Israel told Taguba he entered the United States in 1981 and attained U.S. citizenship.
He told Taguba he worked as a senior field technician for Ikon Office Solutions, a document management service with several Los Angeles-area offices, for 12 years before going to work for a subcontractor to San Diego-based Titan Corp., the Army's main provider of civilian linguists in Iraq.
Israel arrived at Abu Ghraib on Oct. 14, 2003 — about two weeks before MPs took the widely publicized pictures of stripped and hooded inmates. He was still working as a translator in February 2004 when Taguba interviewed him; neighbors have said he was back home in Canyon Country by the first week of April 2004.
Taguba asked whether Israel had been told upon arrival in Iraq that the Geneva Conventions applied at Abu Ghraib. Israel said yes.
"I believe they gave us some paper to read, and we had to sign it at the time," Israel said. "To be honest with you, Geneva Convention, I might have read it. I might have signed it, but I don't recall too much."
Taguba asked if he knew what the Geneva Convention is.
"You know, how to — if somebody has a prisoner of the war, you have to treat them nicely, because it's a mutual situation," Israel said.
Taguba asked again about the Geneva Conventions at the end of the interview.
"They might have mentioned it, but I don't recall it," Israel said. "They may not have mentioned it because it didn't register in my mind. They might, but you know, the situation is so stressful. I might forgot (sic) about it. I apologize for that."
Israel told Taguba his "job is just a translator, no more, no less," and that he took his directions from the interrogator.
(Each interrogation team, known as a Tiger Team, consisted of an interrogator, a translator and an analyst who interpreted the intelligence information gained from the prisoners. Any or all of the personnel could be military or civilian.)
At the time of his testimony, Israel had been working closely with Steven A. Stefanowicz, a civilian interrogator sent to Abu Ghraib by CACI International Inc., a private military firm in Arlington, Va.
Israel told Taguba that he and Stefanowicz were currently working on "a special project."
"I have to be quiet," Israel said. "Even, I can't tell you anything unless if you want to go ahead and ask, that's up to you."
Taguba didn't.
However, after Taguba discovered that Israel had no security clearance — contrary to Army policy — he took the military intelligence commander, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, to task.
TAGUBA: "Did you also know ... that one of your translators does not even have a security clearance, that he is performing duties of collection and gathering and interpretation of sensitive information?"
PAPPAS: "No, sir. When the interpreters came to us from a Titan contract ... my understanding is that when we received those interpreters, they came with a secret clearance."
TAGUBA: "Well, I advise you now that you're not longer the (Abu Ghraib) commander, that at least one of them is still pending a security clearance. And I will advise you that that one particular individual is working on a special project of a highly sensitive nature whereby he's collecting intelligence information to which he may not have access to. ... You may be violating another set of circumstances called the protection of security information."
* * *
There are discrepancies between Israel and Stefanowicz's depositions, taken only an hour apart by Taguba. For instance, Stefanowicz — who arrived at Abu Ghraib a week before Israel — said interrogations were sometimes conducted in prisoners' cells. Israel said they weren't; the cells were too small.
Stefanowicz said the interpreter was always placed closest to the door during an interrogation for the interpreter's own protection; Israel said he could have been sitting or standing anywhere.
While Stefanowicz said he was disturbed by something he heard while an interrogation suspect was being transported by MPs — the prisoner made a sound as if he'd been punched — Israel told Taguba he had no information and heard no rumors about prisoner abuses.
When interrogators and analysts or MPs talk together, Israel said, "A lot of times I walk behind them. ... I don't want to interfere. Because once my job is done, I'm so tired. ... And sometimes, you know, it's a peace of mind for me to keep quiet, just walk to my place."
Taguba asked whether he'd noticed "anything peculiar like detainees without their clothes on."
"That I didn't see," Israel said. "I hate to see people naked. Until now, I don't take a shower as a naked person. I have to go by myself."
Taguba didn't like the fact that the civilian contractors often didn't use their real names and that military and civilian personnel were frequently indistinguishable by their clothing.
"Because of security reasons, I don't want anybody to know my name down there (in the cellblock)," Stefanowicz told Taguba. "It's a common practice to use a pseudo name (sic), if you need to, especially in that environment."
Taguba said he would recommend that interrogators and interpreters be required to identify themselves correctly to MPs because "those MPs," he told Stefanowicz, "in the performance of their duties, do not know who you are. They commonly refer to you as an MI (instead of civilian) interrogator. They think Mr. Israel, for that matter, is an interrogator, when in fact, he is not. He is part of the investigation team."
"Mr. Stefanowicz," Taguba scolded, "especially in the context of your understanding of the Geneva Convention" — he said he received no specific instruction in it — "you could be held liable for anything as an employee of the United States government. Protection, obviously, is OK, but ... my recommendation would be that it be made a common practice to govern and protect the interest of the United States government inasmuch as we protect the interest of the detainee."
* * *
In his interviews of Israel, Stefanowicz, Pappas, and Pappas' second-in-command, Lt. Col. Stephen L. Jordan, Taguba was particularly interested in an event involving the use of military dogs on Nov. 24, 2003, when there was a shooting incident that involved a prisoner Stefanowicz and Israel were supposed to interrogate the same evening.
All said the dogs were used to search prison cells for smuggled explosives. If a prisoner were in the cell during the search, however, the presence of military dogs might have contravened the Geneva Convention.
Taguba asked Pappas whether he was aware that "a team of interrogators, who we were told were civilians, wearing civilian clothes, and also an interpreter, entered the cell of the individual, the shooter, or someone associated with the shooter, where dogs were called to either intimidate or cause fear or stress on that particular detainee?"
"No, sir," Pappas said, adding that he "witnessed the use of dogs as they were being used in a security role, not for interrogations."
"As they were shaking down some of (Saddam's) police," Pappas said, "I witnessed dogs being used on the other side in a — they were not muzzled; they were barking in an effort to control these potential suspects as they were being inspected by military police to make sure that they didn't have weapons."
Pappas said he couldn't identify the specific interrogators.
Israel said he put in a long night that night, but he was too far back to see how the dogs were being used.
Under the Interrogation Rules of Engagement set forth by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, military dogs weren't to be used as an intimidation tactic during interrogations without his written approval.
Pappas told Taguba he believed he had Sanchez's blanket approval to use dogs to intimidate prisoners as long as the dogs were muzzled.
At that point in his interview, Taguba told Pappas that the Geneva Convention says, "Prisoners of war (and) civilian detainees ... are constantly to be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."
Pappas said he never thought of it that way.
"Sir, I'll be honest," Pappas told Taguba. "I did not personally look at that with regard to the Geneva Convention. It was a technique that I had discussed with (Maj. Gen. Geoffrey) Miller when he was here (visiting from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay). In the execution of interrogations and the interrogation business, in general, we are trying to get information from people. We have to create an environment not to permanently damage them or psychologically abuse them, but we have to assert control and get detainees into a position where they're willing to talk to us."
Pappas told Taguba he sent memos to Sanchez requesting permission to use some of the harsher interrogation techniques that required Sanchez's written authorization.
Attached to Taguba's final report is a copy of one such memo, dated Nov. 30, 2003, asking Sanchez's permission to use a variety of tactics to glean information from a particular prisoner, including the use of military dogs, hooding, strip-searching, isolation, sleep deprivation and stress positions.
Two weeks ago, Sanchez told The Signal that he never saw, much less approved, such a memo. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 2:32 am Post subject: Israeli Agents Believed Involved in Abu Ghraib |
| Israeli Agents Believed Involved in Abu Ghraib
Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff - May 24, 2004
Diplomatic sources in Washington tell NewsMax's U.N. correspondent Stew
Stogel that Israeli nationals are believed to be involved in the Iraq prison
controversy.
"Israelis have been to Abu Ghraib and other prisons [in Iraq]," says one
source familiar with the U.S. operations.
It was explained that the Israelis involved have been assigned as "civilian
contractors" to work with Coalition forces in interrogating Iraqi POWs.
The "contractors" are said to be veterans of Israel's domestic intelligence
unit, Shin Bet, as well as the more famous international intelligence
agency, the Mossad.
"Who has better experience in dealing with the Arabs than Israel?" one
source asked.
It was explained that several of the "interrogation" techniques used by U.S.
forces in Iraq have in fact been used by Israel "for years."
The technique of stripping Arab prisoners naked, to embarrass and humiliate
them, has been used by Israelis, according to Arab diplomats at the U.N.
It should be noted, however, that torture and mutilation are common
techniques used by Arab countries on their prisoners.
Word in NYC diplomatic circles is that some of the "civilians" seen in
recent Iraq prison photos are in fact Israeli nationals "advising" U.S.
forces.
Neither U.S. nor Iraqi diplomatic officials in NYC or Washington were
available for comment.
The charges come after an incident in April in which an Israeli Arab working
in Iraq was kidnapped and charged with spying.
Nabil George Yaakob Razouk, an Israeli Arab employed by Research Triangle
International, a North Carolina-based firm under contract to the State
Department, was abducted by Iraqi insurgents and said to be a spy.
Razouk, working on "local governance" advising, was seized in Najaf and held
for more than two weeks.
Only the personal intervention of Yassir Arafat, who acted after pleas from
the Razouk family, is believed to have saved him from execution.
The latest disclosures come as an Iraqi diplomatic team has temporarily
cancelled a visit to U.N. headquarters to consult with the Security Council
about the modalities for the transfer of power expected on July 1.
Among the Council ambassadors with whom the Iraqis are expected to meet is
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte.
Negroponte will leave his U.N. post next month to become the new U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, once the Coalition authority is dissolved.
www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/24/131401.shtml
Courtesy Newswatcher26
Also see:
Torture and Petroleum: Israeli involvement at Abu Ghraib
http://s023.dyndns.org/kawther/K20040519A.html
Who is Behind the Abuse at Abu Ghraib?
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1784
Worst rape photos of Iraqi women detainees not yet officially released
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=1861 | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:21 pm Post subject: General Contradicted Abu Ghraib Testimony |
| Anyone have the background on this General Bantz Craddock as Craddock seems like a Jewish name to me.. If so, here is a Jewish General (in Craddock) protecting another Jewish General (in Miller who was in charge of Gitmo and then went to Iraq and told senior officers there - to include General Janis Karpinski - that he was going to 'Gitmo-ize' Abu Ghraib) for the torturing of Arabs... This doesn't look good at all (especially in the Arab/Muslim world). In addition, the following conveys that Miller was in touch with Cambone, Wolfowitz and company.. See how interesting the following two URLs are now after reading that:
Read the 'Implausible Denial' and 'Implausible Denial II' articles which are linked in the right hand margin at the following 'Men from JINSA and CSP' URL:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest
Read the excellent article by James Petras (via the following URL) about Zionists and torture in Iraq (and at Gitmo as well):
Zionists and torture in Iraq:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/09/09/the-zionists-and-torture-in-iraq.php
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Contradicted Abu Ghraib Testimony
By Stephen J. Hedges
The Chicago Tribune
Friday 15 July 2005
Transcripts reveal he briefed top officials.
Washington - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.
Gen. Geoffrey Miller told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2004 that he had only filed a report on a recent visit to Abu Ghraib, and did not talk to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or his top aides about the fact-finding trip.
But in a recorded statement to attorneys three months later, Miller said he gave two of Rumfeld's most senior aides - then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone - a briefing on his visit and his subsequent recommendations.
"Following our return in the fall, I gave an outbrief to both Dr. Wolfowitz and Secretary Cambone," Miller said in the Aug. 21, 2004, statement to lawyers for guards accused of prisoner abuse, a transcript of which was obtained by the Tribune.
"I went over the report that we had developed and gave them a briefing on the intelligence activities, recommendations, and some recommendations on detention operations," Miller added.
Specific interrogation techniques, he said, were not discussed.
Miller's statement about the meeting, if true, suggests that officials at the very top of the Pentagon may have been more involved in monitoring activities at the prison than previously disclosed. Abu Ghraib was later at the center of a scandal surrounding prisoner abuse, which has led to punishments for soldiers.
Miller, Cambone and Wolfowitz, who is now acting director of the World Bank, each declined to respond to written questions about Miller's contradictory statements. Rumsfeld, Cambone, Wolfowitz and Miller have denied knowledge of prisoner abuse.
In the Aug. 21 statement, Miller says that he never spoke directly to Rumsfeld about his Abu Ghraib visit or his subsequent recommendations for new, tougher interrogation tactics there.
Miller's name came up again this week, when he was named in a military investigation made public Wednesday on FBI claims that detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were being mistreated. The report recommended that Miller be reprimanded for not monitoring the interrogation tactics used on one detainee, Mohamed al-Qahtani, who allegedly intended to be the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot.
Reprimand Overruled
Miller's superior officer, Gen. Bantz Craddock, overruled the reprimand, arguing that there was no evidence that laws had been broken.
Cambone has asserted that he was not briefed by Miller after the general returned from Abu Ghraib. During his own appearance on May 11, 2004, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cambone said he and Miller did not speak about Abu Ghraib after Miller's return from the September 2003 fact-finding mission.
"I was not briefed by Gen. Miller," Cambone testified. Instead, Cambone said, a military aide, Gen. William Boykin, briefed Cambone on Miller's trip.
Wolfowitz, who also testified before Congress in May 2004 about prisoner abuses, was not asked during the hearings if he was briefed by Miller.
Miller's role at Abu Ghraib has come under scrutiny since news reports first revealed that US personnel within the prison abused inmates. The mistreatment occurred from the fall of 2003 until January 2004, when a soldier reported the abuses.
Miller was sent to visit the prison in late summer 2003 at the suggestion of Cambone, who had dealt previously with Miller on issues related to the detention of terror suspects at Guantánamo. At the time, the insurgency in Iraq was growing more violent, and US commanders were keen to get intelligence from the growing number of Iraqi men detained by US troops.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib began to occur after Miller's visit, according to Pentagon inquiries, and after the arrival of so-called Tiger Team interrogation units from Guantánamo that Miller said in the August 2004 statement that he helped select.
"We tried to pick the best 10 people that we could send," Miller said.
The abuses also took place after new military police and intelligence units arrived at Abu Ghraib, and after the then-US commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, approved a set of interrogation practices recommended by Miller. Those tactics were later scaled back at the recommendation of the US Central Command.
Pentagon officials and several investigative reports conducted by the Army and a civilian panel chosen by Rumsfeld have concluded that the abuses were the actions of lower-ranking soldiers, and were not ordered by senior officers.
7 GIs Convicted in Scandal
So far, seven soldiers have been convicted on charges related to the abuses. Two senior officers, an Army colonel and an Army Reserve brigadier general, have been reprimanded.
When he appeared before the Armed Services Committee on May 19, 2004, to explain his role at Abu Ghraib, Miller said that he had no contact with Cambone or others in Rumsfeld's office after he returned from Iraq in September 2003.
"I submitted the report up to SOUTHCOM [US Southern Command, where Miller was attached in 2003]," Miller told the committee. "I had no direct discussions with Secretary Cambone."
Miller made the same claim in a signed, sworn statement he gave to Army investigators on June 19, 2004. In his Aug. 21, 2004, statement to defense attorneys, though, Miller said he and Cambone discussed "how we could improve the flow of intelligence from Iraq through and in interrogations."
Also present, he told the attorneys, were two top Army officers, Gens. Ron Burgess, the head of intelligence for the Pentagon's Joint Staff, and William Caldwell, the military aide to Wolfowitz.
Miller said there was one other participant in the briefing, but he could not recall who it was.
A spokeswoman for Caldwell, who is now commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said, "All the meetings and briefs that our commanding general took part in during a previous assignment he considers private and confidential."
Burgess also declined to respond to written questions about Miller's statements.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
Military Lawyers Fought Policy on Interrogations
By Josh White
The Washington Post
Friday 15 July 2005
JAGs recount objections to definition of torture.
Three top military lawyers said yesterday that they lodged complaints about the Justice Department's definition of torture and how it would be applied to interrogations of enemy prisoners captured by US forces, the first time they have publicly acknowledged that they objected to the policy as it was being developed in early 2003.
At a Senate hearing yesterday, the judge advocate generals (JAGs) for the Army, Air Force and Marines said they expressed their concerns as the policy was being hashed out at the Pentagon in March and April 2003. Though their letters to the Defense Department's general counsel are classified, sources familiar with them said the lawyers worried that broadly defined, tough interrogation tactics would not only contravene long-standing military doctrine - leaving too much room for interpretation by interrogators - but also would cause public outrage if the tactics became known.
"We did express opposition," said Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, the Army's top lawyer. "It was accepted in some cases, maybe not in all cases. It did modify the proposed list of policies and procedures."
Sen. Lindsay O. Graham (R-S.C.), who chaired the Armed Services subcommittee hearing yesterday, said he was concerned that the JAG objections may have fallen on deaf ears, and that the policy that emerged may have opened the door to abuses at US detention facilities around the world.
"If they had listened to you from the outset, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we've dealt with" over the past two years, Graham said.
Considerable internal debate accompanied the development of the policy on treatment and interrogation of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The US policy allowing some harsh techniques has been widely criticized by human rights groups and attorneys for detainees.
While sources had previously discussed the nature of the JAG concerns in media reports, their viewpoints have remained classified and some of the relevant memos have been kept from members of Congress.
In 2002, the State Department's legal adviser expressed concerns that the Bush administration had ignored the Geneva Conventions in deciding how to treat captured members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Because such captives have been categorized as "enemy combatants" and not prisoners of war, the administration has said the conditions of their detention are not governed by the Geneva Conventions, though they would be treated humanely.
A military investigation into allegations of abuse at Guantánamo Bay reported this week that a number of specific interrogation tactics - such as forced nudity and the use of military working dogs - were employed at Guantánamo Bay to extract information from a high-value detainee. They were considered "authorized" by the Army field manual and Defense Department guidance and were therefore not considered abusive. Identical tactics were later used at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by military police officers who were not authorized to employ them.
According to senators at the hearing yesterday who cited military investigations into abuse, the JAG concerns ultimately were overruled by the general counsel's office. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said yesterday their concerns were weighed along with discussion from intelligence and policy officials and that the result was a collaborative document.
Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), ranking Democrat on the committee, asked the JAGs if they felt the tactics recently reported by investigators were consistent with Geneva Conventions prohibitions on torture. Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Rives said he believed they were inconsistent. Levin also asked the generals if they would want US prisoners of war treated that way.
"No, Senator, we would not," Rives said.
Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) argued that perhaps Congress should legislate the definitions of enemy combatants and their official legal status, as well as the legal process for adjudicating their cases. They said the delays that have kept hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay without a single prosecution need to end. The military is currently waiting on federal court decisions about how to proceed.
A law enacted in 1994 bars torture by US military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon working group's 2003 report, prepared under the supervision of general counsel William J. Haynes II, said that "in order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority."
Haynes - through Daniel J. Dell'Orto, principal deputy general counsel for the Defense Department - wrote a memo March 17 that rescinded the working group's report, and Dell'Orto confirmed that withdrawal yesterday at the hearing. According to a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post, the general counsel's office determined that the report "does not reflect now-settled executive branch views of the relevant law."
"I determine that the Report of the Working Group on Detainee Interrogations is to be considered a historical document with no standing in policy, practice, or law to guide any activity of the Department of Defense," said the memo, which is signed by Dell'Orto for Haynes.
The memo also refers to the fact that the JAGs proposed a new department-wide interrogation policy in late January this year, calling it an "excellent starting point for discussion" and a "profoundly important issue."
Dell'Orto declined to answer questions about the memo as he was leaving the hearing yesterday.
Di Rita said that there is a department-wide interrogations policy being developed and that it will "reflect the input of everyone who has a stake in it." The Army is also reworking its field manual instructions on interrogations, he said. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:59 pm Post subject: Setting the Record Straight McCain, Israel and Torture |
| http://www.counterpunch.com/bloom11082005.html
November 8, 2005
Setting the Record Straight
McCain, Israel and Torture
By DAVID BLOOM
Senator John McCain, a former naval aviator who was tortured during his six-year captivity by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), is, to his great credit, inserting an anti-torture clause into a senate bill, to the consternation of the Bushies. The following piece ran in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Nov.7:
McCain: Israelis don't torture
Sen. John McCain cited Israel as an example of a nation that successfully combats terrorism without resorting to torture.
A bill by McCain (R-Ariz.) restricting all U.S. government employees to interrogation techniques in the army manual passed 90-9 last month, but is meeting fierce resistance from the White House, which wants to exempt CIA agents.
In recent TV appearances, McCain said he consulted with Israelis about his initiative. "The people in this world that suffer more threats from terrorist attacks and get them every day are the Israelis," McCain said Monday on NBC's "Today" show. "The Israeli Supreme Court outlawed torture, outlawed cruel and inhumane treatment. And I have talked to Israeli officials, and they say they do very fine without it."
McCain made a similar argument on "Fox News Sunday." (JTA, Nov. 7)
But is this borne out by the facts? Not so, according to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), which notes that despite improvements following the 1999 decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice to ban torture, because of a clause allowing for so-called "moderate physical pressure" in the case of "ticking bombs," it's still a problem in Israel:
PCATI's report published in April 2003 revealed the following: [1]
Based on official data, GSS agents interrogated thousands of Palestinians per year during the Intifada, and over 200 at any given moment. In July 2002, the GSS related to the press that 90 Palestinians were defined as 'ticking bombs' and were tortured (that is, were exposed to 'physical pressure'). Research by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel shows that the number tortured is actually much greater; and that GSS agents who interrogate Palestinian detainees torture them, degrade them, and otherwise ill-treat them routinely, in blatant violation of the provisions of international law, mainly in the following manners:
1 Violence: Beating, slapping, kicking, stepping on shackles; Bending the interrogee and placing him in other painful positions; Intentionally tightening the shackles by which he is bound; Violent shaking.
2 Sleep Deprivation.
3 Additional 'Interrogation Methods': Prolonged shackling behind the back; Cursing, threats, humiliations; Depriving the detainee of essential needs; Exposure to extreme heat or cold.
4 Secondary Methods: Isolation and secrecy; Imprisonment under inhuman conditions.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel estimates that a considerable portion of all interrogees, if not most, had been exposed to interrogation methods which include "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental." In other words these methods, as applied, cause, at least in their combination and accumulation over time, the level of gravity and cruelty that constitute torture as defined in international law.
In contrast with the years 2000-2001, the years 2002-2003 saw a deterioration in the treatment of Palestinian detainees by the GSS:
* Each month, hundreds of Palestinians were subjected to one degree or another of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (ill-treatment), at the hands of the GSS and bodies working on its behalf. By way of comparison - in September 2001 we estimated that the total number of detainees being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment reached 'only' dozens. The numbers have thus increased dramatically.
* Each month, the ill-treatment reaching the level of torture as defined in international law was inflicted in dozens of cases, and possibly more. In other words - torture in Israel had once more become routine.
Information obtained by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel shows that official sources admitted using many torture methods, including slapping, 'bending,' shaking, sleep deprivation, and prolonged shackling.
'Rubber Stamps' for the GSS: The HCJ, The Attorney General, and The State Prosecutor's Office
The bodies which are supposed to keep the GSS under scrutiny and ensure that interrogations are conducted lawfully acted , instead, as rubberstamps for decisions made by the GSS.
* The High Court of Justice did not accept even one of the 124 petitions submitted by the Public Committee Against Torture against prohibiting detainees under interrogation from meeting their attorneys during the years 2002-2003.
* The State Prosecutor's Office routinely transfers the complaints made by interrogees to a GSS agent for investigation, and it is little wonder that he did not find in even a single case that GSS agents tortured a Palestinian 'unnecessarily'.
* The Attorney General grants - wholesale, and with no exception - the 'necessity defense' approval for every single case of torture.
The result is a total, hermetic, impenetrable and unconditional protection that envelops the GSS system of torture, and enables it to continue undisturbed, with no supervision of scrutiny to speak of. The achievements of the HCJ ruling of 1999, which was to have put an end to large-scale torture and ill-treatment, limiting it to lone cases of 'ticking bombs,' have worn thin. The 'defense of necessity' has also become no more than a veneer. From the research undertaken by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, it is clear that torture is carried out in an orderly and institutional fashion. We know that cases termed 'ticking bombs,' do not involve a lone interrogator improvising "in the face of an unforeseen event," as the High Court stipulated. Interrogators appeal to their superiors in an orderly fashion, receive approval in advance, and employ certain methods repeatedly, at least some of which (including the 'bending' method) require cooperation between a number of interrogators.
The 1999 HCJ ruling constituted a significant and bold step in the right direction, but the HCJ failed in not prohibiting torture and ill-treatment absolutely, and leaving intact the legal - and moral - concept, according to which a GSS interrogator is authorized to consider, albeit in extreme situations 'only', torture as a legal and legitimate ant legal option. The achievements of the ruling are wearing down due to those failures, due to the GSS' policy of torture, and due to the fact that the HCJ, the State Prosecutor's Office, and the Attorney General have, regarding this matter, transformed themselves from guardians and protectors of the law into sentries at the gates of GSS torture chambers.
David Bloom writes for WW4 Report.
Links
[1] http://www.stoptorture.org.il/eng/background.asp?menu=3&submenu=3
[2] http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/mccain_no_veto?
[3] http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Contact.Home
[4] http://www.ww4report.com/92.html#palestine7
[5] http://www.ww4report.com/node/1252 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 7:35 pm Post subject: New Abu Ghraib abuse photos anger Arabs |
| New Abu Ghraib abuse photos anger Arabs
By Michael Perry
1 hour, 2 minutes ago
An Australian television station broadcast on Wednesday what it said were previously unpublished images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, fueling more Arab anger against the United States.
The Special Broadcasting Service's "Dateline" current affairs program said the images were recorded at the same time as the now-infamous pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which sparked international outrage in 2004.
Some of the newly broadcast pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation, Dateline said.
The grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners, some bleeding or hooded, bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling American guard beside them.
They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.
The images were swiftly re-broadcast by Arab satellite television stations and several news organizations, including American ABC News television, showed them on their Web sites.
They stirred up more anger among Arabs, already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammad printed in European papers this month.
"This is truly American ugliness that no other country in the world can compete with," journalist Saleh al-Humaidi told Reuters in Yemen.
"The Americans ought to apologize to mankind for their government's lie to the world that it is fighting for freedom and that it came to Iraq to save it from Saddam Hussein's oppression," he said.
INFLAMING VIOLENCE
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the abuses at Abu Ghraib had already been fully investigated.
"The department believes that the release of all of these images will further inflame and cause unnecessary violence in the world," Whitman said.
"...In Abu Ghraib specifically, there have been more than 25 individuals -- officer and enlisted -- that have been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures."
The American Civil Liberties Union in New York said the United States must aggressively investigate the abuses.
"The important question now is how the government is going to respond and whether the government is finally going to make a serious effort to hold senior policy makers responsible," said Steven Shapiro, legal director with the ACLU in New York.
Shapiro urged Washington to appoint an independent counsel to investigate "who is responsible and do we have safeguards in place to be sure that it doesn't happen again."
Dateline executive producer Mike Carey said the program had obtained a file containing hundreds of pictures -- some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses.
He declined to say where or how the station had got hold of the images, but said he assumed other journalists or media also had access to them.
Several pictures appear to show U.S. soldier Charles Graner, who was jailed for 10 years for his leading role in the Abu Ghraib abuse and who featured in the earlier batch of photographs.
In Iraq, anger grew as more television stations broadcast the images.
"It makes you feel humiliated as an Iraqi," said Mehdi Jumbas, a technician in Baghdad. "The government should act, not let this pass. They should do something about these jails... Last time what happened? Nothing."
Some of the video footage apparently shows one prisoner bashing his own head against a wall, while some photographs appear to show corpses, said Carey.
The program said some prisoners at Abu Ghraib were killed when U.S. soldiers ran out of rubber bullets as they tried to quell a jail riot, and resorted to using live rounds.
One picture showed what looked like cigarette burns on a man's buttocks.
Carey said other images featured prisoners in sexually humiliating acts that were deemed too graphic to broadcast.
The ACLU has been granted access to the images under U.S. Freedom of Information provisions, but the U.S. government is appealing the decision, Dateline said. Shapiro said the ACLU was not the source of the images and said the group had not seen them before the broadcast.
The United States also faces pressure over treatment of detainees at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Five U.N. human rights experts urged Washington this week to shut down the Guantanamo jail after concluding that force-feeding of prisoners and some interrogation techniques there amounted to torture.
(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ghobari in Sanaa, Lin Noueihed in Baghdad, Charles Aldinger in Washington, Scott Malone in New York) | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:15 am Post subject: Abu Ghraib leaked report reveals full extent of abuse |
| http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1711844,00.html
Abu Ghraib leaked report reveals full extent of abuse
· 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse
· 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse
· 660 images of adult pornography
· 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees
· 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday February 17, 2006
The Guardian
Nearly two years after the first pictures of naked and humiliated Iraqi detainees emerged from Abu Ghraib prison, the full extent of the abuse became known for the first time yesterday with a leaked report from the US army's internal investigation into the scandal.
The catalogue of abuse, which was obtained by the online American magazine Salon, could not have arrived at a worse time for the Bush administration, coinciding with yesterday's United Nations report on abuse of detainees at Guantánamo, the release of a video showing British troops beating up Iraqi youths, and lingering anger in the Muslim world over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
Bush administration officials had already been fending off a new wave of anger about the torture of detainees - following the airing of graphic images from Abu Ghraib on Australian television - when Salon posted a story on its website yesterday saying it had obtained what appears to be the fullest photographic record to date of the abuse.
It said the material, gathered by the army's criminal investigation division, included 1,325 photographs and 93 video clips of suspected abuse of detainees, 546 photographs of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, as well as 660 images of adult pornography, and 29 pictures of US troops engaged in simulated sex acts. Based on date stamps, all were recorded between October 18 and December 30 2003, the same timeframe as the original scandal.
The website published 18 pictures from the prison. Aside from the ritualised images of humiliation - naked Iraqi men kneeling or lying on the ground alone or in a heap or wearing women's underwear on their heads - they also reveal the apparent normality of those bizarre scenes within Abu Ghraib. One of the pictures shows an army sergeant standing calmly to fill out paperwork on a wall. Behind him is a hooded, naked detainee. Another photograph shows Staff Sergeant Ivan Chip Frederick - who was tried for his role in the abuse scandal - trimming his fingernails beside an Iraqi who is standing on a box wearing a hood and electrical wires.
There are also images of physical violence: a blood-streaked cell, and a picture of the battered face of a corpse packed in ice. "The DVD also includes photographs of guards threatening Iraqi prisoners with dogs, homemade videotapes depicting hooded prisoners being forced to masturbate, and a video showing a mentally disturbed prisoner smashing his head against a door. Oddly, the material also includes numerous photographs of slaughtered animals and mundane images of soldiers travelling around Iraq," Salon said.
The magazine said it thought the material included all of the pictures that originally surfaced when the abuse became known in April 2004, as well as the pictures aired on Australian television. Human rights organisations have been fighting for months for the army to release a full record of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. Salon said it received the material from a member of the military who had spent time at the jail and was familiar with the investigation.
The first official response from Washington as well as Baghdad was concerned as much with the impact these new pictures of abuse could have in the Middle East at a time when anger against the west is high. A Pentagon spokesman said the release of additional images of abuse "could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world".
Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, while condemning the abuse at Abu Ghraib, noted that US soldiers had already been punished for it.
Mr Jaafari's government was also on the defensive about torture yesterday after the first direct evidence emerged that death squads had operated from within the interior ministry.
The US general in charge of training the Iraqi police, Major General Joseph Peterson, told the Chicago Tribune that the death squads that had been arresting and killing Sunnis had been operating from within the police force although they wore commando uniforms. "We have found one of the death squads," Gen Peterson told the paper. "They are a part of the police force of Iraq."
In another development, ABC television on Wednesday night aired audio tapes of Saddam Hussein's cabinet meetings during the mid-1990s, including a segment in which he says he warned Washington of a terror attack. "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans," Saddam is heard saying, adding that he "told the British as well". However, he adds: "This story is coming, but not from Iraq." | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 4:41 am Post subject: 'Gitmo' Prisoners Wrapped in Israeli Flags |
| U.S. military interrogators wrapped prisoners at Guantanamo in Israeli flags, according to the FBI.
The revelation came during congressional testimony this week on tension between the FBI and the military over investigation tactics at the U.S.-held territory in Cuba, where detainees from U.S. operations in the Middle East are held. In newly declassified documents, the FBI sharply criticizes the military for “aggressive” tactics that it says were ineffective.
Among the tactics, outlined by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the Jewish ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee: showing prisoners gay porn, using strobe lights, playing loud music, turning up heat, and wrapping prisoners in Israeli flags.
Gen. Bantz Craddock, the chief of Southern Command, said the FBI reports did not amount to more than “allegations.”
http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=1836
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