The partisan political climate during an election year was another aspect of
the bad effects in domestic politics. Some Republicans turned their attacks
on "humanitarian do-gooders" as
being unpatriotic, saying that they had overblown the crisis for partisan purposes,
thus helping the enemy and hurting our troops abroad. Democrats and others saw
such attacks as ad hominem diversions, away from the real issues of bad
policies, bad planning, and bungling. After the initial shock and universal
outrage, partisans tended to see the causes in terms of being the fault of the
Other. Later revelations brought up further issues about shocking medical
conditions and the "outsourcing"
of torture.
More than a year later, the controversy continued as Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice touring Europe had to explain that the US doesn't condone torture, but
her assertions were widely challenged, especially
as the Bush administration was fighting so hard against Senator John McCain's
bill to prohibit all torture, specifically including the CIA's euphemistic
"extraordinary renditions."
But, eventually, two years after (September, 2006), the Miliitary Commissions
Act, was passed, which analysts argue gives the president
free rein: "But in hindsight, Abu Ghraib wasn't a scandal for the Bush
administration. It was a coup. Because when the Senate passes the president's
detainee bill today, we will, as a country, have yet more evidence that yesterday's
disgrace is today's ordinary, and that—with a little time and a little
help from the media—we can normalize almost anything in the span of a few
short years....." Investigative reporter Walter Pincus surveyed
the history of one torture technique:
"waterboarding."
Major concerns were focused on whether the abuse was caused by the cruelty
and sadism of a few individuals ("a
few bad apples"), poorly trained, an unrepresentative aberration
from the norm; or, if it were part of a wider strategy ("tip
of the iceberg") of a systematic effort by the military
to gain information from prisoners. Robert Jay Lifton and other experts discussed
the individual psychology
of abusive behavior on a PBS NewsHour panel (transcript &
audio here).
Some writers (e.g. Rush Limbaugh) defensively discounted the seriousness of
the injuries as akin to fraternity pranks; (Molly
Ivans responded, "Let's Get Real..")
Others discounted the seriousness of the harms by comparison (by
pointing to another wrong) to other more serious prison abuses (Nazi
camps, Russian Gulag); to other wars (great losses in WW2, Civil War), or to
previous terrorists attacks (9/11, Bali night club, American Embassies in Africa);
or to the barbarity of reprisals (beheading an American captive). Furthermore,
they claimed that most anti-American Muslim critics were using a "double
standard" by downplaying their own 'bad'.
Later, when the Courts Martial of Spc. Charles Graner began, AP reported that:
"Graner's civilian defense attorney, Guy Womack said pictures that appeared
to portray abuse, such as one showing the detainees stacked in the human pyramid
and another showing England holding a naked Iraqi prisoner by a leash, did not
depict any wrongdoing. "You've probably been in a shopping mall and seen
children on a tether," Womack told the jurors. "They are not being
abused, they are keeping control. You see a picture of men stacked up in a pyramid.
Don't cheerleaders form pyramids all across America?" (AP, Jan.11,
2005)
In April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for
use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit making detainees disrobe entirely
for questioning, reversing normal sleep patterns and exposing prisoners to heat,
cold and "sensory assault," including loud music and bright lights,
according to defense officials.
The classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels
of the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and represents the first publicly
known documentation of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically
and psychologically stressful methods during questioning.
The use of any of these techniques requires the approval of senior Pentagon
officials -- and in some cases, of the defense secretary. Interrogators must
justify that the harshest treatment is "militarily necessary," according
to the document, as cited by one official. Once approved, the harsher treatment
must be accompanied by "appropriate medical monitoring."
"We wanted to find a legal way to jack up the pressure," said one
lawyer who helped write the guidelines. "We wanted a little more freedom
than in a U.S. prison, but not torture."
Defense and intelligence officials said similar guidelines have been approved
for use on "high-value detainees" in Iraq -- those suspected of terrorism
or of having knowledge of insurgency operations. Separate CIA guidelines exist
for agency-run detention centers.
It could not be learned whether similar guidelines were in effect at the U.S.-run
Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, which has been the focus of controversy in
recent days. But lawmakers have said they want to know whether the misconduct
reported at Abu Ghraib -- which included sexual humiliation -- was an aberration
or whether it reflected an aggressive policy taken to inhumane extremes.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment for the record. Several officials interviewed
for this article, including two lawyers who helped formulate the guidelines,
declined to be identified because the subject matter is so sensitive.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. military and the CIA have detained
thousands of foreign nationals at the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as well
as at facilities in Iraq and elsewhere, as part of an effort to crack down on
suspected terrorists and to quell the insurgency in Iraq. The Pentagon guidelines
for Guantanamo were designed to give interrogators the authority to prompt uncooperative
detainees to provide information, though experts on interrogation say information
submitted under such conditions is often unreliable.
The United States has stated publicly that it does not engage in torture or
cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Defense officials said yesterday
that the techniques on the list are consistent with international law and contain
appropriate safeguards such as legal and medical monitoring. "The high-level
approval is done with forethought by people in responsibility, and layers removed
from the people actually doing these things, so you can have an objective approach,"
said one senior defense official familiar with the guidelines.
But Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the tactics
outlined in the U.S. document amount to cruel and in inhumane treatment. "The
courts have ruled most of these techniques illegal," he said. "If
it's illegal here under the U.S. Constitution, it's illegal abroad. . . . This
isn't even close."
With the proper permission, the guidelines allow detainees to be subjected to
psychological techniques meant to open them up, disorient or put them under
stress. These include "invoking feelings of futility" and using female
interrogators to question male detainees.
Some prisoners could be made to stand for four hours at a time. Questioning
a prisoner without clothes was permitted if he is alone in his cell. Ruled out
were techniques such as physical contact -- even poking a finger in the chest
-- and the "washboard technique" of smothering a detainee with towels
to threaten suffocation. Placing electrodes on detainees' bodies "wasn't
even evaluated -- it was such a no-go," said one of the officials involved
in drawing up the list.
During the Pentagon debates, one participant drew on his memory of a scene from
the movie, "The Untouchables," in which a police officer played by
actor Sean Connery bent the rules to persuade mobsters that they should provide
evidence against Mafia kingpin Al Capone. Much like the officer, the participant
suggested, interrogators could shoot a dead body in front of a detainee, then
suggest to him that is what they did to people who refused to talk.
Pentagon lawyers declared the technique out of bounds, and it was discarded.
The guidelines were the product of three months of discussion between military
lawyers, medical personnel and psychologists, and followed several incidents
of abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo.
In late 2002, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, until recently commander of the detention
operation at Guantanamo Bay, asked the Pentagon for more explicit rules for
interrogation, four people involved in the process said.
"They don't want to be in the situation where we are making things up as
we go along," said one lawyer involved in the sessions.
"We wanted to outline under what circumstances we could make them feel
uncomfortable, a little distressed," another lawyer involved said. During
the discussions, "the political people [at the Pentagon] were inclined
toward aggressive techniques," the official said. Military lawyers, in
contrast, were more conservative in their approach, mindful of how they would
want U.S. military personnel held as prisoners to be treated by foreign powers,
the official said.
Mark Jacobson, a former Defense Department official who worked on detainee issues
while at the Pentagon, said that at Guantanamo and the Bagram facility in Afghanistan,
military interrogators have never used torture or extreme stress techniques.
"It's the fear of being tortured that might get someone to talk, not the
torture," Jacobson said. "We were so strict."
Interrogation teams routinely draw up detailed plans, which list all techniques
they hope to use. These plans are passed to superior officers for discussion
and pre-approval, Jacobson said.
"I actually think we are not aggressive enough [at times in interrogation
techniques]," he said. "I think we are too timid."
In a March 11 interview at his office at the Guantanamo Navy base -- one of
his last interviews before leaving to take over detention facilities in Iraq
-- Miller said that his interrogators treated prisoners humanely and that the
operation had yielded important intelligence.
On Thursday, the U.S. military acknowledged that two Guantanamo Bay guards had
been disciplined in cases involving the use of excessive force against detainees.
Detainees released from the facility have given disparate accounts of their
stay there, some praising the food and free schooling, others claiming that
guards roughed them up.
Two Afghans died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan in December 2002. Both deaths
were classified as homicides by the U.S. military. Another Afghan died in June
2003, at a detention site near Asadabad, in Kunar province
---------------------------------------------
. © 2004 The Washington Post Company
Top
Top
Geneva
Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (Article 17)
Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only
his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal
or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information. If he willfully
infringes this rule, he may render himself liable to a restriction of the
privileges accorded to his rank or status.
Each Party to a conflict is required to furnish the persons under its jurisdiction
who are liable to become prisoners of war, with an identity card showing the
owner's surname, first names, rank, army, regimental, personal or serial number
or equivalent information, and date of birth. The identity card may, furthermore,
bear the signature or the fingerprints, or both, of the owner, and may bear,
as well, any other information the Party to the conflict may wish to add concerning
persons belonging to its armed forces. As far as possible the card shall measure
6.5 x 10 cm. and shall be issued in duplicate. The identity card shall be
shown by the prisoner of war upon demand, but may in no case be taken away
from him.
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted
on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever.
Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or
exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
Prisoners of war who, owing to their physical or mental condition, are unable
to state their identity, shall be handed over to the medical service. The
identity of such prisoners shall be established by all possible means, subject
to the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
The questioning of prisoners of war shall be carried out in a language which
they understand.
Interrogation
rules of engagement (IROE
Interrogation guidelines:
The Pentagon this week released to the Senate Armed Services Committee interrogation
rules of engagement given to soldiers and commanders on policies for interrogating
war prisoners in Iraq. The committee is trying to determine if those techniques
comply with the Geneva Conventions. An excerpt from the Geneva Conventions
provides a comparison.
Interrogation rules of engagement (IROE)
Approved approaches for all detainees
Direct
Incentive
Incentive removal
Emotional love/hate
Fear up harsh
Fear up mild
Reduced fear
Pride & ego up
Futility
We know all
Establish your identity
Repetition
File & dossier
Rapid fire
Silence
Safeguards
* Techniques must be annotated in questioning strategy
* Approaches must always be humane and lawful
* Detainees will NEVER be touched in a malicious or unwanted manner
* Wounded or medically burdened detainees must be medically cleared prior
to interrogation
* The Geneva Conventions apply within CJTF-7 (Combined Joint Task Force).
Require Commanding General's (CG) approval
(Requests must be submitted in writing)
* Change of scenery down
* Dietary Manip (monitored by med)
* Environmental manipulation
* Sleep adjustment (reverse sched)
* Isolation for longer than 30 days
* Presence of mil working dogs
* Sleep management (72 hrs max)
* Sensory deprivation (72 hrs max)
* Stress positions (no longer than 45 min)
Everyone is responsible for ensuring compliance to the IROE.
Violations must be reported immediately to the officer in charge (OIC).
Sources: Department of Defense
Secret world of US interrogation
Long history of tactics in overseas prisons is coming to light
washingtonpost.com By Dana Priest and Joe Stephens May 11, 2004
In Afghanistan, the CIA's secret US interrogation center in Kabul is known
as "The Pit," named for its despairing conditions. In Iraq, the
most important prisoners are kept in a huge hangar near the runway at Baghdad
International Airport, say US government officials, counterterrorism experts
and others. In Qatar, US forces have been ferrying some Iraqi prisoners to
a remote jail on the gigantic US air base in the desert.
The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where a unit of US soldiers abused prisoners,
is just the largest and suddenly most notorious in a worldwide constellation
of detention centers — many of them secret and all off-limits to public
scrutiny — that the US military and CIA have operated in the name of
counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations since the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks.
These prisons and jails are sometimes as small as shipping containers and
as large as the sprawling Guantanamo Bay complex in Cuba. They are part of
an elaborate CIA and military infrastructure whose purpose is to hold suspected
terrorists or insurgents for interrogation and safe-keeping while avoiding
US or international court systems, where proceedings and evidence against
the accused would be aired in public. Some are even held by foreign governments
at the informal request of the United States.
As insurgency grew, so did prison abuse"The number of people who have
been detained in the Arab world for the sake of America is much more than
in Guantanamo Bay. Really, thousands," said Najeeb Nuaimi, a former justice
minister of Qatar who is representing the families of dozens of prisoners.
The largely hidden array includes three systems that only rarely overlap:
the Pentagon-run network of prisons, jails and holding facilities in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere; small and secret CIA-run facilities
where top al Qaeda and other figures are kept; and interrogation rooms of
foreign intelligence services — some with documented records of torture
— to which the US government delivers or "renders" mid- or
low-level terrorism suspects for questioning.
All told, more than 9,000 people are held by US authorities overseas, according
to Pentagon figures and estimates by intelligence experts, the vast majority
under military control. The detainees have no conventional legal rights: no
access to a lawyer; no chance for an impartial hearing; and at least in the
case of prisoners held in cellblock 1A at Abu Ghraib, no apparent guarantee
of humane treatment accorded prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions
or civilians in US jails.
Although some of those held by the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo
have had visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross, some of the
CIA's detainees have, in effect, disappeared, according to interviews with
former and current national security officials and to the Army's report of
abuses at Abu Ghraib.
The CIA's "ghost detainees," as they were called by members of the
800th MP Brigade, were routinely held by the soldier-guards at Abu Ghraib
"without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason
for their detention," the report says. These phantom captives were "moved
around within the facility to hide them" from Red Cross teams, a tactic
that was "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international
law."
CIA employees are under investigation by the Justice Department and the CIA
inspector general's office in connection with the death of three captives
in the past six months, two who died while under interrogation in Iraq, and
a third who was being questioned by a CIA contract interrogator in Afghanistan.
A CIA spokesman said the hiding of detainees was inappropriate. He declined
to comment further.
None of the arrangements that permit US personnel to kidnap, transport, interrogate
and hold foreigners are ad hoc or unauthorized, including the so-called renditions.
"People tend to regard it as an extra-judicial kidnapping; it's not,"
former CIA officer Peter Probst said. "There is a long history of this.
It has been done for decades. It's absolutely legal."
In fact, every aspect of this new universe — including maintenance of
covert airlines to fly prisoners from place to place, interrogation rules
and the legal justification for holding foreigners without due process afforded
most US citizens — has been developed by military or CIA lawyers, vetted
by Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and, depending on the particular
issue, approved by White House General Counsel's Office or the president himself.
In some cases, such as determining whether a US citizen should be designated
an enemy combatant who can be held without charges, the president makes the
final decision, said Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the president, in a Feb.
24 speech to the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National
Security.
Critics of this kind of detention and treatment, Gonzales said, "assumed
that there was little or no analysis — legal or otherwise — behind
the decision to detain a particular person as enemy combatant."
On the contrary, the administration has applied the law of war, he said. "Under
these rules, captured enemy combatants, whether soldiers or saboteurs, may
be detained for the duration of hostilities."
Because most of the directives and guidelines on these issues are classified,
former and current military and intelligence officials who described them
to The Washington Post would do so only on the condition that they not be
named.
Along with other CIA and military efforts to disrupt terrorist plots and break
up al Qaeda's financial networks, administration officials argue that the
interrogations are a key component of their global counterterrorism strategy
and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. As the CIA's deputy director, John
McLaughlin, recently told the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks:
"The country, with all its capabilities, is now much more orchestrated
into an offensive mix that is relentless."
Military jails and prisons
Abu Ghraib prison — where photographs were taken that have enraged the
Arab world and rocked US political and military leadership — held 6,000
to 7,000 detainees at the time of the documented abuse. Today, it and other
sites in Iraq hold more than 8,000 prisoners, US and coalition officials said.
They range from those believed to have played key roles in the insurgency
to some who are held on suspicion of petty crimes.
Until the current scandal cast some hazy light, little has been publicly known
about the Iraqi detention sites, their locations and who was being held there.
That has been a source of continuing frustration for international monitoring
groups such as New York-based Human Rights Watch, which has repeatedly sought
to visit the facilities. Even the military's investigative report on abuses
at Abu Ghraib remains classified, despite having become public through leaks.
Far better known has been the Defense Department's facility at Guantanamo
Bay. The open-air camps there house about 600 detainees, flown in from around
the world over the past two years. Secrecy there remains tight, with detainees
and most of the facilities off-limits to visitors.
The US Supreme Court is deciding whether detainees held there, whom the Pentagon
has declared "enemy combatants" in the war against terrorism, should
have access to US courts.
Last week, the US military acknowledged that two Guantanamo Bay guards had
been disciplined in connection with use of excessive force against detainees.
And US defense officials confirmed the existence of a list of approved interrogation
techniques, dating to April 2003, that included reversing sleep patterns,
exposing prisoners to hot and cold, and "sensory assault," including
use of bright lights and loud music.
The treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan has received less public attention.
The US military holds 300 or so people at Bagram, north of the capital of
Kabul, and in Kandahar, Jalalabad and Asadabad. Human Rights Watch estimates
that at least 700 people had been released from those sites, most of them
held a few weeks or less. Special Forces units also have holding centers at
their firebases, including at Gardez and Khost.
In December 2002, two Afghans died in US custody in Afghanistan. The US military
classified both as homicides. Another Afghan died in June 2003 at a detention
site near Asadabad.
"Afghans detained at Bagram airbase in 2002 have described being held
in detention for weeks, continuously shackled, intentionally kept awake for
extended periods of time, and forced to kneel or stand in painful positions
for extended periods," according to a report in March by Human Rights
Watch. "Some say they were kicked and beaten when arrested, or later
as part of efforts to keep them awake. Some say they were doused with freezing
water in the winter."
CIA detention
Before the US military was imprisoning and interrogating people in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the CIA was scooping up suspected al Qaeda leaders in such far-off
places as Pakistan, Yemen and Sudan. Today, the CIA probably holds two to
three dozen captives around the world, according to knowledgeable current
and former officials. Among them are al Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheik Mohammed
and Ramzi Binalshibh in Pakistan and Abu Zubaida. The CIA is also in charge
of interrogating Saddam Hussein, who is believed to be in Baghdad.
The location of CIA interrogation centers is so sensitive that even the four
leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who are briefed on
all covert operations, do not know them, congressional sources said. These
members are given periodic reports about the captives, but several members
said they do not receive information about conditions under which prisoners
are held, and members have not insisted on this information. The CIA has told
Congress that it does not engage in torture as a tactic of interrogation.
"There's a black hole on certain information such as location, condition
under which they are held," said one congressional official who asked
not to be named. "They are told it's too sensitive."
In Afghanistan, the CIA used to conduct some interrogations in a cluster of
metal shipping containers on Bagram air base protected by three layers of
concertina wire. It is unclear whether that center is still open, but the
CIA's main interrogation center now appears to be in Kabul, at a location
nicknamed "The Pit" by agency and Special Forces operators.
"Prisoner abuse is nothing new," said one military officer who has
been working closely with CIA interrogators in Afghanistan. A dozen former
and current national security officials interviewed by The Washington Post
in 2002, including several who had witnessed interrogations, defended the
use of stressful interrogation tactics and the use of violence against detainees
as just and necessary.
The CIA general counsel's office developed a new set of interrogation rules
of engagement in after the Sept. 11 attacks. It was vetted by the Justice
Department and approved by the National Security Council's general counsel,
according to US intelligence officials and other US officials familiar with
the process. "There are very specific guidelines that are thoroughly
vetted," said one US official who helps oversee the process. "Everyone
is on board. It's legal."
The rules call for field operators to seek approval from Washington to use
"enhanced measures," methods that could cause temporary physical
or mental pain.
US intelligence officials say the CIA, contrary to the glamorized view from
movies and novels, had no real interrogation specialists on hand to deal with
the number of valuable suspects it captured after Sept. 11. The agency relied
on analysts, psychologists and profilers. "Two and a half years later,"
one CIA veteran said, "we have put together a very professional, controlled,
deliberate and legally rationalized approach to dealing with the Abu Zubaidas
of the world."
US intelligence officials say their strongest suit is not harsh interrogation
techniques, but time and patience.
'Renditions'
Much larger than the group of prisoners held by the CIA are those who have
been captured and transported around the world by the CIA and other agencies
of the US government for interrogation by foreign intelligence services. This
transnational transfer of people is a key tactic in US counterterrorism operations
on five continents, one that often raises the ire of foreign publics when
individual cases come to light.
For example, on Jan. 17, 2000, a few hours before Bosnia's Human Rights Chamber
was to order the release of five Algerians and a Yemeni for lack of evidence,
Bosnian police handed them over to US authorities who flew them to Guantanamo
Bay.
The Bosnian government, faced with public outcry, said it would compensate
the families of the men, who were suspected of having made threats to the
US and British embassies in Bosnia.
The same month, in Indonesia, Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, suspected of helping
Richard C. Reid, the Briton charged with trying to detonate explosives in
his shoe on an American Airlines flight, was detained by Indonesian intelligence
agents based on information the CIA provided them. On Jan. 11, without a court
hearing or a lawyer, he was hustled aboard an unmarked U.S.-registered Gulfstream
V jet parked at a military airport in Jakarta and flown to Egypt.
It was no coincidence Madni ended up in Egypt. Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and
Saudi Arabia are well-known destinations for suspected terrorists.
"A lot of people they [the US] are taking to Jordan, third-country nationals,"
a senior Saudi official said. "They can do anything they want with them,
and the US can say, 'We don't have them.' "
In the past year, an unusual country joined that list of destinations: Syria.
Last year US immigration authorities, with the approval of then-Acting Attorney
General Larry Thompson, authorized the expedited removal of Maher Arar to
Syria, a country the US government has long condemned as a chronic human-rights
abuser. Maher, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained at JFK International
Airport in New York as he was transferring to the final leg of his flight
home to Canada.
US authorities say Arar has links to al Qaeda. Not wanting to return him to
Canada for fear he would not be adequately followed, immigration officials
took him, in chains and shackles, to a New Jersey airfield, where he was "placed
on a small private jet, and flown to Washington DC," according to a lawsuit
filed recently against the US government. He was flown to Jordan, interrogated
and beaten by Jordanian authorities who then turned him over to Syria, according
to the lawsuit.
Arar said that for the 10 months he was in prison, he was beaten, tortured
and kept in a shallow grave. After much pressure from the Canadian government
and human rights activists, he was freed and has returned to Canada.
CIA Director George J. Tenet, testifying earlier this year before the commission
investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, said the agency participated in more than
70 renditions in the years before the attacks. In 1999 and 2000 alone, congressional
testimony shows, the CIA and FBI participated in two dozen renditions.
Christopher Kojm, a former State Department intelligence official and a staff
member of the commission, explained the rendition procedure at a recent hearing:
"If a terrorist suspect is outside of the United States, the CIA helps
to catch and send him to the United States or a third country," he testified.
"Though the FBI is often part of the process, the CIA is usually the
main player, building and defining the relationships with the foreign government
intelligence agencies and internal security services."
The Saudis currently are detaining and interrogating about 800 terrorism suspects,
said a senior Saudi official. Their fate is largely controlled by Saudi-based
joint intelligence task forces, whose members include officers from the CIA,
FBI and other US law-enforcement agencies.
The Saudi official said his country does not participate in renditions and
today holds no more than one or two people at the request of the United States.
Yet much can hinge on terminology.
In some interrogations, for example, specialists from the United States and
Saudi Arabia develop questions and an interrogation strategy before questioning
begins, according to one person knowledgeable about the process. During interrogation,
US task force members watch through a two-way mirror, he said.
"Technically, the questioning is done by a Saudi citizen. But, for all
practical purposes, it is done live," he said. The United States and
Saudis "are not 'cooperating' anymore; we're doing it together."
He said the CIA sometimes prefers Saudi interrogation sites and other places
in the Arab world because their interrogators speak a detainee's language
and can exploit his religion and customs.
"As hard as it is to believe, you can't physically abuse prisoners in
Saudi Arabia," the Saudi official said. "You can't beat them; you
can't electrocute them."
Instead, he said, the Saudis bring radical imams to the sessions to build
a rapport with detainees, who are later passed on to more moderate imams.
Working in tandem with relatives of the detainees, the clerics try to convince
the subjects over days or weeks that terrorism violates tenets of the Koran
and could bar them from heaven.
"According to our guys, almost all of them turn," the Saudi official
said. "It's like deprogramming them. There is absolutely no need to put
them through stress. It's more of a therapy."
The Saudis don't want or need to be directed by American intelligence specialists,
who have difficulty understanding Arab culture and tribal relations, he said.
"We know where they grew up," he said of the detainees. "We
know their families. We know the furniture in their home."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company | Research editor Margot Williams
contributed to this report. --
Top
Witness Faults Actions of
Prison Interrogators
An intelligence member at a hearing in Iraq says some went
too far to try to get information.
By Richard A. Serrano and Patrick J. McDonnell Los AngelesTimes
May 13, 2004
WASHINGTON — A member of the military intelligence battalion operating
at the Abu Ghraib prison testified at a secret hearing in Baghdad this month
that interrogators at the prison sometimes went too far in trying to extract
information from detainees.
It was the first known instance of a member of an intelligence unit testifying
about misconduct by interrogators at the notorious prison outside Baghdad
that is at the center of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal involving military
prison guards.
In testimony described in military documents obtained by The Times, Sgt. Samuel
Jefferson Provance III said a military interrogator he identified as Spc.
Armin John Cruz often played rough with detainees when they were taken to
special booths to be interviewed.
"Spc. Cruz was known to bang on the table, yell, scream and maybe assaulted
detainees during interrogations in the booth," Provance testified. "This
was not to be discussed. It was kept 'hush-hush' by the individual interrogators."
It was unclear whether Cruz was disciplined.
In the same documents, which were recorded at a hearing into the conduct of
one of the seven military police under investigation for abuses at Abu Ghraib,
the Army's lead investigator said the guards were a rogue band "just
having some fun with the prisoners" and not carrying out orders to "soften
up" detainees for interrogation.
The investigator said his team had found "absolutely no evidence"
that the abuses had been authorized by officers in the Army chain of command.
The new information came as officials in Baghdad announced that two more of
the seven Abu Ghraib guards would stand trial at courts-martial. One of them,
Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, was accused of taking some
of the photographs of mistreatment that have drawn outrage worldwide.
He also was charged with directing prisoners to commit sexual acts, which
were photographed, documents outlining the charges said.
And Sgt. Javal S. Davis was charged with taking part in an incident in which
a group of detainees was forced into a pile on the prison floor and then physically
assaulted by guards.
Frederick and Davis became the second and third military policemen to face
courts-martial in connection with the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. The first
soldier charged, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, could be sentenced to a maximum of one
year in jail if convicted.
Frederick and Davis may face much heavier sentences in so-called general court-martial
proceedings. Sivits' court-martial is scheduled to begin May 19 in Baghdad.
No date was given for proceedings involving Frederick and Davis.
Several of the military police have told investigators that they were directed
by military intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib to soften up detainees before
they were scheduled to be questioned by military and civilian interrogators.
Some lawmakers and military brass have questioned whether the practice may
have led directly to some of the abuses.
Military officials emphasized that the investigation of the Abu Ghraib incidents
were continuing, along with investigations of what may be dozens of other
instances of prisoner abuse there and elsewhere in Iraq. Additional charges
were likely to be filed, officials indicated.
And, although officers in the chain of command may not have known about the
abuses, military investigators have said it was their responsibility to know
what was going on.
At the closed military hearing in Baghdad this month, Sgt. Provance described
an incident in which Spc. Luciana Spencer, another military interrogator,
"made a detainee walk to his cell naked in front of other detainees."
He said she was later relieved from her assignment.
Provance also said that Spc. Hanna Slagel told him that guards "made
[male detainees] wear women's panties, and if they cooperated, some would
get an extra blanket."
He said she also told him that because two detainees were accused of raping
a child, the guards "punished them by making them get into all sorts
of sexual positions."
Provance said intelligence officers were guilty of at least not reporting
cases of abuse.
He added that a colleague from a Nevada National Guard unit, whom he described
as an older female soldier, told him of "some stuff that she saw going
on." He said she documented the abuse, but that her chain of command
admonished her for reporting it.
"She was afraid of the chain of command," Provance said.
At the same hearing on the seven Abu Ghraib guards, Special Agent Tyler Pieron
of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, a key detective in the growing
scandal, identified ringleaders as Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Frederick
and Davis.
He said the three, along with four others, abused prisoners in the middle
of the night "after the chain-of-command shifts had gone home."
They were caught only after another guard saw photographs of the abuse and
turned them in because he "wanted the abuse to stop," Pieron is
quoted in the court-martial documents as saying.
The hearing was held May 1 into charges against Spc. Megan M. Ambuhl, one
of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company who have been implicated
in the prison incidents. She has been accused of four offenses: conspiracy,
dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners, and indecent acts.
But on May 8, the hearing officer in her case recommended that the latter
two charges be dismissed. Maj. Charles W. Ransome said he found several weaknesses
in the case against her. He ruled that, while Ambuhl was "present"
when naked detainees were stacked into a pyramid and when they were forced
to masturbate, she had not "carried out any act of cruelty or maltreatment"
against them.
But Ransome invited military prosecutors to provide fresh evidence if they
wanted to keep all four charges intact against Ambuhl for a future court-martial.
Ambuhl and the six others who have been charged have pleaded not guilty.
Pieron, the army criminal investigator, said the seven guards operated on
their own without any of their superiors aware that they were abusing detainees.
Many of the abused prisoners were never supposed to have been interrogated,
Pieron said. Rather, he said, the guards were upset because the prisoners
had been in a fight. "This appeared to me to be just retaliation against
the rioters," Pieron said.
He added, "Taking pictures of sexual positions, the assaults, and things
along that nature were done simply because they could. It all happened after
hours.
"These individuals wanted to do this for fun," he said.
Pieron said some guards had complained to Frederick about prisoner mistreatment.
Apparently, Pieron added, when those complaints to him were made, "it
did not go anywhere."
Pieron also said Davis was interviewed twice by investigators and that he
"lied in his first statement, and told the truth in his second statement,
admitting to stepping, stomping, and jumping on the detainees."
Pieron said his unit interviewed all of the military interrogators and found
no proof that they encouraged the abuse.Dan Senor, chief spokesman for L.
Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, told Iraqi journalists Wednesday:
"We share your outrage. What occurred at Abu Ghraib offends the sensibilities
of all Americans. It offends the sensibilities of all Iraqis."
-----------------------------------------
Top
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
U.S.
Officials Defend Interrogation Tactics
Rumsfeld and others tell a Senate panel that the approved techniques
in questioning Iraqi prisoners conform to the Geneva Convention.
By Esther Schrader and Greg Miller Los Angeles Times | May 13, 2004
WASHINGTON — Top U.S. defense officials said Wednesday that military
interrogation techniques approved for use in Iraq, such as depriving detainees
of sleep, having military dogs present and placing prisoners in humiliating
poses did not violate international law.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that the misconduct
shown in photos and videos from the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison was inhumane
and would be punished. However, he said, other interrogation procedures involving
"physical and psychological manipulation" are permissible.
The testimony by Rumsfeld and others before the Senate defense appropriations
subcommittee focused on what techniques the military had deemed appropriate
in interrogating prisoners and how those related to the Geneva Convention.
It came on a day when members of Congress viewed new videos and photos of
Iraqi prisoner abuse.
Questions about the approved procedures come as lawmakers investigating the
abuses reach into the Pentagon's chain of command to seek contributing factors.
They have asked about the climate in which soldiers worked at Abu Ghraib,
orders given by top commanders in Iraq and intelligence-gathering policies
at the highest levels of the Defense Department. Many lawmakers blame an unchecked
drive to gather usable intelligence for creating the conditions that led to
some of the abuses.
Rumsfeld rejected that argument, saying that while the "abuses that took
place are terrible, they're inhumane, they're inexcusable," they are
not the result of Pentagon policies.
He told the committee that the Geneva Convention applied to all prisoners
held in Iraq, but not to those at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
whom he deemed "terrorists" and therefore not subject to international
norms.
Rumsfeld said Pentagon lawyers had decided that practices such as dietary
changes and isolation for longer than 30 days complied with the Geneva Convention,
the international rules on war. A list of U.S. interrogation practices was
released this week by the Pentagon.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the techniques approved by the
Pentagon "go far beyond the standard which says there will be no physical
or mental torture nor any other form of coercion." Durbin pointed to
international rules that prohibited the use of "unpleasant or disadvantageous
treatment of any kind."
Myers replied that the practices were legal. "Every time we have an interrogation,
we have an interrogation plan," he told senators. "Those are appropriate.
And that's what we're told by legal authorities and by anybody that believes
in humane behavior."
Noting that an American soldier was missing in Iraq, Durbin said: "I
don't believe what you have issued is consistent with the Geneva Convention.
And I think now, more than ever, in light of what happened in that prison,
in light of the fact that an American serviceman is being held, we should
be clear and unequivocal."
The Geneva Convention, a series of international agreements on war adopted
in 1949, protects civilians in occupied territories as well as prisoners of
war.
The list of interrogation techniques approved by the Pentagon showed that
U.S. military leaders believed that the Convention and international law provided
wide latitude to employ an array of aggressive methods to get prisoners to
talk, a review of the procedures and interviews with interrogators show.
The so-called "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" that were posted
at the Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities in Iraq required interrogators
to obtain their commanders' approval before using the more severe methods.
The rules stipulated that detainees "NEVER be touched in a malicious
or unwanted manner," and interrogators stressed that they had nothing
to do with the sadistic abuses meted out by MPs working the night shift at
one of Abu Ghraib's high-security cell blocks.
The sheet listing the rules of engagement is divided into two sections. Approaches
that can be used without prior approval include "incentive," in
which some reward is dangled for cooperation and "fear up harsh,"
which involves trying to frighten the prisoner with table-pounding outbursts.
Methods that require approval include the use of humiliating poses, called
"stress positions"; "presence of mil working dogs"; isolation
for longer than 30 days; and the manipulation of prisoners' diets.
"Sensory deprivation" refers to the use of hoods on prisoners to
keep them disoriented, interrogators said. "Environmental manipulation"
could mean anything from providing extra blankets to subjecting prisoners
to light or dark environments to confuse them.
In interviews with The Times, interrogators who had worked at U.S.-run prisons
in Iraq and Afghanistan described how the guidelines were implemented.
One interrogator at Abu Ghraib said even the settings where interrogations
took place were changed to reward or punish prisoners. "We would move
them to a nice place, a couch, with end tables and a lamp" if they were
offering good information, the interrogator said. If cooperation waned, they
might be questioned in dirty tents.
Several interrogators said that direct approaches — in which interrogators
asked straightforward questions and were honest about detainees' circumstances
— were generally most effective. But so-called high-value detainees often
have been trained to resist.
"The harder cases were more susceptible to harder approaches — adjusted
sleep schedules, sleep deprivation," said one U.S. Army interrogator
who served at the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan. "Guys who
are higher up are usually fairly intelligent and they're going to be able
to play mind games with you."
Prisoners were sometimes kept awake or forced to wear hoods for up to three
days, the interrogators said. They said they would seek to unnerve prisoners
with snarling dogs as they arrived at facilities, and placed them in cells
that were blacked out or bombarded with light — all in an effort to preserve
the "shock of capture" and heighten detainees' anxieties.
Several interrogators who spoke with The Times said they worried that the
controversy surrounding Abu Ghraib would lead to restrictions that would inhibit
their ability to gather intelligence.
"There are few tools interrogators have to use," said a Bagram interrogator.
"If they're taken away to the point that interrogators can only use them
in extreme circumstances, how are we ever to get the information that we're
required to get."
The interrogator added that his unit "had information come out almost
on a daily basis that led to another capture or some kind of terrorist alert
somewhere else in the world."
Experts said that at least some of the Pentagon's approved interrogation rules
may fall into murky legal areas.
"It appears they were written to avoid torture, but without regard to
the peril of violating prohibitions against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights
Watch.
"If you bring working dogs to intimidate someone, that crosses the line.
But something like sleep deprivation, it obviously depends on how severely
it's done."
Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, said many of the
harsher techniques were "clearly inconsistent" with international
rules.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top
Military
Lawyers Sought Outside Help on Interrogation Rules
By Ken Silverstein Los Angeles Times | May 13, 2004
WASHINGTON -- A group of senior military lawyers were so concerned about changes
in the rules designed to safeguard prisoners during interrogation that they
sought help outside the Defense Department, according to a New York lawyer
who headed a recent study of how prisoners have been treated in the war on
terrorism.
The military lawyers were part of the Army Judge Advocate General's office,
which in the past has played a role in ensuring that interrogators did not
violate prisoners' rights.
"They were extremely upset. They said they were being shut out of the
process, and that the civilian political lawyers, not the military lawyers,
were writing these new rules of engagement," said Scott Horton,
who was chairman of the New York City Bar Association committee that filed
its report this month on the interrogation of detainees by the United States.
The report was released just days before the first photos were broadcast showing
naked Iraqi detainees being abused at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison near
Baghdad.
The Pentagon's "interrogation rules of engagement" became a focus
of controversy in the Senate this week because they permitted the use of techniques
such as "stress positions" and "sensory deprivation" and
the presence of military dogs.
Some international law experts, as well as some Senate Democrats, said the
loosened rules violated the Geneva Convention, which forbids soldiers from
using physical force of any sort to obtain information from detainees.
But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the rules had been examined
and approved by lawyers for the administration.
On Tuesday, Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of Defense for intelligence,
said Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, "issued
any number of statements and directives to the effect that detainees in Iraq,
civilian or military, were to be treated under the provisions of the Geneva
Convention."
Cambone said he had been aware of Feith's efforts on the rules "and endorsed
it, of course."
The military lawyers complained that the Pentagon was creating "an atmosphere
of legal ambiguity," Horton said. "What's happened is not an accident.
It is exactly what they were warning about a year ago," he said.
None of the military lawyers would agree to speak publicly, he said, because
to do so would threaten their careers.
All sides agree that the abusive treatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib violates
international law and is far out of bounds. They disagree, however, on whether
the Bush administration's legal policy toward interrogating prisoners caused
or contributed to the abuses.
Administration officials say that a small group of reservists committed crimes
by abusing Iraqis, and that they will be swiftly punished for their actions.
Critics, including Horton, say the administration itself bears part of the
blame for having approved more aggressive interrogation techniques.
The Geneva Convention of 1949 extended protections to civilians in occupied
territories as well as prisoners of war. The international standards came
in response to the brutal treatment of civilians in Asia by the Japanese military
and the German abuses of civilians in occupied Europe.
The fourth segment of the Convention says former fighters and detained civilians
must be treated humanely.
"Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading
treatment shall remain prohibited at any time," it says.
Also forbidden is the use of force to obtain information. "No physical
or mental coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular
to obtain information from them or from third parties," says Article
31 of the 1949 treaty.
The United States has been the occupying power in Iraq since American troops
took control in Baghdad last April. By last fall, when violent attacks against
U.S. troops were increasing, American commanders sought to learn who was behind
the insurgency. And they stepped up efforts to question the thousands of Iraqis
who were being held at Abu Ghraib.
The Pentagon's interrogation rules say the Geneva Convention must be followed,
and that "approaches [to detainees] must always be humane and lawful.
... Detainees will NEVER be touched in a malicious or unwanted manner."
But they also permit, with the commander's approval, the use of "sleep
management," military dogs and "stress positions no longer than
45 minutes."
"The most problematic in my opinion is the presence of military dogs,"
said University of Houston law professor Jordan Paust, a former Army lawyer.
"Even if the dogs are muzzled, they are there to strike terror or intense
fear. That is intimidation," he said.
Sidney Rosdeitcher, a New York lawyer who also worked on the interrogation
study, said he was surprised the Pentagon had authorized sleep deprivation
and the use of painful stress positions.
"That is plainly coercive. If you are deprived of sleep for 72 hours
and questioned with a military dog there, that is degrading and coercive treatment,"
he said.
"We are appalled that the secretary of Defense said these rules were
approved by the lawyers."
Horton said the JAG lawyers told him that Feith pressed for the loosening
of the interrogation rules and won approval for them from the administration's
civilian lawyers earlier in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
Horton said that the administration was following rules that had been approved
for suspected Taliban and al-Qaida detainees at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, who are considered "enemy combatants," not prisoners
of war. A report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba on the abuse at Abu Ghraib
referred to the intention of Lt. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who formerly commanded
the Guantanamo detention facility, to "Gitmo-ize" the prisons in
Iraq when he took command there.
But the situation in Iraq is different and the higher Geneva standards apply,
he said.
"It's one thing when violations occur in the heat of battle, the fog
of war. It's something else when violations of Geneva occur when it is a deliberate
policy cast at the highest levels of the Pentagon -- and I think it's at the
highest levels of the administration," Horton said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
Senator
'Outraged at Outrage' in Iraq Prison Case
Tue May 11, 5:58 PM ET By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners,
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe expressed outrage at the outcry over the scandal and
took aim at "humanitarian do-gooders" investigating American troops.
But Sen. John McCain, himself a former prisoner of war, said such humanitarian
involvement distinguished the United States from its enemies. "I'm probably
not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than
we are by the treatment," Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and an outspoken
conservative, told a U.S. Senate hearing probing the case.
In heated remarks at odds with others on the Senate Armed Services
Committee who criticized the U.S. military's handling of prisoners at the
Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Inhofe said American sympathies should
lie with U.S. troops. "I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian
do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights
violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying,"
he said.
"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic
violations," said Inhofe, whose senatorial Web site describes him as
an advocate of "Oklahoma values." "If they're in cellblock
1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're
insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here
we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
Cindy Shea, 41, who works in advertising in Edmond, Oklahoma,
said of Inhofe's comments: "I wouldn't say those are Oklahoma values.
... I don't think Oklahomans believe in injustice to anybody. I don't think
the treatment there is reflective of the values held by the majority of Americans.
I think what happened there is horrendous. It's the biggest mess ever."
HUMANITARIAN DO-GOODERS
Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was a prisoner
of war in Vietnam, referred ironically to "humanitarian do-gooders"
as he asked a panel of military officials whether the United States should
have signed the Geneva Convention governing war prisoners. When the officials
answered yes, McCain continued in a facetious vein: "Why do you think
we should? Because ... this keeps us from getting information that may save
American lives. This is a restraint by humanitarian do-gooders. Why don't
we just throw them in the trash can and do whatever's necessary?"
McCain said he feared future U.S. prisoners of war could face
"very serious consequences" if U.S. forces "somehow convey
the impression that we've got to do whatever is necessary and humanitarian
do-gooders have no place in this arena."
Tuesday's marathon hearing followed similar long sessions on
Friday with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers,
head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld apologized and said the conduct
at Abu Ghraib did not represent U.S. military personnel in Iraq.
On Tuesday, Rumsfeld defended the U.S. military's role in Iraq
and suggested that Iraq's expected reconstruction was no more deadly that
the building of the United States after the Revolutionary War. "The building
of a free state in Iraq has proceeded probably with fewer lives lost and certainly
no more mayhem that we endured here in the United States 228 years ago when
we were going through it, or than occurred in Japan or Germany after World
War II," Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon.
------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. Top
War historian Philip Knightley
(The First Casualty)
writes, in May 2003: The images released this week on an Islamic website
of the
beheading of American Nick Berg by Iraqi militants and leaked
pictures of
US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners are a
"landmark in the whole history of the way wars are covered",
he said.
“Mr Rumsfeld was indignant at
the publication of such images: "We're functioning with peacetime constraints,
with legal requirements, in a wartime situation in the Information Age, where
people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable
photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our
surprise.However, he admitted that he had not realised the seriousness of
the allegations until the pictures were leaked to the media."
US powerless to halt Iraq
net images
By Robert Plummer BBC News Online May 8, 2004
Last year's US-led war in Iraq presented a showcase for the Pentagon's superior
military technology - but as the occupation drags on, gadgetry is increasingly
showing another side of the American armed forces. When the shocking images
depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops began to surface, it became
clear that many of them were amateur pictures, apparently taken by soldiers
using their own private digital cameras.
The internet also played a role in the distribution of the photographs, highlighting
the ease with which troops serving in Iraq can now send pictures to friends
and relatives back home.
Many of these are quite innocuous, the equivalent of the snaps taken by tourists
abroad. But whatever the content, the images are not subject to any kind of
military censorship and are transmitted freely back to the US.
In his testimony to congressional committees, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
indicated that the flood of pictures was now beyond the US authorities' control.
"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist," he said.
"If these are released to the public, obviously it is going to make matters
worse... I looked at them last night and they are hard to believe."
Unapproved footage
Mr Rumsfeld was indignant at the publication of such images: "We're functioning
with peacetime constraints, with legal requirements, in a wartime situation
in the Information Age, where people are running around with digital cameras
and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against
the law, to the media, to our surprise."
However, he admitted that he had not realised the seriousness of the allegations
until the pictures were leaked to the media.
The internet has been acting as an unofficial clearing-house for all sorts
of unapproved images of conflict in Iraq. Photographs of the coffins of dead
American soldiers repatriated from Iraq were published on the web, but only
after activists successfully filed a Freedom of Information Act request to
overcome the Pentagon's objections.
And at least one website is showing a video report containing footage apparently
shot from the cockpit of a US military helicopter and showing the killing
of a wounded insurgent in cold blood.
The film is said to have come from a European working as a sub-contractor
for the US Army who left Iraq last month.
Despite Mr Rumsfeld's concerns, the American military does not have any centrally
determined policy on the use of digital cameras by soldiers. That is left
to commanding officers in the field.
In the old days, letters got censored... Now it's different.
A spokesman for US Central Command in Iraq, Lt Cdr Nick Balice, told BBC News
Online: "Certainly the use of digital cameras and the internet provides
methods of communicating that did not exist prior.
"As far as I know, there is not a policy that covers theatre-wide with
regards to digital cameras. It depends on what area they are in - there may
be restrictions, such as along flight lines or within secure areas."
BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus points out that frontline soldiers
in combat zones are normally too busy to take pictures and that this is more
of an issue for what are called "rear area support troops".
"The US military have reasonably sophisticated camps for their troops,"
he says.
"In those places, they're often linked to the internet and it's a legitimate
means of allowing soldiers to communicate with their families. It's hard to
control the content of what they're saying."
Jonathan Marcus argues that social change, just as much as technological change,
is responsible for the climate that allows these images of abuse to circulate.
"In World War I, the only means of communication was by letter, and military
mail was heavily censored. Even when soldiers returned home, social pressures
probably led them not to talk at length about the issues they faced.
"Now it's different - you have a professional army and people have a
different attitude to authority."
In a less deferential society, today's soldiers would be unlikely to tolerate
the level of censorship that was considered routine in previous conflicts.
But of course, the real issue is not the depiction of the abuse, but the fact
that it should have happened at all.
"Certainly one of the issues that might be looked into is the use of
digital cameras and whether or not any policy might be desirable," says
US Central Command's Lt Cdr Balice.
"But if there's some kind of thought that we might introduce a policy
because we fear that wrongdoing might be exposed, then that is incorrect.
In any case, the photographing of detainees is prohibited."
Ultimately, then, the only way that the coalition can prevent the spread of
images depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is to prevent the abuse itself.
Technology may change, but the morality of war will always pose the same dilemmas.
For
Iraqi women, Abu Ghraib's taint
Photos - even if fake - spark rumors that hit family
honor
By Annia Ciezadlo | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor | May 28,
2004
BAGHDAD – The pictures would horrify anyone: hooded US soldiers raping
and torturing naked Iraqi women at gunpoint. But for Farah al-Azzawi, these
blurry photos burn with agony and shame.
Ms. Azzawi is part of a secret sisterhood: her mother is one of three women
inside Abu Ghraib, the notorious prison where US soldiers took smiling snapshots
of themselves sadistically humiliating Iraqis.
That's why some anonymous ill-wisher slipped a newspaper with the rape photos
on the front page under her front door.
The pictures in the paper are fakes, bad copies lifted from a porn website
and now ricocheting around the Internet. But in Iraq, where the photos circulate
on floppy discs and CDs and splash across newspapers and TV screens, most
people believe them.
"I know they're not real, but people won't believe it," says Azzawi,
a pretty 20-year-old, holding up the paper with a shaking hand. "Who's
going to marry their daughters after they see a thing like that?"
It's not just the shame that makes Azzawi's hands shake with rage. What makes
the counterfeit photos so searing, for her, is the fear that they might hold
some truth. Among the 1,800 or so pictures taken by American soldiers at Abu
Ghraib, there are others, viewed by Congress but not released to the public,
of at least one Iraqi woman forced to bare her breasts. And a US military
investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, cited at least one case of a military
police guard "having sex with" a female prisoner.
A spokesman denies that any of the five women now in coalition custody - three
at Abu Ghraib, two more at other locations - have been abused. "All of
these women being detained have been treated humanely," says Lt. Col.
Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the general in charge of detention operations.
"None of their families need to be concerned that their dignity has been
tarnished during their detention."
But in Iraq, where rumors alone can destroy a woman's reputation, the consequences
of US detention are much more severe for women than for men. In a way, it
scarcely matters if Azzawi's mother was raped or not: If she denies being
raped, nobody will believe her, because Iraqi women rarely admit to being
raped, a charge that can ruin a woman's life.
Now that there are real pictures of US troops sexually humiliating Iraqi women,
reality and rumors have tangled inseparably. "With the pictures and the
CDs, it becomes almost irrelevant if they're raped or not," says Manal
Omar, the Iraq coordinator of Women for Women, which helps women in former
war zones. "Even before the torture, the rumor was out that they were
raping women in the prison. With or without the pictures from the porn site,
the real pictures made people believe that. It made that rumor fact."
Rumors of prison rape have been eddying for months. They started with a letter,
allegedly smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a female prisoner. Passed from one
person to another, the letter and the photos are being used by anti-US clerics
and militants to stir up outrage against the occupation.
"Please, bomb us with bombs, and even with nuclear weapons, because we
are all pregnant by American soldiers," reads one version of the letter.
"Every day they walk us naked in front of soldiers and other prisoners.
We want you to know that if you have a daughter in here, or a mother, or a
sister, that she has been raped and is pregnant by these American soldiers."
The letter might be fabricated - different versions of it crop up, and no
one has been able to find the girl who wrote it. But to most Iraqis, it doesn't
really matter: the real photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib gave all rumors, both
true and false, instant credibility.
Even before the scandal at Abu Ghraib, many Iraqis viewed imprisonment of
women as tantamount to rape. "In our culture, if a woman has been to
prison, it's as though she has been violated," says Yanar Mohammed, a
woman's rights activist and editor of the newspaper Equality. "It is
assumed that men have put their hands on her, that she has been touched in
improper ways."
In Iraq, even a whisper of rape is enough to dishonor a woman - and her family.
Sometimes families will even kill women who have been raped to "wash"
the stain from the family name.
That may be what happened to one girl, rumored to have been pregnant when
she was released. "Her father and brother wanted to kill her," says
Huda al-Nuaimi, a professor at Baghdad University who is interviewing female
prisoners as a volunteer for Amnesty International. "The sheikh of the
mosque and the neighbors stopped them, because she was raped, and it wasn't
her fault."
But when Dr. Nuaimi went to visit the girl, her family had moved away. The
neighbors told her they didn't know where they went - unusual in Aadhimiyah,
the girl's tight-knit Baghdad neighborhood. "I wonder whether this girl
is still alive," says Ms. Nuaimi, a professor who wears a tiny silver
outline of Iraq around her neck. "I think, given this local custom, it
would be very difficult for her to stay alive."
Azzawi hasn't seen her mother since Dec. 24th, the day she was arrested with
her sister, Azzawi's aunt. She goes to Abu Ghraib and spends hours standing
in the dusty parking lot, hoping to be allowed to see her mother. But the
guards on duty, she says, tell her, "there are no women here."
In fact, there are three women at Abu Ghraib. Kept separately from the men,
with female guards, the women are inside cellblock 1A, the infamous ward where
most of the military pictures were taken. "They are living together,"
says Colonel Johnson, "separated from the male detainees, for their own
well being and to ensure their privacy is fully respected."
Declining to discuss specific cases, Johnson could not confirm whether Azzawi's
mother and aunt were among those three women. But Azzawi got a letter two
months ago from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors
prison conditions, telling her that her mother was being held at Abu Ghraib.
Like most families of detainees, she still doesn't know whether her mother
has been charged with any crime.
On May 14, Azzawi was allowed to visit her uncle, also being held at Abu Ghraib.
She took her cousin Raghada Qusay, a 14-year-old with large, sad eyes. Raghada's
mother - sister of Azzawi's mother - is in Abu Ghraib, too.
The girls were horrified to see that their uncle's nose had been broken. He
told them it didn't matter. "What's important are my sisters," he
told them tearfully through a glass window. "They were humiliated. I'm
desperate."
They listened in horror as he told them what he said he'd seen: Raghada's
mother forced to take off her head scarf. "My mother wears a hijab, and
my uncle told us they were dragging her by her hair," says Raghada, her
eyes red from crying.
In a torrent of words, she speaks of other tortures: her mother forced to
eat from a dirty toilet. Urinated on. As the stories rush out, it's hard to
tell what she heard from her uncle and what is prison scuttlebutt.
As Raghada speaks, her 21
Messenger
causes: Readers of Greek tragedies know that it is a time-honored
tradition to blame the messenger, the bearer of bad news: in this
case, the media responsible for the public revelations (CBS
"Sixty Minutes,"
and Seymour
Hersch, in The New Yorker; and other disseminators, domestic and foreign,
especially Arab TV) for releasing
such photos or making such a big issue. Conservative critic Thomas
Sowell called it a "feeding frenzy... the latest in a series of irreponsible
media outbursts which jeopardize our troops."
George
W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Jacques Chirac