Report Discredits F.B.I. Claims of Abuse at Guantánamo Bay

Sine Pari · Jul 15, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/politics/14gitmo.html

Report Discredits F.B.I. Claims of Abuse at Guantánamo Bay

By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: July 14, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 13 - A high-level military investigation into complaints by F.B.I. agents about the abuse of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, concluded in a report released Wednesday that their treatment was sometimes degrading but did not qualify as inhumane or as torture.

The report was presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt of the Air Force, who conducted the investigation after e-mail messages between Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at Guantánamo and their superiors in Washington were disclosed in a lawsuit.

In the messages, the agents complained that they had seen abusive, possibly illegal behavior by military interrogators. They spoke of "torture techniques" and described detainees forced into uncomfortable positions for 18 to 24 hours at a time or left to soil themselves.

General Schmidt told the committee that his investigation could not substantiate some of the F.B.I. accusations. His report said that some of the practices that evoked criticism among the F.B.I. agents were approved interrogation techniques, like stripping detainees, forcing one to wear women's lingerie and wiping red ink on a detainee and telling him it was menstrual blood.

The unclassified version of the report, which was distributed publicly, provided the military's first acknowledgement that it had used dogs to intimidate prisoners at Guantánamo on a few occasions, as was done later at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In addition, one of the high-value detainees, Mohamed al-Kahtani, whom the military has said confessed that he was meant to be the 20th hijacker in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, was led around on a leash and forced "to perform a series of dog tricks." The leashing of a detainee to humiliate him was another practice that became notorious after it was recorded in a photograph of abuses at Abu Ghraib.

The report said those techniques and others were part of authorized approaches called "ego down" or "futility," which are used to make the interrogation subject question his sense of personal worth or the value of resisting.

General Schmidt said that an accusation by an F.B.I. agent that detainees were deprived of food and water as part of an interrogation regimen could not be substantiated. He said the agent was difficult to find and was therefore not questioned by his staff. Similarly, he said that about 10 former interrogators could not be questioned as they were no longer in the military and declined to answer questions voluntarily.

The report also said investigators could not corroborate an incident recounted by an F.B.I. agent who said she saw a detainee shackled to the floor for hours, soiling himself and pulling out his hair.

The report, the latest of nearly a dozen investigations of abuse of detainees by the military, was greeted by several Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee as a demonstration of the humaneness they said was generally used in Guantánamo.

Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said he was angered that any effort had been expended on investigating these matters.

"It's hard to see why we're so wrapped up in this investigation," Mr. Inhofe said. "We have nothing to be ashamed of."

Several Democrats saw it differently. They said the report demonstrated that the handful of abuses highlighted therein showed that the military was committed to absolving any high-level person of responsibility.

"It is clear from the report that detainee mistreatment was not simply the product of a few rogue military police on a night shift," said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat. "Rather, this mistreatment arose from the use of aggressive interrogation techniques."

General Schmidt had concluded that the special techniques used on Mr. Kahtani were not by themselves a problem. In addition to being segregated from other prisoners for nearly six months and interrogated for up to 20 hours a day, Mr. Kahtani was made to stand naked in front of female soldiers, forced to wear lingerie, forced to dance with a male interrogator and had his copy of a Koran squatted on by an interrogator.

General Schmidt had recommended that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantánamo prison in 2002 and 2003, be reprimanded for failing to exercise proper supervision over the Kahtani interrogation. But Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the commander of the United States Southern Command, overruled that recommendation.
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Read the report itself here - http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/d20050714report.pdf

Ian McCracken · Jul 16, 2005

But, but, but...Karl Rove...

Dan Loney · Jul 16, 2005

Well, exactly, Karl Rove. Like Rove, Schmidt has declared himself innocent.

Since the topic is the military covering up abuses at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram (and I assume elsewhere), I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess this isn't the end of the story.

MikeLastort2 · Jul 16, 2005

I am shocked, absolutely shocked, that the US military would claim that the US military did nothing wrong at Guantanamo.

That is a very risky position for them to take.

Nanbawan · Jul 16, 2005

MikeLastort2 said:

That is a very risky position for them to take.
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Let's admire them.

HerthaBerwyn · Jul 16, 2005

Claiming an act is not inapprioprate because it is 'approved' speaks only to the impropriaty of their approvals. Lingere? Fake menstural blood? Please. Think about the contention being made. 'The allegations are false because we say we get to" Its like the New Your Police shrugging off the shooting of the guy who pulled out his wallet by saying "Accepted department peocedures were followed" Well no problem then.

Its time to cast the fish eye on those doing the 'approving'.

M · Jul 16, 2005

This is pure whitewash. Investigation of US military actions by the US military against 'standards' set by the US military. And an admission that ten interrogators no longer in the military wouldn't answer questions. Interesting that putting a detainee on a dog leash and getting him to perform 'tricks' is apparently within guidelines. When this kind of sh1t arose in Iraq, we were told that it was 'isolated individuals'. So much for that theory. Seems like abuse may in fact have got approved higher up the food chain.

Ian McCracken · Jul 16, 2005

HerthaBerwyn said:

Claiming an act is not inapprioprate because it is 'approved' speaks only to the impropriaty of their approvals. Lingere? Fake menstural blood? Please. Think about the contention being made. 'The allegations are false because we say we get to" Its like the New Your Police shrugging off the shooting of the guy who pulled out his wallet by saying "Accepted department peocedures were followed" Well no problem then.
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Boy, I've read that six times and it still makes no sense.