Tactics of Torture & Abuse Under Former CIA Director George Tenet
Under George Tenet’s direction, and reportedly with his specific authorization, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is said to have tortured detainees through water boarding and withholding medicine. Other tactics reportedly used by the CIA include feigning suffocation, "stress positions,” light and noise bombardment, sleep deprivation, and making detainees believe they were in the hands of governments that routinely torture. Under Director Tenet, the CIA “rendered” detainees to other governments which tortured the detainees. Under Director Tenet’s direction the CIA also put detainees beyond the protection of the law, in secret locations in which they were rendered completely defenseless, with no resource or remedy whatsoever, with no contact with the outside world, and completely at the mercy of their captors. These detainees, in long-term incommunicado detention, have effectively been “disappeared.”
George Tenet was the director of central intelligence (DCI) until his resignation in June 2004. As such, he served as head of the Central Intelligence Agency.174
The CIA’s “different rules” in the “global war on terror” can be traced in part to a secret but now-infamous August 1, 2002 Justice Department memorandum to Alberto Gonzales, then White House Counsel, in response to a CIA request for guidance.180 The memo said that torturing al-Qaeda detainees in captivity abroad “may be justified” and that international laws against torture “may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations” conducted in the war on terrorism. The memo added that the doctrines of “necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability” on the part of officials who tortured al- Qaeda detainees. The memo also took an extremely narrow view of which acts might constitute torture.
The August 2002 memo was reportedly prepared after a debate within the government about the methods used to interrogate alleged al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah after his capture in April 2002.181 Reports suggest that CIA interrogation methods were authorized by a still-secret set of rules that were endorsed in August 2002 by the U.S. Justice Department and the White House. These were said to include water boarding and refusal of pain medication for injuries.182 Indeed, according to The New York Times:
The methods employed by the CIA are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said. The F.B.I. officials have advised the bureau’s director, Robert S. Mueller III that the interrogation techniques, which would be prohibited in criminal cases, could compromise their agents in future criminal cases, the counterterrorism officials said.183
Under Director Tenet, the CIA also developed the widespread practice of using “ghost detainees.”
The CIA kept a number of detainees off the books at Abu Ghraib, hiding them from the ICRC. The Fay/Jones report spoke of eight such “ghost” detainees at Abu Ghraib, kept off the prison’s roster at the CIA’s request. In one of those cases, in November 2003, a detainee brought to the prison by CIA employees but never formally registered with military guards died at the site, and his body was removed after being wrapped in plastic and packed in ice.184
In later congressional testimony, General Paul Kern, the senior officer who oversaw the
Fay/Jones inquiry, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “The number [of ghost
detainees] is in the dozens, perhaps up to 100.” Gen. Fay put the figure at “two dozen or so.” Both officers said they could not give a precise number because no records were kept and because the CIA refused to provide information to the investigators.185 The Church report put the number at 30.186 Logbooks showed that there were consistently three to ten ghost detainees at Abu Ghraib from mid-October 2003 to January 2004.187 Some “ghost detainees” at Abu Ghraib were put in disruptive sleep programs and interrogated in shower rooms and stairwells.188
In the case of Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul, Barry Whitman, Pentagon spokesperson, confirmed that Tenet had specifically asked for the detainee to be hidden “without notification.”189
Earlier, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba sharply criticized this practice of keeping “ghost detainees,” correctly saying that “This maneuver was deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine, and in violation of international law.”190
The CIA also reportedly transported as many as a dozen non-Iraqi detainees out of Iraq between April 2003 and March 2004. The transfers were apparently authorized by a draft Department of Justice memo dated March 19, 2004. The CIA has not released the detainees’ names or nationalities, and it is unclear whether the detainees were handed over to “friendly” governments or kept in secret American-run sites.191
Under Director Tenet, the CIA "disappeared" detainees
Under Director Tenet, prisoners have “disappeared” in CIA custody in that they have been detained in undisclosed locations with no access to the ICRC, no oversight of their treatment, no notification to their families, and in many cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held.192 Human Rights Watch has pieced together information on eleven such detainees who have “disappeared” in U.S. custody, though there may be more. They are:
1. Ibn al-Shaikh al-Libi (Libya)
2. Abu Zubayda, a.k.a. Zubeida, Zain al-`Abidin Muhammad Husain, `Abd al-Hadi al-
Wahab (Palestinian)
3. Omar al-Faruq (Kuwait)
4. Abu Zubair al-Haili, a.k.a. Fawzi Saad al-`Obaydi (Saudi Arabia)
5. Ramzi bin al-Shibh (Yemen)
6. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a.k.a. Abu Bilal al-Makki, Abdul Rahman Husain al-Nashari,
formerly Muhammad Omar al-Harazi (Born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia)
7. Mustafa al-Hawsawi (Saudi Arabia)
8. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, a.k.a. Shaikh Muhammad, Ashraf Ref`at Nabith Henin,
Khalid `Abd al-Wadud, Salem `Ali, Fahd bin Abdullah bin Khalid (Kuwait)
9. Waleed Muhammad bin Attash, a.k.a. Tawfiq ibn Attash, Tawfiq Attash Khallad
(Yemen)
10. Adil al-Jazeeri (Algeria)
11. Hambali, a.k.a. Riduan Isamuddin (Indonesia)193
The CIA has consistently refused to provide information on the fate or the whereabouts of these detainees. For instance, Human Rights Watch has made repeated requests for information on Hambali’s location, legal status, and conditions of detention — none of which has been answered.194 The news media has had no more success, as evidenced by a report on ABC’s
“Nightline”: “As for the details of where they are being held, exactly how they are being treated, and what the US plans to do with them, that is all a secret. When asked why, an official from the CIA explained, that’s a secret, too.”195
The International Committee of the Red Cross has also repeatedly sought information on the detainees. In a March 2004 public statement, it noted:
Beyond Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, the ICRC is increasingly concerned about the fate of an unknown number of people captured as part of the so called global war on terror and held in undisclosed locations. For the ICRC,
obtaining information on these detainees and access to them is an important humanitarian priority and a logical continuation of its current detention work in Bagram and Guantánamo Bay.196
In June, Erof Bosisio of the ICRC complained:
We are more and more concerned about the lot of the unknown number of people captured in the context of what we would call “the war against terror” and detained in secret places…We have asked for information on these people and access to them. Until now we have received no response from the Americans.197
According to The New York Times, “the agency has refused to grant any independent observer or human rights group access to the high-level detainees, who have been held in strict secrecy. Their whereabouts are such closely guarded secrets that one official said he had been told that Mr. Bush had informed the CIA that he did not want to know where they were.”198
It is not clear what the authority is under U.S. law for holding these suspects under these
conditions of clandestinity. In June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act, which Congress passed after September 11, 2001, authorizing the president to pursue al-Qaeda and its supporters, gave him the power to detain enemy forces captured in battle. Speaking for the plurality of the court, however, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, “Certainly, we agree that indefinite detention for the purposes of interrogation is not authorized.”199 U.S. law considers both “prolonged detention without charges and trial,” and “causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons” to constitute “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”200
Although “disappearances” as such are not defined and punished under U.S. law, prolonged incommunicado detention itself is inhuman treatment in contravention of both CAT and the Geneva Conventions, and therefore subject to prosecution under the War Crimes Act and the Anti-Torture Statute. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has noted that “prolonged incommunicado detention … can in itself constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”201 Likewise, the U.N. Human Rights Committee found “prolonged incommunicado detention in an unknown location” to be “torture and cruel, inhuman treatment.”202
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172 In addition, there may be as many as 100 “ghost detainees” kept hidden from the ICRC (“Rumsfeld Defends Pentagon
in Abuse Scandal,” Associated Press, September 10, 2004).
173 The Department of Defense has reported that abuses against detainees fell sharply after the Abu Ghraib revelations
(Josh White, “Reported Abuse Cases Fell after Abu Ghraib,” The Washington Post, March 17, 2005, p. A17). This
suggests that attention to proper treatment of detainees can have a salutory effect.
174 50 U.S.C. § 403 (a) (3).
180 Jay S. Bybee to Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, memorandum, “Standards for Conduct of Interrogation
under 18 U.S.C. Sections 2340-2340A,” August 1, 2002 [online],
http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/doj/bybee80102mem.pdf. (This memorandum has since been repudiated by the
administration.)
181 David Johnston and James Risen, “Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion for Qaeda Cases,” The New York Times, June
27, 2004.
182 See Toni Locy and John Diamond, “Memo Lists Acceptable ‘Aggressive’ Interrogation Methods: Justice Dept. Gave
Guidance to CIA,” USA Today, June 28, 2004; Dana Priest, “CIA Puts Harsh Tactics on Hold,” The Washington Post,
June 27, 2004.
183 James Risen, David Johnston and Neil A. Lewis, “Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited In Top Qaeda Interrogations,” The New
York Times, May 13, 2004.
184 MG George R. Fay, AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade,
2004 [online], http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/dod/fay82504rpt.pdf, pp. 53-54.
185 Senate Armed Services Committee, Investigation of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq,
September 9, 2004. According to General Kern, “A ghost detainee, by our definition, is a person who has been detained in
a U.S. facility and has not been recorded.”
186 Church report, p. 18.
187 Josh White, “Abu Ghraib Guards Kept a Log of Prison Conditions, Practices,” The Washington Post, October 25, 2004.
188 Ibid.
189 Charles Aldinger, “Military Hid Prisoner from Red Cross,” CommonDreams News Center, July 17, 2004 [online],
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0617-04.htm.
190 Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade, (an investigative report, on alleged abuses at U.S. military prisons in Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, Iraq), para. 33, emphasis added.
191 Douglas Jehl, “Prisoners: U.S. Action Bars Right of Some Captured in Iraq,” The New York Times, October 26, 2004;
Dana Priest, “Memo Lets CIA Take Detainees out of Iraq,” The Washington Post, October 24, 2004.
192 “Enforced disappearance,” the systematic practice of which can be a crime against humanity, is defined by the Article 7 (2) (1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as the
193 See Human Rights Watch, “The United States’ ‘Disappeared’: The CIA’s Long-Term ‘Ghost Detainees,’” A Human
Rights Watch Briefing Paper, October 2004 [online], http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/us1004/.
194 Human Rights Watch, “In the Name of Security: Counterterrorism and Human Rights Abuses under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act,” A Human Rights Watch Report, May 2004 [online], http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/malaysia0504/.
195 John McWethy, “Nightline,” ABC News, May 13, 2004.
196 International Committee of the Red Cross, “United States: ICRC President Urges Progress on Detention-Related
Issues,” March 4, 2004 [online],
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList74/774F1B35A7E20CC9C1256E1D007741C1.
197 “Rights Groups Raise Concerns over Secret U.S.-run Prisons in Afghanistan,” Agence France Presse, June 19, 2004.
198 James Risen, David Johnston, and Neil A. Lewis, “Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited In Top Qaeda Interrogations,” The New York Times, May 13, 2004.
199 Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al., No. 03-6696, (2004), 2004 U.S. LEXIS 4761, p. 13.
200 22 U.S.C. § 2304 (d) (1).
201 Commission on Human Rights, (United Nations: Geneva, 2004), Resolution 2004/41, emphasis added. See also
“ICCPR General Comment 20 (Forty-fourth Session, 1992): Article 7: Replaces General Comment 7 Concerning
Prohibition of Torture and Cruel Treatment or Punishment,” A/47/40 (1992) 193, para 6 (“prolonged solitary confinement
of the detained or imprisoned person may amount to acts prohibited by article 7”).
202 El-Megreisi v. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Communication No. 440/1990, (United Nations: 1994), CCPR/C/50/D/440/1990. The Inter-American Court on Human Rights has also held that “prolonged isolation and deprivation of communication are in themselves cruel and inhuman treatment.” Inter-Am. Ct. H. R., Velasquez-Rodriguez case, Judgment of 29 July 1988, Series C, No. 4, para. 156. ( “prolonged isolation and deprivation of communication are in themselves cruel and inhuman treatment, harmful to the psychological and moral integrity of the person and a violation of the right of any detainee to respect for his inherent dignity as a human being. Such treatment, therefore, violates Article 5 of the [American] Convention on Human Rights [prohibition against torture etc.].”) As noted above, the Third Geneva Convention in article 126 (concerning prisoners of war) and the Fourth Geneva Convention in article 143 (concerning detained civilians) requires the ICRC to have access to all detainees and places of detention. Visits may only be prohibited for "reasons of imperative military necessity" and then only as "an exceptional and temporary measure." These provisions also require that prisoners be documented, and that their whereabouts be made available to their family and governments.
