The interrogation methods were approved by Justice Department According to the Washington Post:
The interrogation methods were approved by Justice Department and National
Security Council lawyers in 2002, briefed to key congressional leaders and required the authorization of CIA Director George J. Tenet for use, according to intelligence officials and other government officials with knowledge of the secret decision making process.213
The CIA has reportedly used torture and other prohibited mistreatment in other detention
centers as well. As early as December 2002, The Washington Post reported that in the “forbidden zone” at the U.S.-occupied Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan: Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights — subject to what are known as “stress and duress” techniques.214
Newsweek reported a clash between the FBI and the CIA during the interrogation in Afghanistan of terror suspect Ibn al-Shaikh al-Libi:
FBI officials brought their plea to retain control over al-Libi’s interrogation up to FBI Director Robert Mueller. The CIA station chief in Afghanistan, meanwhile, appealed to the agency’s hawkish counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black. He in turn called CIA Director George Tenet, who went to the White House. Al-Libi was handed over to the CIA. “They duct-taped his mouth, cinched himup and sent him to Cairo” for more-fearsome Egyptian interrogations, says the ex-FBI official. “At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, ‘You’re going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there I’m going to find your mother and I’m going to f--- her.’ So we lost that fight.” (A CIA official said he had no comment.)215
The Washington Post likewise reported that the capture of al-Libi generated the first real fight over interrogations of the secret detainees: the CIA wanted to threaten his life and family; the FBI objected.216 Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez “As senior commander in Iraq, I accept responsibility for what happened at Abu Ghraib” Ricardo Sanchez250 Lt. Gen. Sanchez should be investigated for war crimes and torture either as a principal or under the doctrine of “command responsibility.” Gen. Sanchez authorized interrogation methods that violate the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture. He knew, or should have known, that torture and war crimes were committed by troops under his direct command, but failed to take effective measures to stop these acts. Gen. Miller, who ran the detention operations at Guantánamo Bay, visited Iraq from August to September 2003, and met with Gen. Sanchez and others.
Gen. Sanchez recalls that Gen. Miller “left behind a whole series of SOPs that could be used as a start point for CJTF-7 interrogation operations.”260 Gen. Sanchez took into consideration Gen. Miller’s “call for strong, command wide interrogation policies,” when he finally formalized the interrogation rules for Iraq in a memorandum dated September 14.261 Sanchez’s September 14 memo262 — released only in March 2005 in response to a FDIA lawsuit approved the use of a number of harsh interrogation techniques, including:
• “Presence of Military Working Dog: Exploits Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogations. Dogs will be muzzled and under control of …handler at all times to prevent contact with detainee”;
• “Sleep Management: Detainee provided minimum 4 hours of sleep per 24 hour period, not to exceed 72 continuous hours”;
• “Yelling, Loud Music and Light Control: Used to create fear, disorient detainee and prolong capture shock. Volume controlled to prevent injury”;
• “Stress Positions: Use of physical postures (sitting, standing, kneeling, prode, etc) for no more than 1 hour per use. Use of technique(s) will not exceed 4 hours and adequate rest between use of each position will be provided”; and
• “False Flag: Convincing the detainee that individuals from a country other than the United States are interrogating him.” Among the goals Gen. Sanchez thought these techniques would accomplish were “to create fear, disorient detainees and capture shock.”
The Schlesinger report found that Gen. Sanchez’s September 14 memorandum included “a dozen interrogation techniques beyond [Army] Field Manual 34-52 — five beyond those approved for Guantánamo.”263 As described above in the section on Donald Rumsfeld, these techniques also violate the Geneva Conventions and, depending on their use, can constitute war crimes.
Unreleased portions of the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay state that with Gen. Sanchez’s September 14 order, national policies and those of Gen. Sanchez “collided, introducing ambiguities and inconsistencies in policy and practice,” and that “Policies and practices developed and approved for use on al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees who were not afforded the protection of the Geneva Conventions now applied to detainees who did fall under the Geneva Conventions’ protections.”264 The report adds that the memo “established a requirement to obtain LTG Sanchez’s approval prior to using certain techniques on EPWs [enemy prisoners of war].” The policy failed to address what, if any, approval authority had to be obtained for using any of the interrogation techniques on civilian internees, who were the bulk of the detainees at that time.”265 In other words, Gen. Sanchez apparently gave Abu Ghraib interrogators the blanket authority to use dogs to threaten detainees — an act that may easily amount to torture or cross the threshold into torture.
Gen. Sanchez appears to have misled Congress in his sworn testimony on this issue. Asked in May 2004, months before the release of his actual memoranda, if he had “ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear,” Gen. Sanchez replied: “I never approved any of those measures to be used within the CJTF-7 at any time in the last year.” In response to a follow-up question, he repeated, “I have never approved the use of any of those methods within CJTF-7 in the 12-and-a-half months that I’ve been in Iraq.”266
At the same time, Gen. Sanchez was apparently relaying the pressure from above for “actionable intelligence.” According to one soldier whose testimony is in a declassified attachment to the Fay report:
COL Pappas and (REDACTED) were under intense pressure from LTG Sanchez to provide intelligence reporting...On occasion (REDACTED) and (REDACTED) conducted interrogations themselves. One interrogation occurred at the request of LTG Sanchez in the middle of the night.267
These guidelines were used by personnel at Abu Ghraib until October 2003.268 Gen. Sanchez’s September 14 guidelines were criticized by CENTCOM, however, which viewed them as “unacceptably aggressive,” resulting in Gen. Sanchez drafting new guidelines on October 12, 2003.269
Lt. Gen. Sanchez knew or should have known about torture and war crimes committed by troops under his command
In his Congressional testimony, Gen. Miller was asked to explain how abuse at Abu Ghraib had taken place without the top leadership knowing about it. He replied, “I think there are failures in people doing their duty, there are failures in systems. And we should have known and we should have uncovered it and taken action before it got to the point that it got to. I think there’s no doubt about that.”274
U.S. military personnel under the command of Gen. Sanchez committed numerous war crimes. The Schlesinger report noted 55 substantiated cases of detainee abuse in Iraq, plus 20 instances of detainee deaths still under investigation.275 The earlier Taguba report had found “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” that constituted “systematic and illegal abuse of detainees” at Abu Ghraib.276 The Fay report documents 44 allegations of acts that may amount to war crimes.277 An ICRC report concluded that in military intelligence sections of Abu Ghraib, “methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.”278 The ICRC also found that “the use of ill-treatment against persons deprived of their liberty went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered as a practice tolerated by the CF [Coalition Forces].”279
The Times also reported that:
[I]nterviews with former intelligence officers and interrogators provided new details and confirmed earlier accounts of inmates being shackled for hours and left to soil themselves while exposed to blaring music or the insistent meowing of a cat-food commercial. In addition, some may have been forcibly given enemas as punishment.
While all the detainees were threatened with harsh tactics if they did not cooperate, about one in six were eventually subjected to those procedures, one former interrogator estimated. The interrogator said that when new interrogators arrived they were told they had great flexibility in extracting information from detainees because the Geneva Conventions did not apply at the base.304
Documents released to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit paint a bleak picture of the treatment of Guantánamo detainees under Gen. Miller. In particular, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation express their shock at techniques used on detainees. In one e-mail, an FBI agent wrote:
Here is a brief summary of what I observed at GTMO. On a couple of occassions (sic), I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defacated (sic) on themselves and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more. On one occassion (sic), the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold.
When I asked the [military police] what was going on, I was told that interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved. On another occasion (sic), the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night. On another occassion (sic), not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor. 305
Another FBI agent reported seeing a detainee “sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli flag draped around him, loud music being played and a strobe light flashing.” In another recently-declassified FBI e-mail, the author writes:
from what cnn reports, gen karpinsky at abu gharib (sic) said that gen miller came to the prison several months ago and told her they wanted to “gitmotize” abu ghraib. i am not sure what this means. however, if this refers to intell gathering as i suspect, it suggests he has continued to support interrogation strategies we not only advised against, but questioned in terms of effectiveness.
Yesterday, however, we were surprised to read an article in stars and stripes, in which gen. miller is quoted as saying that he believes in the rapport-building approach. this is not what was saying at gitmo when i was there. [redacted] and I did cart wheels. the battles fought in gitmo while gen. miller he was there are on the record.
Recently-revealed videotapes of so-called “Immediate Reaction Forces” (or “Extreme Reaction Force” (ERF)) reportedly show guards punching some detainees, a guard kneeing a detainee in the head, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down. One guard squad was all-female, traumatizing some Muslim prisoners.306
Between 2002 and 2004, Gen. Miller met on several occasions with the ICRC, which made him aware of their evolving concerns over the treatment of detainees. In October 2003, the ICRC conducted more than 500 interviews at Guantánamo before meeting with Miller and his top aides. According to defense department documents,307 the ICRC told Miller of its concern over the lack of a legal system for the detainees, the continued use of steel cages, the “excessive use of isolation” and the lack of repatriation for the detainees. The ICRC felt that the interrogators had “too much control over the basic needs of detainees… the interrogators have total control over the level of isolation in which detainees were kept; the level of comfort items detainees can receive; and the access to basic needs of the detainees.” According to the documents, Gen. Miller responded that interrogation techniques were not the ICRC’s concern. The ICRC countered that those methods and the lengths of interrogations were coercive and having a “cumulative effect” on the mental health of the detainees.308
One of the detainees whom Gen. Miller refused to show to the ICRC as recently as February 2, 2004, was Abdallah Tabarak, a Moroccan citizen and allegedly Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguard. According to a Department of Defense memo, Gen. Miller told the ICRC that “Because of military necessity, the ICRC may not have private talks with him.” Tabarak was transferred to Morocco in August 2004. In December 2004, he reportedly said that in Guantánamo, he had been beaten, given forcible injections, and held in a dark cell which left him with eyesight problems.309
In June 2004, shortly after Gen. Miller left Guantánamo, the ICRC conducted a full visit and concluded (in the words of The New York Times, which obtained a memorandum based on the ICRC report that quotes from it in detail and lists its major findings):
[I]nvestigators had found a system devised to break the will of the prisoners at Guantánamo… and make them dependent on their interrogators through “humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions.” …[T]he methods used were increasingly “more refined and repressive” than what the Red Cross learned about on previous visits. “The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture.” It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to “some beatings.”310
Thus, there is a mounting body of evidence that acts of torture and war crimes were committed at Guantánamo, and that Gen. Miller, as the commander of the tightly-controlled camp, knew or should have known about these crimes.
” The New York Times, November 30, 2004.
Other Generals in Iraq
Because all of the published probes have focused on the event at Abu Ghraib, the public record is more developed than for the other theatres of abuse. Other generals identified in the Pentagon reports who may bear liability for the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib are:
Major General Barbara Fast: Described in the Jones report as the “senior intelligence officer” on Gen. Sanchez’s staff (the “C2” of CJTF-7), Gen. Fast was responsible for “[p]riorities for intelligence collection, analysis and fusion.”317
Major General Walter Wojdakowski: deputy commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force Seven (CJTF-7), (i.e. Sanchez’s Deputy)
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski: commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade with authority over the U.S. prison facilities in Iraq.
Abu Ghraib-based Officers
Gen. Taguba wrote:
I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC. Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven
Stephanowicz, and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary action as described in the preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability.328
The Fay report found that Col. Pappas, Col. Jordan, Maj. David Price, Maj. Michael Thompson, and Capt. Carolyn Wood, among others, bore individual responsibility for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and that their cases should be forwarded to their chains of command for appropriate action.
The Jones report states that Sanchez used Colonel Marc Warren, the staff judge advocate for CJTF-7 and Gen. Sanchez’s senior legal advisor, “to advise him on the limits of authority for interrogation and compliance with the Geneva Conventions for the memos published.”329 Colonel Stephen Boltz, the second-ranking military intelligence officer in Iraq under General Barbara Fast, was centrally involved in administering intelligence gathering efforts in Iraq, including at Abu Ghraib. The journalist Mark Danner obtained an e-mail sent by an intelligence captain at Abu Ghraib in August 2003 that reads: “The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees, Col. Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken.”330
----------------------------------------------------------------------
213 Dana Priest, “CIA Puts Harsh Tactics on Hold,” The Washington Post, June 27, 2004.
214 Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, “U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations,” The Washington Post, December
26, 2002.
215 Michael Hirsh, John Barry, and Daniel Klaidman, “A Tortured Debate,” Newsweek, June 21, 2004, emphasis added.
216 Dana Priest, “CIA Puts Harsh Tactics on Hold,” The Washington Post, June 27, 2004.
250 Testimony of Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, Senate Armed Services Committee, Hearing on Iraq Prisoner Abuse, May 19,
2004.
260 Fay report, p. 58.
261 Schlesinger report, pp. 9-10.
262 From Lt. Ricardo Sanchez to Commander U.S. Central Command, memorandum, Interrogation and Counter-
Resistance Policy, September 14, 2003 [online], http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17851&c=206.
263 Schlesinger report, p. 9.
264 Fay report, pp. 25-26. See Mark Danner, Torture and Truth; America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terrorism (New
York: The New York Review of Books, 2004), p. 461, which includes sections of the Fay report not released to the public.
265 Fay report, p. 26; Mark Danner, Torture and Truth; America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terrorism (New York: The
New York Review of Books, 2004), p. 462.
266 Senate Armed Services Committee, Hearing on Allegations of Mistreatment of Iraqi Prisoners, May 19, 2004.
267 Sworn Statement of E5, A Company, 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, 525th Military Intelligence Brigade, Fort
Bragg, June 4, 2004.
268 Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, “AR 15-6 Investigation Interview,” February 9, 2004, p. 34.
269 CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy, memorandum, October 12, 2003 [online],
http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/a94.pdf.
274 Testimony of Gen. Miller, Senate Armed Services Committee, Hearing on Allegations of Mistreatment of Iraqi
Prisoners, May 19, 2004, emphasis added.
275 Schlesinger report, pp. 12-13.
276 Taguba report, p. 16.
277 Fay report, p. 7.
278 International Committee of the Red Cross, Report on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and
Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq during Arrest, Internment and Interrogation, February 2004
[online], http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList74/E4EC091842422511C1256EB500636F70 .
279 Ibid.
304 Ibid.
305 American Civil Liberties Union, E-mail from [redacted] to [redacted], August 2, 2004 [online],
www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI_5053_5054.pdf (though this was written in 2004, it was recalling earlier events).
306 Paisley Dodds, “Guantánamo Tapes Show Teams Punching, Stripping Prisoners,” Associated Press, February 1,
2005. In November 2002, just before Miller arrived, U.S. National Guardsman Spc. Sean Baker was allegedly abused by
an ERF while posing undercover as a detainee. Baker was told to put on an orange jumpsuit and crawl under a bunk in a
cell. According to Baker, the ERF members “grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the
individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was facedown. Then he — the same
individual — reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several
seconds, twenty to thirty seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn’t breathe, I began to panic…” Baker was
evacuated to a hospital in Virginia, and was later sent to an Army hospital for treatment of traumatic brain injury and he
has been plagued by seizures ever since. See David Rose, Guantánamo (New York, The New Press, 2004), pp. 72-74.
307 These documents are collected at “Conditions at Guantánamo Bay: DoD Documents Detail Red Cross Comments on
Detainee Treatment and Actions Taken in Response,” The Washington Post, June 18, 2004 [online],
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/gitmomemos.html.
308 See also Scott Higham, “A Look Behind the ‘Wire’ at Guantánamo: Defense Memos Raise Questions about Detainee
Treatment as Red Cross Sought Changes,” The Washington Post, June 13, 2004.
309 See Amnesty International, “United States of America: Guantánamo — An Icon of Lawlessness,” January 6, 2005.
310 Neil A. Lewis, “Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánam
317 Jones report, p. 14.
328 Taguba report, p. 42.
329 Jones report, p. 14.
330 Mark Danner, Torture and Truth; America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terrorism (New York: The New York Review of
Books, 2004), p. 33.