The Truth About Torture/Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails - Secret Report Implies That U.S. Violated International Law

Washington Post Editorial: The Truth About Torture - An independent panel must ferret out the facts.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 17, 2009; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031602615.html


THE ALLEGATIONS are familiar, yet some of the details are sickeningly new. Senior al-Qaeda prisoners held in secret CIA prisons were made to stand for days in painful positions and deprived of solid food for just as long. Interrogators wrapped suspects in plastic, doused them with cold water and slammed them headlong into walls. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was allegedly shackled with his arms above his head for days at a time, leaving lasting scars.

The allegations were made to the International Red Cross by the prisoners after they were transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2006. The allegations are reportedly contained in an unreleased report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which labeled the treatment as torture. The report was obtained by writer Mark Danner, who quoted extensively from it in an article published this week by the New York Review of Books and in an op-ed column in the New York Times.

We do not know whether all the allegations are true. But according to Mr. Danner, the ICRC separately interviewed detainees who independently provided similar accounts of harsh treatment. It has already been confirmed that the Bush administration subjected three high-level terrorism suspects to waterboarding, the ancient practice of simulated drowning that has long been considered torture. And the judgment of the Red Cross is very important: The agency's unique status as a monitor of prisons around the world is based on its professionalism and impartiality. If it has accused the United States of torture, the charge -- which could indelibly stain the nation's global reputation -- must be taken seriously.

That's why it remains imperative for the Obama administration and Congress to cooperate in the creation of an independent commission to investigate the treatment of foreign detainees at Guantanamo and other foreign detention sites since 2001. A commission could determine exactly what was done to senior al-Qaeda detainees; it could evaluate the claims of former vice president Richard B. Cheney and other defenders of tough interrogation techniques that such methods produced information that saved lives. It could identify who was responsible for ordering illegal acts -- even if, as President Obama has suggested, criminal prosecutions are not appropriate.

Full disclosure is one way of undoing the damage done by the secret prisons and Guantanamo. It should not be left to the International Red Cross to document alleged instances of torture and other abuses; the United States should show itself capable of investigating and fully disclosing its own human rights violations.








Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails - Secret Report Implies That U.S. Violated International Law
By Joby Warrick, Peter Finn and Julie Tate
Copyright by The Washington Post
Monday, March 16, 2009; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031502724.html?hpid=topnews


The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.

The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.

At least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007 but barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the humanitarian group's strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. A copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released yesterday. He did not say how he obtained the report.

"The ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture," Danner quoted the report as saying.

Many of the details of alleged mistreatment at CIA prisons had been reported previously, but the ICRC report is the most authoritative account and the first to use the word "torture" in a legal context.

The CIA declined to comment. A U.S. official familiar with the report said, "It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves."

Often using the detainee's own words, the report offers a harrowing view of conditions at the secret prisons, where prisoners were told they were being taken "to the verge of death and back," according to one excerpt. During interrogations, the captives were routinely beaten, doused with cold water and slammed head-first into walls. Between sessions, they were stripped of clothing, bombarded with loud music, exposed to cold temperatures, and deprived of sleep and solid food for days on end. Some detainees described being forced to stand for days, with their arms shackled above them, wearing only diapers.

"On a daily basis . . . a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room," the report quotes detainee Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Walid Muhammad bin Attash, as saying. Later, he said, he was wrapped in a plastic sheet while cold water was "poured onto my body with buckets." He added: "I would be wrapped inside the sheet with cold water for several minutes. Then I would be taken for interrogation."

ICRC officials did not dispute the authenticity of the excerpts, but a spokesman expressed dismay over the leak of the material. "We regret information attributed to the ICRC report was made public in this manner," spokesman Bernard Barrett said.

"The ICRC has been visiting the detainees formerly held by the CIA," he added, "at Guantanamo since 2006. Any concerns or observations the ICRC had when visiting the detainees are part of a confidential dialogue."

President George W. Bush acknowledged the use of coercive interrogation tactics on senior al-Qaeda captives detained by the CIA in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but he insisted that the measures complied with U.S. and international law. Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden confirmed last year that the measures included the use of waterboarding on three captives before 2003.

President Obama outlawed such practices within hours of his inauguration in January. But Obama has expressed reluctance to conduct a legal inquiry into the CIA's policies.

The report gives a graphic account of the treatment of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaida, a Saudi-born Palestinian who was the first alleged senior al-Qaeda operative seized after Sept. 11 -- a characterization of his role that is disputed by his attorneys, who describe him as having a different philosophy of jihad than bin Laden.

Abu Zubaida was severely wounded during a shootout in March 2002 at a safe house he ran in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and survived thanks to CIA-arranged medical care, including multiple surgeries. After he recovered, Abu Zubaida describes being shackled to a chair at the feet and hands for two to three weeks in a cold room with "loud, shouting type music" blaring constantly, according to the ICRC report. He said that he was questioned two to three hours a day and that water was sprayed in his face if he fell asleep.

At some point -- the timing is unclear from the New York Review of Books report -- Abu Zubaida's treatment became harsher. In July 2002, administration lawyers approved more aggressive techniques.

Abu Zubaida said interrogators wrapped a towel around his neck and slammed him into a plywood wall mounted in his cell. He was also repeatedly slapped in the face, he said. After the beatings, he was placed in coffinlike wooden boxes in which he was forced to crouch, with no light and a restricted air supply, he said.

"The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in my leg and stomach became very painful," he told the ICRC.

After he was removed from a small box, he said, he was strapped to what looked like a hospital bed and waterboarded. "A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe," Abu Zubaida said.

After breaks to allow him to recover, the waterboarding continued.

"I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless," he said. "I thought I was going to die."

In a federal court filing, Abu Zubaida's attorneys said he "has suffered approximately 175 seizures that appear to be directly related to his extensive torture -- particularly damage to Petitioner's head that was the result of beatings sustained at the hands of CIA interrogators and exacerbated by his lengthy isolation."

Danner said the organization's use of the word "torture" has important legal implications.

"It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words 'torture' and 'cruel and degrading,' " Danner said in a telephone interview. "The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law."

He discounted the possibility that the detainees fabricated or embellished their stories, noting that the accounts overlap "in minute detail," even though the detainees were kept in isolation at different locations.

Human rights groups echoed his assessment.

"These reports are from an impeccable source," said Geneve Mantri, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International. "It's clear that senior officials were warned from the very beginning that the treatment that detainees were subjected to amounted to torture. This story goes even further and deeper than many us of suspected. The more details we find out, the more shocking this becomes."