Will the torture centers be located inside Iraq
or will Uncle Scam ship detainees to its lackeys
in charge of other Arab countries for torture and
execution? Just asking.
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Rendition, torture, other forms of unlawful interrogation
Home >> War on Terrorism >> Expanding the War >> Post-911 Foreign Policy >> Rendition, torture, other forms of unlawful interrogation
Last Updated: 12-29-2002
Introduction
Other Outlines and Fact Sheets
The United States has been conducting illegal interrogations of suspected terrorists all over the world. Numerous accounts confirm that U.S. Special Forces and the CIA are using torture as a means of interrogation. In cases where U.S. personnel have been unable to extract the sought-after results, the suspects are sent to ‘friendly’ countries – which are notorious for human rights violations – where they are interrogated further under a practice referred to as ‘rendition’.
“We don't kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them.” - unnamed official interviewed by The Washington Post. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
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Table of Contents
1 Interrogation and torture by U.S. military and intelligence personnel.
2 Rendition.
3 International laws against the use of torture.
4 Response.
5 Observations.
6. Articles reporting on this.
1 Interrogation and torture by U.S. military and intelligence personnel.
a Summary.
i U.S. military and intelligence personnel use torture in the course of interrogating suspected enemies.
b Details.
i Methods of torture used.
(A) At the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Prisoners are kept in metal shipping containers. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(B) Prisoners are forced to stand or kneel for hours. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(C) Prisoners are fitted with black hoods or spray-painted goggles for long periods of time. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(D) Prisoners are held in awkward, painful positions. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(E) Prisoners are deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(F) Prisoners are subjected to psychological torture techniques such as “feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity” or in some cases“female officers conduct [the] interrogations, a psychologically jarring experience for men reared in a conservative Muslim culture where women are never in control.” [Washington Post 12/26/02]
ii Where the interrogations take place.
(A) Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(B) Diego Garcia [an island in the Indian Ocean that the United States leases from Britain] [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(C) Secret CIA detention centers overseas [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(D) The facilities of foreign intelligence services. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
iii Oversight.
(A) These interrogations are conducted in secret, away from the eyes of human rights organizations. The Washington Post reported, “In contrast to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where military lawyers, news reporters and the Red Cross received occasional access to monitor prisoner conditions and treatment, the CIA's overseas interrogation facilities are off-limits to outsiders, and often even to other government agencies.” [Washington Post 12/26/02]
iv Reports that verify that U.S. military and intelligence personnel are using torture.
(A) The Washington Post. December 26, 2002. [Washington Post 12/26/02]
(1) “According to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment, captives are often ‘softened up’ by MPs and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and confine them in tiny rooms. The alleged terrorists are commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep. The tone of intimidation and fear is the beginning, they said, of a process of piercing a prisoner's resistance. The take-down teams often ‘package’ prisoners for transport, fitting them with hoods and gags, and binding them to stretchers with duct tape. Bush administration appointees and career national security officials acknowledged that, as one of them put it, ‘our guys may kick them around a little bit in the adrenaline of the immediate aftermath.’ Another said U.S. personnel are scrupulous in providing medical care to captives, adding in a deadpan voice, that ‘pain control [in wounded patients] is a very subjective thing’.” [Washington Post 12/26/02]
v Specific incidents and cases.
(A) Bagram Base in Afghanistan.
(1) The Washington Post reported, “Deep inside the forbidden zone at the U.S.-occupied Bagram air base in Afghanistan, around the corner from the detention center and beyond the segregated clandestine military units, sits a cluster of metal shipping containers protected by a triple layer of concertina wire. The containers hold the most valuable prizes in the war on terrorism -- captured al Qaeda operatives and Taliban commanders. 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. Those who cooperate are rewarded with creature comforts, interrogators whose methods include feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity and, in some cases, money. Some who do not cooperate are turned over – ‘rendered,’ in official parlance -- to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations.” [Washington Post 12/26/02]
vi Statements by U.S. officials/personnel
(1) The Washington Post quoted one official who had “supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists,” who said, “If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job. I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA.” [Washington Post 12/26/02]
c How some U.S. officials feel about the use of torture.
i “While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, each of the current national security officials interviewed for this article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary.” [Washington Post 12/26/02] [more]
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