[Ppnews] Top Pentagon Officials Developed Brutal Interrogation Methods at Guantanamo

[Political Prisoner News]

Top Pentagon Officials Developed Brutal Interrogation Methods at Guantanamo

June 19, 2008 By Jason Leopold
Source: <http://www.pubrecord.org>www.pubrecord.org


Top Pentagon officials developed the harsh 
interrogation methods used against detainees at 
Guantanamo less than a month before the Justice 
Department issued two now repudiated memorandums 
that gave interrogators legal cover to employ the 
tactics, according to documents released Tuesday 
by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The documents undercut assertions by President 
Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and other senior 
administration officials that the brutal 
interrogations were the result of "a few bad 
apples" who acted on their own accord.

"How did it come about that American military 
personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in 
stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put 
leashes around their necks to humiliate them, 
hooded them, deprived them of sleep, and blasted 
music?" said Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan 
Democrat who chairs the Armed Services Committee, 
in an opening statement before the hearing.

"Were these actions the result of 'a few bad 
apples' acting on their own? It would be a lot 
easier to accept if it were," Levin added. "But 
that's not the case. The truth is that senior 
officials in the United States government sought 
information on aggressive techniques, twisted the 
law to create the appearance of their legality, 
and authorized their use against detainees. In 
the process, they damaged our ability to collect 
intelligence that could save lives."

Tuesday's hearing provided the most revealing 
look yet at the White House's so-called "enhanced 
interrogation" program and offers up new details 
about the time frame in which the policy was drafted.

The hearing comes two weeks after a letter signed 
by 56 House Democrats was sent to Attorney 
General Michael Mukasey, requesting that he 
appoint a special prosecutor to investigate 
whether White House officials, including 
President Bush, violated the War Crimes Act when 
they allowed interrogators to use brutal 
interrogation methods against detainees suspected 
of ties to terrorist organizations.

"The Bush administration may have systematically 
implemented, from the top down, detainee 
interrogation policies that constitute torture or 
otherwise violate the law," the letter to Mukasey 
says. "We believe that these serious and 
significant revelations warrant an immediate 
investigation to determine whether actions taken 
by the President, his Cabinet, and other 
Administration officials are in violation of the 
War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, and other U.S. and international laws."

The Armed Services Committee's 18-month 
investigation, which generated 38,000 pages of 
documents, singled out former Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld and William "Jim" Haynes 
II, the Pentagon's former general counsel, as the 
officials who sought guidance on implementing 
more aggressive interrogation methods.

The committee is expected to release a full 
report later this year. So far, the probe has 
found that Rumsfeld and Haynes solicited input 
from military psychologists in July 2002, far 
earlier than they had previously acknowledged, 
about developing harsh methods interrogators 
could use against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

The report states that as early as July 2002, 
Rumsfeld, Haynes and other officials queried 
military psychologists about the use of 
waterboarding, and other brutal methods, 
interrogators could use against detainees at 
Guantanamo in order to easily extract information 
that would otherwise not be gained through more 
conventional interrogations methods.

Rumsfeld and Haynes' questions were raised one 
month before John Yoo, a former deputy in the 
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, 
issued two memos that authorized interrogators to 
use stress positions, military dogs, and other 
still unknown methods against suspected terrorists being held at Guantanamo.

Interrogation methods developed in July 2002, a 
summary of the Armed Services Report says, 
derived from the Army and Air Force's Survival, 
Evasion, Rescue, and Escape (SERE) training 
program. But those techniques were meant to 
prepare U.S. soldiers for abuse they might suffer 
if captured by a brutal regime, not as methods for U.S. interrogations.

The documents contradicted previous statements 
made by Haynes who told a Senate committee in 
2006 that lower-level military personnel were 
responsible for raising questions with the DOD in 
October 2002 about the possibility of using more 
aggressive techniques against detainees.

Richard Shiffrin, Haynes' former deputy on 
intelligence issues testified to the committee 
that in July 2002 Haynes became interested in 
using the SERE techniques, such as waterboarding 
and sleep deprivation, as a form of interrogation 
against detainees, which Rumsfeld signed off on in December 2002.

Haynes was grilled by the committee Tuesday and 
repeatedly said he could not recall receiving 
written and oral communications from military 
attorneys who warned that the methods being 
implemented at Guantanamo appeared to be illegal.

"We did not operate in a vacuum," Haynes said in 
response to questions by Sen. Jack Reed, (D-RI). 
The secretary of defense made the final decision" on interrogation methods.

Haynes repeated said he "could not recall," and 
"I don't remember" dozens of times in response to 
specific questions about interrogation methods. 
Haynes hired a criminal attorney after he 
resigned from the Pentagon. He is now an executive at Chevron.

In one document, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief 
counsel to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, 
discussed how interrogators could use the "wet 
towel" technique, also known as waterboarding, 
against detainees to extract information.

"It can feel like you're drowning. The lymphatic 
system will react as if you're suffocating, but 
your body will not cease to function," Fredman 
said in October 2002 during a meeting with 
military officials where specific techniques were 
discussed, according to a copy of the meeting 
minutes released by the Armed Services Committee.

Fredman added that the "wet towel" technique 
would only be defined as torture "if the detainee dies."

"It is basically subject to perception," Fredman 
said, according to the minutes of the meeting. If 
the detainee dies you're doing it wrong."

Fredman's comment during the October 2002 meeting 
prompted Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, then the chief 
military lawyer at Guantanamo, to respond "We 
will need documentation to protect us."

Following the October 2002 meeting, Beaver 
drafted a legal memo that authorized military 
personnel at Guantanamo to use some of the 
harshest methods during interrogations at the facility.

Beaver testified Tuesday that she was surprised 
the Defense Department implemented the 
interrogation methods contained in her legal opinion.

"I did not expect that my opinion, as a 
lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate 
General's Corps, would become the final word on 
interrogation policies and practices within the 
Department of Defense," Beaver said. "For me, 
such a result was simply not foreseeable. Perhaps 
I was somewhat naïve, but I did not expect to be 
the only lawyer issuing a written opinion on this 
monumentally important issue."

At the same meeting, Beaver discussed hiding 
detainees from the International Committee of the 
Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC visited Guantanamo to 
ensure interrogators were complying with the 
Geneva Conventions. Beaver, according to the 
minutes of the meeting, urged interrogators to 
"curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around."

"Officially it is not happening," Beaver is 
quoted as saying, according to minutes of an Oct. 
2, 2002 meeting between the CIA and military 
officials. "It is not being reported officially. 
The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in 
and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they 
are displeased and decide to protest and leave. 
This would draw a lot of negative attention."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), said during 
Tuesday's hearing that the revelations about the 
brutal interrogation methods will" go down in 
history as some of the most irresponsible and 
shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our 
nation's military and intelligence community."

Earlier Reports Scrutinized Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld was first identified as authorizing 
specific interrogation methods in a Dec. 20, 
2005, Army Inspector General report, related to 
the capture and interrogation of Mohammad 
al-Qahtani, which included a sworn statement by 
Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt. It said Secretary 
Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in the 
interrogation of al-Qahtani and spoke "weekly" 
with Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander at 
Guantanamo, about the status of the 
interrogations between late 2002 and early 2003.

Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, an attorney with the 
Center for Constitutional Rights who represents 
al-Qahtani, said in a sworn declaration that his 
client, imprisoned at Guantanamo, was subjected 
to months of torture based on verbal and written authorizations from Rumsfeld.

"At Guantánamo, Mr. al-Qahtani was subjected to a 
regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, 
known as the ‘First Special Interrogation Plan,' 
that were authorized by U.S. Secretary of Defense 
Donald Rumsfeld," Gutierrez said.

"Those techniques were implemented under the 
supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld 
and the commander of Guantánamo, Major General 
Geoffrey Miller. These methods included, but were 
not limited to, 48 days of severe sleep 
deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced 
nudity, sexual humiliation, religious 
humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress 
positions and prolonged sensory over-stimulation, 
and threats with military dogs."

According to the Schlesinger report, orders 
signed by Bush and Rumsfeld in 2002 and 2003 
authorizing brutal interrogations "became policy" at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

DOJ IG: Rumsfeld Authorized Methods

Last week, the Justice Department's inspector 
general, Glenn Fine, gave last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

During that hearing, Fine testified that Rumsfeld 
authorized the use of brutal interrogation 
techniques despite warnings from the FBI that the 
methods amounted to inhumane treatment, was 
possibly illegal, and would not produce reliable intelligence.

"The FBI believed that these techniques were not 
getting actionable information, that they were 
unsophisticated and unproductive," said Glenn 
Fine, the DOJ's inspector general, in testimony 
before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They 
raised their concerns with the Department of 
Defense, but the Department of Defense, from what 
we were told, dismissed those concerns and that 
no changes were made in the Department of Defense's strategy."

Rumsfeld, who resigned immediately after the 
2006-midterm elections, has vehemently denied 
that he approved of the brutal interrogation methods.

But Fine's 437-page report last month on the Bush 
administration's interrogation policies, 
concluded that Rumsfeld and other top White House 
officials ignored FBI concerns about the 
treatment of detainees and signed off on the interrogations.

In October 2002, Fine said, FBI agents raised 
concerns with Marion Bowman, the Justice 
Department's deputy general counsel in charge of 
national security, about the methods used during 
interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. An FBI agent 
stationed at Guantanamo then sent the agency an 
analysis on November 27, 2002, calling into 
question the legality of the interrogation 
techniques, stating that the methods used 
appeared to violate the U.S. Torture statute. 
Bowman then alerted Jim Haynes, the DOD's general counsel.

The same day Bowman raised concerns with Haynes, 
Haynes advised Rumsfeld to approve of "enhanced 
interrogation" methods, according to Sen. Dianne 
Feinstein, (D-Calif.), who chaired last Tuesday's committee hearing.

"According to Mr. Bowman, Haynes claimed he 
didn't know anything about the coercive 
interrogation techniques that were occurring at 
Guantanamo, despite the fact that he recommended 
on November 27, 2002, that Secretary Rumsfeld 
formally approve the very techniques that were 
being used at Guantanamo," Feinstein said.

On Nov. 23, 2002, four days before the FBI agent 
alerted the DOJ about interrogation tactics he 
witnessed, Rumsfeld verbally authorized 
interrogators to used harsh methods during their 
interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, the 
so-called 20th hijacker, who was being held at 
Guantanamo. The Pentagon initially wanted the 
death penalty for Al-Qahtani, but dropped 
war-crimes charges against him last month.

Rumsfeld, Fine told the committee, ignored FBI 
agents' warnings and on Dec. 2, 2002, signed an 
action memorandum approving the use of "enhanced 
techniques" against prisoners at Guantanamo, 
concluding that the tactics stopped short of torture.

JAG's Opposed Methods

In January 2003, Rumsfeld asked Haynes to form a 
"working group" to draft a report on legally 
permissible interrogation techniques to use at 
Guantanamo after the legal memo Beaver drafted in October 2002 was withdrawn.

The members of the group included former 
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas 
Feith, officials from the Defense Intelligence 
Agency, representatives of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, and judge advocate generals (JAGs) from 
all four branches of the military.

Early drafts of the report advocated intimidating 
prisoners with dogs, removing prisoners' 
clothing, shaving their beards, slapping 
prisoners in the face and waterboarding.

Though some of the more extreme techniques were 
dropped as the list was winnowed down to 24 from 
35, the final set of methods still included 
tactics for isolating and demeaning a detainee, known as "pride and ego down."

Stress positions were prohibited at Guantanamo 
under DOD policy beginning in January 2003. 
However, Fine testified that FBI agents' 
"observations confirm that prolonged 
short-shackling continued at Guantanamo for at 
least a year after the revised DOD policy took effect."

"Short-shackling in which a detainee's hands were 
shackled close to his feet to prevent him from 
standing or sitting comfortably, was another of 
the most frequently reported techniques observed 
by FBI agents at Guantanamo. This technique was 
sometimes used in conjunction with holding 
detainees in rooms where the temperature was very 
cold or very hot in order to break the detainees' 
resolve," Fine testified last week.

The more extreme interrogation methods that made 
it into the final draft of the report rankled 
some of the JAGs, who feared the methods would 
put U.S. soldiers in danger if they were captured 
- and would tarnish the reputation and image of 
the U.S. abroad. "Will the American people find 
we have missed the forest for the trees by 
condoning practices that, while technically 
legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental 
values," wrote Rear Adm. Michael Lohr, a member 
of the "working group," wrote in a February 2003 
letter to the working group's chairwoman, Mary 
Walker, the Air Force general counsel.

"How would such perceptions affect our ability to 
prosecute the Global War on Terrorism," asked Lohr.

The admiral was so upset with the draft report 
and the advice provided by the Justice Department 
that he requested Walker include a sentence in 
the final report making it clear that the legal 
findings were based exclusively on attorneys in 
the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

Lohr was not alone. Maj. Gen. Jack Rives, who at 
the time was judge advocate general of the Air 
Force, also wrote a letter to Walker warning that 
the interrogation techniques in the report would violate military law.

"Several of the exceptional techniques, on their 
face, amount to violations of domestic criminal 
law and the [Uniform Code of Military Justice]," 
Rives wrote. "Treating detainees inconsistently 
with the [Geneva] Convention arguably ‘lowers the 
bar' for the treatment of U.S. POW's in future conflicts."

Maj. Gen. Thomas Romig, an Army JAG, and Brig. 
Gen. Kevin M. Sandkuhler, a Marine Corps JAG, 
also voiced concerns, specifically the 
determination that the President has the power to 
override the Uniform Code of Military Justice and 
other federal statutes and international treaties 
in the name of national security.

Despite the grave concerns by the legal officials 
in the military community, Rumsfeld signed off on 
the final 81-page working group report on April 2, 2003.
Though some of the more extreme techniques were 
dropped as the list was winnowed down to 24 from 
35, the final set of interrogation methods 
Rumsfeld approved still included tactics for 
isolating and demeaning a detainee, known as "pride and ego down."

"The most commonly reported technique used by 
non-FBI interrogators on detainees at Guantanamo 
was sleep deprivation or disruption," Fine 
testified last Tuesday. "Sleep adjustment" was 
explicitly approved for use by the military at 
Guantanamo under the policy approved by the 
Secretary of Defense in April 2003. Numerous FBI 
agents told the OIG that they witnessed the 
military's use of a regimen known as the 
"frequent flyer program" to disrupt detainees' 
sleep in an effort to lessen their resistance to 
questioning and to undermine cell block relationships among detainees."

Alberto Mora, the former general counsel of the 
Navy, criticized Rumsfeld's approval of certain 
interrogation methods outlined in the December 2002 action memorandum.

"The interrogation techniques approved by the 
Secretary [of Defense] should not have been 
authorized because some (but not all) of them, 
whether applied singly or in combination, could 
produce effects reaching the level of torture, a 
degree of mistreatment not otherwise proscribed 
by the memo because it did not articulate any 
bright-line standard for prohibited detainee 
treatment, a necessary element in any such 
document," Mora wrote in a 14-page letter to the Navy's inspector general.

Mora, who was a member of the working group, 
testified Tuesday that the "policy decision to 
use so-called 'harsh' interrogation techniques 
during the war on terror was a mistake of massive proportions."

Mora also took issue with the use of the words 
"harsh" and "enhanced" to describe interrogations 
that he believed amounted to torture and a "policy of cruelty."

"The choice of the adjectives "harsh" or 
"enhanced" to describe these interrogation 
techniques is euphemistic and misleading," Mora 
said in an opening statement. "The more precise 
legal term is "cruel." Many of the 
"counter-resistance techniques" authorized for 
use at Guantanamo in December 2002 constitute 
"cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment that 
could, depending on their application, easily cross the threshold of torture.




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