Administration of Torture - A Threat to Peace

A new book recently out, Administration of Torture, claims the the US uses 'methods of the most tyrannical regimes' and General Dunlavey claims Bush gave 'marching orders' on aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo.

Newly released government documents showed how US military interrogators "abused, tortured or killed" scores of prisoners since Sept. 11, 2001, including some who were not even suspected of having terrorist ties.

In this book, two US Civil Liberties Union attorneys give details of an investigation and court battle with the administration that resulted in the release of massive amounts of data on prisoner treatment and the deaths of US-held prisoners.

"[T]he documents show unambiguously that the administration has adopted some of the methods of the most tyrannical regimes," write Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh. "Documents from Guantanamo describe prisoners shackled in excruciating 'stress positions,' held in freezing-cold cells, forcibly stripped, hooded, terrorized with military dogs, and deprived of human contact for months."

The documents were obtained as a result of ongoing legal fights over a Freedom of Information Act request filed in October 2003 by the ACLU and other human rights and anti-war groups.

These papers show that prisoner abuse like that at Abu Ghraib prison were not isolated incidents that the Bush administration or US military claimed it was. In fact by mid-2004 the Army knew of at least 62 other allegations of abuse at different prisons.

The writers say there is a stark contrast between the public statements of President Bush and Rumsfeld and the policies those in the administration were advocating behind the scenes.

The ACLU also found that an Army investigator reported Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in overseeing the interrogation of a Guantanamo prisoner Mohammed al Qahtani. The prisoner was forced to parade naked in front of female interrogators wearing women's underwear on his head and was led around on a leash while being forced to perform dog tricks.

“It is imperative that senior officials who authorized, endorsed, or tolerated the abuse and torture of prisoners be held accountable," Jaffer and Singh write, "not only as a matter of elemental justice, but to ensure that the same crimes are not perpetrated again.”

Click here to add this page to your favorites