We ask this question: If it is the case that American military personnel tortured those in GTMO, and this piece from The Washington Post shows that torture occurred, what can we do? To whom do we write? The Obama Administration will be challenged both to acknowledge such cases and respond to the justice issues.The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."
"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. ...
Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.
Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani's health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.
... Qahtani was denied entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks and was allegedly planning to be the plot's 20th hijacker. He was later captured in Afghanistan and transported to Guantanamo in January 2002. His interrogation took place over 50 days from November 2002 to January 2003, though he was held in isolation until April 2003.
"For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators," said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani's interrogation records and other military documents. "Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister."
At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman's bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks," the report shows.
The interrogation, portions of which have been previously described by other news organizations, including The Washington Post, was so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani's heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.
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There is overwhelming evidence that the problem goes all the way to the top (Bush/Cheney). While Bush said the other day that what they did was "legal", it was only legal in the "opinions" that the administration solicited from handpicked lawyers like John Yoo and David Addington, individuals who declared "quaint" the Geneva conventions. Constitutionally ratified treaties are as much the law of the land as any legislation passed by the Congress and approved by the President.
There is one point of view that prosecution of responsible individuals would do more harm than good, since it would inevitably be corrupted by partisanship (would that we had been so inhibited a decade ago). On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that the Constitution, Separation of Powers, and the Rule of Law have been violated at the highest levels. If there is no redress, if those responsible appear to be able to suffer no consequences for their usurpation, then the notions of the Constitution and the Rule of Law lose their meaning, and we become more and more at the mercy of the whims of whichever party, cabal, or individuals happen to be in power.
Scott Horton is a Constitutional lawyer and educator who blogs on this topic and others at Harpers Magazine. A lot can be learned by going back through his posts on this subject:
http://www.harpers.org/subjects/NoComment
"Constitutionally ratified treaties are as much the law of the land as any legislation..."
According to SCOTUS Congress must pass legislation enacting whatever provisions of a treaty need to be made into law.
"declared "quaint" the Geneva conventions"
Actually, the prevailing opinion was the Geneva conventions don't apply to "enemy combatants" who belong to no nation and wear no uniform. They are more like mercenaries than soldiers.
Did you see that the FISA appeals court has ruled that the "warrantless wiretaps" were perfectly constitutional?
ChrisB,
Surely you are not suggesting that Congress hasn't ratified the Geneva Conventions? That was done long ago. And several US statutes adopted by Congress provide criminal and other penalties for torture.
As to your second point, it is well establashed that torture is a crime even if it is not against an enemy combatant.
As a lawyer that doesn't lean toward either party, I am disgusted by the wholly unreasonable and unjustifiable legal position of the Bush administration on this issue.
This is unambiguously very serious criminal conduct.
Thanks Doug
On what to do with the prisoners. Some British citizens were transferred back to the UK where it was concluded that there was no evidence at all to justify their original imprisonment.I suspect this applies to many still locked up for years with no trial. The prisoners should be returned to their countries or to other countries where they will be treated with justice. The administration needs to say 'we got this terribly wrong' and show some generosity and mercy.
The other outstanding issue here is the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition (introduced by Clinton in 1995) where a suspect is kidnapped, taken to a secret third country and interrogated / tortured with impunity - all completely outside the rule of international justice. While Obama has promised to close Gitmo, he has made no such promise on this. I hope he does.
ChrisB,
The "prevailing opinion" that you refer to was the opinion generated by individuals like Yoo and Addington at the behest of Cheney, and it is only in their insulated circle that it prevailed.
Does it not bother you a little that "enemy combatants" were so designated by one man (the President) and that once this disignation occurred, they were wholly at his mercy and "judgment"? This same man, who when he was governor of Texas, said their were no innocent men on death row in that state. (Since then several individuals on death row in Texas have been exonerated by DNA testing.) And yet he presumed to have this power over anyone (including American citizens) he judged necessary to exert it on in the prosecution of the war on terror. Does anyone have the wisdom, purity of motive, and depth of understanding to assume such a task? Such power is nowhere to be found in the Constitution; nevertheless, the bottom line in the position of Cheney and Bush is that the President is above the Constitution in his role as Commander-in-Chief.
It boggles the mind that the American people in general have stood for this, and it is dismaying in the extreme that the portion of the public that has most consistently supported this policy is the evangelical wing of the Christian church.
It has been clear for quite some time that a substantial number of the individuals taken to Guantanamo were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and were swooped along with the herd. Others were not terrorists, but were "turned in" by some warlord who wished to get rid of them.
I would point once again to Scott Horton, who yesterday analyzed the Bush years, using the writings of Augustine as his touchstone:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004222
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