- April
17, 2013 - 9:17AM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/report-indisputable-evidence-of-us-torture-20130417-2hz79.html
Torture was used against detainees in many instances and across a wide range of theatres.The 560-page report by a task force of the Washington-based Constitution Project also takes aim at the Obama administration for maintaining secrecy on past abuses and failing to prosecute acts of torture.
The task force – led by Republican Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas congressman and Homeland Security official under Mr Bush, and Democrat James Jones, a former Oklahoma congressman and US ambassador to Mexico in the Clinton administration – offered what it called the most comprehensive report so far on prisoner interrogations.
The torture question dogged the Bush administration after the disclosure that three prisoners held by the CIA had been waterboarded, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.
While the Bush administration denied the practice amounted to torture, the task force said the issue should no longer be subject to debate.
"The United States may not declare a nation guilty of engaging in torture and then exempt itself from being so labelled for similar if not identical conduct," the report said.
The group, which had no access to classified information or subpoena
power, said the public record provided ample evidence of torture.
"Torture was used against detainees in many instances and across a
wide range of theatres," Mr Hutchinson said at a news conference,
citing instances of waterboarding, stress positions and sleep
deprivation.
The report said much of the torture that occurred in Iraq,
Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "was never explicitly
authorised". Still, it found the administration laid the groundwork for
torture by declaring that the Geneva Conventions, which require humane
treatment for prisoners of war, didn't apply to the war on terrorism.
"The administration never specified what rules would apply instead,"
the report said.
It faulted Justice Department lawyers for providing "novel, if not
acrobatic" legal opinions that permitted torture and other mistreatment
of prisoners.
The report also challenges the CIA's claim that only three al-Qaeda
prisoners were waterboarded.
The task force confirmed an account first provided by Human Rights
Watch that at least one Libyan militant was waterboarded by US forces
in Afghanistan. It said a second Libyan militant was subjected to a
"similar water-suffocation procedure" that didn't involve a board.
The two incidents "caused some consternation at the CIA, which had
always maintained that only three people had been waterboarded", the
report said.
Mr Jones faulted the Obama administration for keeping documents
classified in a practice that he said serves only "to conceal
wrongdoing".Mr Obama, in his first term, decided against creating a commission to study the Bush administration's interrogation and detention policies, saying it was unproductive to "look backwards".
The task force, which interviewed scores of prisoners, military
intelligence officers and interrogators, said its report "should not be
the final word on how events played out". It called on the Obama
administration to declassify as much information as possible to expose
wrongdoing and correct past abuses.
The report was less definitive on whether torture provided any
valuable information to US officials tracking potential terrorist plots.
Without access to classified information, the group said it couldn't
be sure whether torture yielded any breakthroughs. The Senate
Intelligence Committee produced a report on interrogations that remains
classified.
Still, the task force said there was no "firm or persuasive
evidence" to indicate that torture was beneficial and called on those
who disagreed to offer some factual basis.
"The public record strongly suggests there was no useful information
gained from going to the dark side" and engaging in torture, said David
Irvine, a former Republican Utah state legislator and retired Army
brigadier-general who served on the task force. "We have been badly
misled by false confessions derived from brutal interrogations."
While most of the report's findings were unanimous, the task force
could not agree on one key issue: how to address the indefinite
detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
A majority of the group said the indefinite detention was "abhorrent
and intolerable" and called on the Obama administration to bring
prisoners to court or deport them.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/report-indisputable-evidence-of-us-torture-20130417-2hz79.html#ixzz2QkX0QgNq
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