Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official

[Elduardo]

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official
Trial Overseer Cites 'Abusive' Methods Against 9/11 Suspect

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; Page A01

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."


Full story here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011303372.html?hpid=topnews

I think we're playing a little loose with the word "torture", but at any rate I think we should have the discussion about what methods are permissable under what conditions. I don't think it's wise to take any options off the table in certain situations given an imminent threat. I think the President should have the legal option to order harsh interrogation tactics if the situation warrants it.

Like it or not, we're dealing with an enemy that doesn't respect human life or our laws. This so-called 20th hijacker would have been on United 93 and if he was perhaps the mission would have succeeded and more innocent lives would have been lost.

Criminal justice doesn't make sense to me in the face of a terror threat. It simply isn't acceptable to reactively punish terrorists after the fact like we do with other crimes and we can't always have the same legal evidence standards we may require in civillian criminal courts. 24 featured it the other night but it could happen that we have a suspect with knowledge of an imminent terror threat, it's not acceptable to allow the suspect to "lawyer up" and remain silent.

We also can't have the CIA and FBI walking aroun worried about being prosecuted for doing their jobs. Obama seems to have an awareness of this.

So I think we need to have the discussion via our elected officials in a realistic and open manner.

[Grendel]

Regardless of how they may seem individually, When a technique, or combination of techniques being employed result in a condition that jeopardizes the subject's life, I fail to see what's "loose" about labeling it torture.

[Elduardo]

I think more detail is needed before we can really say for sure. Need to know what the "life-threatening condition" was

Again, talking about potentially one of the hijackers, he no doubt has some information that could save lives.

Big difference between making someone uncomfortable and so-called "torture".

Not proposing widespread use of coerced interrogation but it should be an option at the discretion of the President, in my view.

[Searcher]

I would like to say thank God people who think this way aren't running the country , but I'll have to wait five more days for that.

Eldor did you even read the article you posted?


I think more detail is needed before we can really say for sure. Need to know what the "life-threatening condition" was....Big difference between making someone uncomfortable and so-called "torture".



You mean this isn't enough?

"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. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Or this....

"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."

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.


Again, talking about potentially one of the hijackers, he no doubt has some information that could save lives.

What you meant to say was definately one of the hijackers right? In order to have no doubt, because potentially leaves alot of room.

[Elduardo]

"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."

Still waiting for the torture.



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.

Haven't seen any proof of what caused the condition.



What you meant to say was definately one of the hijackers right? In order to have no doubt, because potentially leaves alot of room.

Obviously we both haven't seen the evidence.

It's a strange phenomenon to me. US citizens wearing orange jumpsuits to show allegiance to Gitmo prisoners who seek to kill us in large numbers. Assuming the Gitmo prisoners are either completely innocent or bumbling idiots incapable of doing serious harm to the US. Assuming that we can simply try them in civillian courts using OJ Simpson style justice.

Every soldier or CIA agent should not be allowed to use these methods but the President should have the authority to order interrogation methods that make suspects uncomfortable when needed.

[Elduardo]

Some additional info:



CIA director: Harsh interrogations were effective

WASHINGTON (AP) - CIA Director Michael Hayden strenuously defended the effectiveness of the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques Thursday, only moments after Attorney General- designate Eric Holder said the use of waterboarding was torture. Though U.S. officials say interrogators have not engaged in waterboarding in the past five years, Hayden said the coercive techniques and other harsh tactics were useful in the war on terror.

"These techniques worked," said Hayden, who is due to replaced by Leon Panetta as President-elect Obama's CIA director.

According to Hayden, the CIA held and interrogated fewer than 100 detainees at secret detention sites. Of those, a third were subjected to harsh techniques. Three of them, he acknowledged, were waterboarded.

"I am convinced that the program got the maximum amount of information, particularly out of that first generation of detainees. The Abu Zubaydahs, the Khalid Sheik Muhammeds," Hayden said referring to top al-Qaida operatives who were detained and questioned with harsh techniques. "I just can't conceive of any other way, given their character, given their commitment to what it is they do."

Whether waterboarding is torture is "an uninteresting question for the CIA," Hayden told reporters at CIA headquarters Thursday. "We don't do that. We haven't done it since March 2003, and we have no intent to do it."

Hayden banned waterboarding from CIA interrogations in 2006. He has acknowledged that the agency used the technique, a form of simulated drowning, on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003.

It was just one of the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques approved by the White House and Justice Department after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for questioning alleged terrorists who the administration feared were plotting a follow-up attack.

"The agency did none of this out of enthusiasm," Hayden said. "It did it out of duty and it did it with the best legal advice it had."

Holder's opinion that waterboarding is torture complicates an already complex legal environment for U.S. prosecutions of alleged terrorists.

The top official overseeing the military commissions set up by the Bush administration to prosecute them told The Washington Post this week that she decided not to send to trial the case of a detainee being held at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because she believed he was tortured by a combination of harsh, albeit approved, techniques by his U.S. military captors.

Aides to President-elect Barack Obama say he intends to close Guantanamo and to rein in CIA interrogations and detainee operations.

Hayden said he was "very heartened" by Obama's statements that he is "looking forward" rather than backward when it comes to the CIA's more controversial programs, interpreting that to mean there won't be an effort in the new administration to find and punish CIA officers who carried out those programs.

Hayden said Thursday that everything the CIA did was legal and approved by the Justice Department.

He warned that any effort to hold agency employees accountable, retroactively, for President George W. Bush's legally sanctioned intelligence programs could severely damage future intelligence gathering.

"We are asked to do things routinely that no one else is asked to do, that no one else is allowed to do," Hayden said. "You can't do this to these people."

[Grendel]

Still waiting for the torture.Almost two months of extended sleep deprivation and prolonged exposure to cold would seem to qualify.


...interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold...

..."Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations.



Haven't seen any proof of what caused the condition.In light of what's been described of this man's treatment, let's not kid ourselves, shall we?

[Elduardo]

Even so, we're talking about one guy and 3 individuals who were water-boarded.

Not exactly evidence of a widespread policy.

[Searcher]

Even so, we're talking about one guy and 3 individuals who were water-boarded.

Not exactly evidence of a widespread policy.

I'll take that as concession.

The Bush adm along with many others in our government have make a complete mockery of the amercan peoples stand on human rights. There's nothing like being in the position to be accurately called hypocrites by low life regimes like iran and china. Set us back 100 years.

[Elduardo]

Not a concession of anything, I've stated repeatedly that I believe that the President should have the legal authority to order these tactics when necessary.

This notion of elitism is puzzling to me, and to compare the human rights in the US with countries like Iran or China is absurd.

[Grendel]

No one is attempting to claim the US is like Tehran or Beijing in extent or scope.

That said, it seems to me that once we take the step of asserting legal authority to engage in conduct that we've long deemed unacceptable in other regimes, then making note of the double standard--if not outright hypocrisy--is anything but absurd.

[BooBerry]

I think such tactics (sleep deprevation, isolation) should be used, but only when they are CERTAIN without any doubt that the person they've detained actually has answers that could save lives. Otherwise they need to stick with simple detain and question.

[Tragicallyhip]

I think such tactics (sleep deprevation, isolation) should be used, but only when they are CERTAIN without any doubt that the person they've detained actually has answers that could save lives. Otherwise they need to stick with simple detain and question.

To determine with 100% accuracy that a suspect has vital information is a practical impossibility. The absolute best you can hope for is: "This individual might have essential information." So you are automatically torturing someone who might not know anything of use.

********

I also find the idea that torture can be employed in select cases to be practically unworkable. No-one is going to spend three months interrogating a member of Al-Qaeda when they can spend 3 days torturing them and achieve the same results. Besides, if you have the right to torture a high-level Islamic terrorist, the same criteria (they might have time-sensitive information/it's national self-defence/they don't respect human rights either etc etc) can be used to justify torturing pretty much any Islamic terrorist. Basically, once you put it on the table, it takes about 30 seconds to find an excuse to start using it on a multitude of different cases. If you're going to assume that it's a valuable and accurate means of extracting information, it starts to look like stupidity not to use it.

Just for the record, I don't believe that torture is accurate. It has been recognized for around 2000 years that it's a poor method of gathering information, and one that should never be relied on when it is absolutely imperative you receive accurate data. Leaving aside all questions of morality, this fact alone should be enough to make anyone think twice about using these methods.

********

The hypocrisy angle is certainly relevant. If a nation starts advocating torture in issues of self-defence and national security, then on that issue, that nation occupies the same moral ground as the other nations who use it.

[BooBerry]

To determine with 100% accuracy that a suspect has vital information is a practical impossibility. The absolute best you can hope for is: "This individual might have essential information." So you are automatically torturing someone who might not know anything of use.


So? We throw people in prison everyday because we are "100%" sure they've commited a crime... most of the time that 100% is due to eyewitnesses (he said, she said) and circumstantial evidence.

I see no real differences here other than it's set on a much grander scale. Someone is being questioned in a situation that has left hundreds dead, millions mourning, and an unknown amount of further tragedy. In this instance, I agree that a different means of information gathering can (not should be) called for.

[Elduardo]

No one is attempting to claim the US is like Tehran or Beijing in extent or scope.

That said, it seems to me that once we take the step of asserting legal authority to engage in conduct that we've long deemed unacceptable in other regimes, then making note of the double standard--if not outright hypocrisy--is anything but absurd.

Problem is that this premise assumes that terrorists and uniformed soldiers have moral equivalence, which they do not. The Geneva Conventions gets mentioned often but what is left out is that it applies to uniformed soldiers who adhere to the rules of war. Terrorists clearly do not.

So if the US waterboards 3 terrorists, including KSM - one of the masterminds of 9/11, and subjects a suspected member of the 9/11 hijack crew to some coerced methods it is a whole different ballgame than overall treating average prisoners poorly.

Prisoners at Gitmo are among the best treated prisoners in the history of any war. There is a Red Cross office there, and great efforts are made to respect the prisoners religious beliefs.

The effort by the far left to paint the US under Bush as a nation that engages in widespread torture of prisoners is inaccurate and has harmed us greatly. Abu Grahib was on the front page of the NY Times over 50 times, much of those stories had little or no new information to advance the story. This is unprecedented coverage.

[Tragicallyhip]

The effort by the far left to paint the US under Bush as a nation that engages in widespread torture of prisoners is inaccurate and has harmed us greatly. Abu Grahib was on the front page of the NY Times over 50 times, much of those stories had little or no new information to advance the story. This is unprecedented coverage.

To be honest, I very much doubt that less damage would have been done had the media pointed out that the USA indulges in torture only on a select basis.

The problem here is not the reporting. It's the torture. There's an obvious way to put an end to any speculation over the extent of US torture.

[Tragicallyhip]

Problem is that this premise assumes that terrorists and uniformed soldiers have moral equivalence, which they do not. The Geneva Conventions gets mentioned often but what is left out is that it applies to uniformed soldiers who adhere to the rules of war. Terrorists clearly do not.


The fact that your enemy does not observe the rules of conduct is not an immediate "get-out-of-jail-free" card excusing any conduct on your own side. It's a great way to surrender the moral high ground.

[Elduardo]

Abu Grahib was criminal activity committed by individual soldiers. No evidence that there was any widespread abuse or government policy of such.

3 high value terrorist suspects waterboarded, 1 high value suspect subject to discomfort. Debatable as to whether these things are "torture". I would say they are not.