The Bush Administration

8/12/2019 The Bush Administration

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The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of

the Geneva Conventions. Ensuing U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 2004 have determined

otherwise and that the courts have jurisdiction: it ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on 29 June

2006, that detainees were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3

of the Geneva Conventions. Following this, on 7 July 2006, the Department of Defenseissued an internal memo stating that prisoners would, in the future, be entitled to protection

under Common Article 3.

Current and former prisoners have reported abuse and torture, which the Bush administration

denied. In a 2005 Amnesty International report, the facility was called the "Gulag of our

times." In 2006, the United Nations called unsuccessfully for the Guantanamo Bay detention

camp to be closed. In January 2009, Susan J. Crawford, appointed by Bush to review DoD

practices used at Guantanamo Bay and oversee the military trials, became the first Bush

administration official to concede that torture occurred at Guantanamo Bay on one detainee.

Three British Muslim prisoners, known in the media at the time as the "Tipton Three ", were

repatriated to the United Kingdom in March 2004, where officials immediately released them

without charge. The three have alleged ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging

and religious persecution being committed by U.S. forces at Guantnamo Bay. The former

Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali was freed without charge on 9 July 2004, after two and

a half years internment. Ghezali has claimed that he was the victim of repeated torture. Omar

Deghayes alleges he was blinded by pepper spray during his detention. Juma Al Dossary

claims he was interrogated hundreds of times, beaten, tortured with broken glass, barbed

wire, burning cigarettes, and sexual assaults. David Hicks also made allegations of torture

and mistreatment in Guantnamo Bay, including sensory deprivation, stress position, having

his head slammed into concrete, routine sleep deprivation and forced drug injections.

Hunger-striking detainees claimed that guards were force feeding them in the fall of 2005:"Detainees said large feeding tubes were forcibly shoved up their noses and down into their

stomachs, with guards using the same tubes from one patient to another. The detainees say no

sedatives were provided during these procedures, which they allege took place in front of

U.S. physicians, including the head of the prison hospital. "A hunger striking detainee at

Guantnamo Bay wants a judge to order the removal of his feeding tube so he can be allowed

to die, one of his lawyers has said." Within a few weeks, the Department of Defense

"extended an invitation to United Nations Special Rapporteurs to visit detention facilities atGuantanamo Bay Naval Station. This was rejected by the U.N. because of the DOD

restrictions: "that [the] three human rights officials invited to Guantnamo Bay wouldn't be

allowed to conduct private interviews" with prisoners. Simultaneously, the media reports

began related to the question of prisoner treatment. "District Court Judge Eight men have

died in the prison camp; DOD has said that six were suicides. DOD reported three men, two

Saudis and a Yemeni, had committed suicide on 10 June 2006. Government accounts,

including an NCIS report released with redactions in August 2008, have been questioned by

the press, the detainees' families, the Saudi government, former detainees, and human rights

groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guantanamo_Bay_David_Hicks_Cell,_Reading_Room_Inset.jpg


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An estimated 17 to 22 minors under the age of 18 were detained at Guantanamo Bay, and it

has been claimed that this is in violation of international law.

In July 2005, 242 detainees were moved out of Guantanamo, including 173 who were

released without charge. 69 prisoners were transferred to the custody of governments of other

countries, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights has prepared biographies of some of the prisoners

currently being held in Guantanamo Prison.

Gladys Kessler also ordered the U.S. government to give medical records going back a week

before such feedings take place." In early November 2005, the U.S. suddenly accelerated, for

unknown reasons, the rate of prisoner release, but this was not sustained.

What became known as "the Abu Ghraib Scandal" came to public attention in the summer of

2003 beginning with reports from Amnesty International (AI) (AI) of human rights abuses bythe U.S military. and its coalition allies at detention centers and prisons throughout Iraq.

Reports of brutal treatment began to emerge from what had been President Saddam Hussein's

notorious Abu Ghraib prison, recently taken over by the United States. In a news release

dated 20 June 2003, Dr Abdel Salam Sidahmed, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's

Middle East Program reported on an uprising by the prisoners against the conditions of their

detention at the now American-run Abu Ghraib: "The notorious Abu Ghraib Prison, centre of

torture and mass executions under Saddam Hussein, is yet again a prison cut off from the

outside world. On 13 June there was a protest in this prison against indefinite detention

without trial. Troops from the occupying powers killed one person and wounded seven.". A

little over a month later, on July 23, Amnesty International again issued a press release

condemning widespread human rights abuses by US and coalition forces: "Former detainees

told Amnesty International that people detained by Coalition Forces were held in tents in the

extreme heat and were not provided with sufficient drinking water or adequate washing

facilities. They were forced to use open trenches for toilets and were not given a change of

clothes - even after two months detention. [...] Amnesty International has received reports of

torture or ill-treatment by Coalition Forces. Reported methods include prolonged sleep

deprivation, prolonged restraint in painful positionssometimes combined with exposure to

loud music, prolonged hooding and exposure to bright lights.

Many Guantanamo interrogators (including psychologists and psychiatrists) were trained by

Survival-Evasion-Resistance-Escape (SERE) instructors, or had experience in the Joint

Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which oversaw SERE training. SERE was a program

designed to train military personnel who had been caught as Prisoners Of War to withstand

torture during interrogation if they were to be caught by a dishonourable enemy. Military

personnel went through a program of beatings, starvation, stress positions, being stripped

naked and thrown into small cages for days. The SERE program was established after years

of experimentation by the CIA and the other four branches of the U.S. military. Jane Mayer

points out that the SERE program was a strange way to try and obtain the truth from

detainees because it was founded during the Cold War when 36 US air men gave false

confessions during the Korean War. Ideas for interrogation also came from the television


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series 24, which depicted a fictional character torturing detainees to get information about a

terrorist plot.

List of Torture Techniques

1. Sexual Assault/Humiliation Techniques

Detainees in US custody in Abu Ghraib, Kandahar and Bagram (where many were taken to

before Guantanamo) have reported being sodomised with broomsticks, a chemical light or

rifles. Other forms of sexual humiliation reported have been; parading men naked in front of

female soldiers, forcing them to wear womens underwear and dance with other men, forcing

them to undress in front of female interrogators and guards, touching their genitals or

provoking them in a humiliating way and forcing them to watch pornography. Most

detainees in U.S. custody have alleged that they were either raped, threatened with rape, or

anally probed. Sexual violence is a war crime. Sexual humiliation is used to induce feelingsof humiliation and fear.

.

2. Sleep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation is used by torturers because it makes a person more suggestible, reduces

psychological resistance and it reduces the bodys capacity to resist pain. Sleep deprivation is

a very effective torture technique. The Committee against Torture (CAT) has noted that sleep

deprivation used for prolonged periods constitutes a breach of the CAT, and is primarily used

to break down the will of the detainee. Sleep deprivation can cause impaired memory and

cognitive functioning, decreased short term memory, speech impairment, hallucinations,

psychosis, lowered immunity, headaches, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stress,

anxiety and depression. For more information, see Gretchen Borchelt, JD & Christian Pross,

MD Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces, Torture, vol.15(1), 2005;

Sleep deprivation was authorised under the 2002 Department of Defense Memo in the form

of 20 hour interrogations. The U.S. military authorised sleep deprivation for its prisoners for

up to seventy two hours.

3. Sensory Deprivation

Sensory deprivation is used to instil a sense of fear, disorientation and cause dependency on

their captor. In the 1950s the CIA funded a study into human behaviour and mind control in

response to the Cold War. Dr Hebb of McGill University conducted studies on people to

induce a state akin to psychosis by placing students in air-conditioned cubicles with earmuffs,

gloves and goggles. Within 24 hours they began to experience hallucinations, and by 48

hours complete breakdown and disintegration of personality. Sensory deprivation has also

been attributed to increased pain sensitivity and increased psychological stress. According to

the Kubark manual, sensory deprivation makes the detainee more susceptible to theinterrogator.


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cold cell, which was used in Guantanamo was authorised in 2005as part of the CIAs

enhanced interrogation techniques, however, they were using it before long before. The

Haynes 2002 memo, signed off by Donald Rumsfeld, authorised this technique. Leaving

people in Sweatboxes has been used for centuries. In Vietnam, shipping containers left over

by American forces were used to torture people in the intense heat of the tropical climate.

The same technique has been applied in Guantanamo. An investigation into improperinterrogations noted this technique noting; Thatmilitary interrogators improperly used

extremes of heat and cold during their interrogation of detainees.

9. Sensory Bombardment (Noise)

Noise has been used by torturers to either mask sounds of others being tortured, such as when

childrens music wasplayed by the Gestapo when beating Walter Bauer, or when they are

trying to disrupt sleep, terrorise or create emotions within the prisoners. In 2004, a U.S.

military official admitted that uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having themsit in a chair with shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure

strobe lights and screaming loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers,

while the air conditioning was turned up to maximum levels.

10. Watching Others Being Tortured

Witnessing torture and violence can have the same psychological effects of actually

experiencing the violence. Scientists have found that psychological manipulation techniques,

such as deprivation, humiliation and forced stress positions cause as much mental stress as

physical pain.

11. Psychological Techniques

Psychologically abusive techniques were used to disrupt sleep and disorient detainees. The

CIAs KUBARK manual suggests that interrogations aided by the use of temperature

extremes, noise bombardment and sleep deprivation are able to induce regression, psychic

disintegration, and feelings of helplessness that lower prisoners defences.This of course,leads to signed confessions and more malleable prisoners.

During interrogations, intelligence branches and BSCT teams (psychologists and

psychiatrists) sat behind double sided glass to watch detainees being interrogated. Their job

was to provide information on the detainees mental health, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

The Kiley Report confirms that medical personnel were utilised during interrogations. The

ICRC called this a flagrant violation of medical ethics.

Seemingly menial techniques were also employed, such as forcing detainees to read

childrens books. News organisations reported that an interrogator read a Harry Potter book

to a detainee for hours in order to wear down the detainee. Keeping detainees ina


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childlike state was considered advantageous to the interrogators because they were more

suggestible and malleable.

MD 131158 Md hanafiah bin nordin.

MD 131113 Shamsudin Bin Abdul Majid

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