BY CAROL ROSENBERG

crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Two Navy defense lawyers upended a prison camps taboo Tuesday and toured a top-secret detention facility that houses the alleged elite of al Qaeda, called Camp 7.

''We weren't hooded,'' said Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, Pentagon-appointed defense attorney for alleged 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh. She declined to provide details of the special prison camp whose exact location on this 45-square mile Navy base is considered a national security secret.

Pentagon officials will only say that the facility segregates some 16 former CIA-held captives from the 235 or so other war-on-terror detainees.

Among those sequestered there are alleged al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an Indonesian terror captive called Hambali and alleged arch-terrorist known as Abu Zubaydah, two of whom the CIA has confirmed waterboarding during overseas detention before President Bush ordered their transfer here for war court prosecution in September 2006.

Until Tuesday, only the Red Cross and unidentified prison camp personnel had seen Camp 7, a site so clandestine prison camp officials won't identify the commander of the secret detention center unit known as Task Force Platinum.

But a military judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, issued an order in October permitting Lachelier and her co-counsel, Navy Lt. Rich Federico, to inspect the portion of the prison complex where Bin al Shibh is held. The order covered a visit to his cell, two adjacent cells, a so-called recreation room, medical room and media room -- providing a glimpse of the facilities of the clandestine prison camp on Tuesday night.

Their purpose was to evaluate the circumstances of his confinement as part of ongoing hearings of whether he is mentally competent to serve as his own defense counsel at any future death-penalty trial.

Prosecutors have charged Bin al Shibh and four other former CIA captives, among them alleged 911 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a complex conspiracy case. They allegedly trained, advised and financed the 19 hijackers who commandeered American airlines on Sept. 11, 2001, and then crashed them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing 2,973 people.

Bin al Shibh's attorneys have said in court filings that the Yemeni is being administered psychotropic drugs by U.S. military medical staff, which may hamper his ability to defend himself at trial. Under the terms of their access, Federico and Lachelier said, they could describe little about their 90-minute Tuesday night tour.

"We accomplished everything that the judge ordered," the commander said.

Pentagon officials consider Camp 7 such closely guarded secret that they consistently refuse to say how much money was spent on its construction -- in contrast to public disclosure of contracts for the other prison camps that sprawl across a bluff at Guantánamo overlooking the Caribbean.

In ordering the unprecedented access in October, judge Kohlmann noted that both Navy lawyers have top secret security clearances -- and volunteered to be blindfolded, if need be, as a condition of transport to the special prison camp.

Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a war court defense attorney, at left, and her co-counsel, Navy Lt. Richard Federico, at right, paid an unprecedented visit Tuesday Nov. 18, 2008 to the top-secret prison facility called Camp 7 where their Pentagon appointed client, Ramzi bin al Shibh, center, is held along with other former CIA detainees. Bin al Shibh is accused of conspiracy the mass murder of nearly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. He has refused to work with his lawyers, who are trying to determine whether he is mentally competent to defend himself at trial.

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Related Content

• Document | Military commission judges biographies
• About the 9/11 war crimes trial
• Marine judge orders access to secret Gitmo prison camp
• Document | Judge gives attorneys access to Camp 7
• 'Platinum' captives held at off-limits Gitmo camp
• Detainees claim they're denied legal tools

Let's get HONEST about waterboarding and TORTURE

Warning From The Best - Must Read - chart below

By Dazeylin

Categories: Abuse, Detainee Abuse and Torture Tags: No Tags.

By SCOTT SHANE

Published: July 2, 2008

WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

Related

Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From the Air Force Prisoners of War (pdf)

Documents Released at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on SERE Tactics(pdf)

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.

Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed.

But committee investigators were not aware of the chart’s source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.

Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured.

In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that “every American would be shocked” by the origin of the training document.

“What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,” Mr. Levin said. “People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.”

A Defense Department spokesman, Lt. Col Patrick Ryder, said he could not comment on the Guantánamo training chart. “I can’t speculate on previous decisions that may have been made prior to current D.O.D. policy on interrogations,” Colonel Ryder said. “I can tell you that current D.O.D. policy is clear — we treat all detainees humanely.”

Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article described “one form of torture” used by the Chinese as forcing American prisoners to stand “for exceedingly long periods,” sometimes in conditions of “extreme cold.” Such passive methods, he wrote, were more common than outright physical violence. Prolonged standing and exposure to cold have both been used by American military and C.I.A. interrogators against terrorist suspects.

The chart also listed other techniques used by the Chinese, including “Semi-Starvation,” “Exploitation of Wounds,” and “Filthy, Infested Surroundings,” and with their effects: “Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator,” “Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist,” and “Reduces Prisoner to ‘Animal Level’ Concerns.”

The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”

The documents released last month include an e-mail message from two SERE trainers reporting on a trip to Guantánamo from Dec. 29, 2002, to Jan. 4, 2003. Their purpose, the message said, was to present to interrogators “the theory and application of the physical pressures utilized during our training.”

The sessions included “an in-depth class on Biderman’s Principles,” the message said, referring to the chart from Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article. Versions of the same chart, often identified as “Biderman’s Chart of Coercion,” have circulated on anti-cult sites on the Web, where the methods are used to describe how cults control their members.

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who also studied the returning prisoners of war and wrote an accompanying article in the same 1957 issue of The Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, said in an interviePublish Postw that he was disturbed to learn that the Chinese methods had been recycled and taught at Guantánamo.

“It saddens me,” said Dr. Lifton, who wrote a 1961 book on what the Chinese called “thought reform” and became known in popular American parlance as brainwashing. He called the use of the Chinese techniques by American interrogators at Guantánamo a “180-degree turn.”

The harshest known interrogation at Guantánamo was that of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a member of Al Qaeda suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Qahtani’s interrogation involved sleep deprivation, stress positions, exposure to cold and other methods also used by the Chinese.

Terror charges against Mr. Qahtani were dropped unexpectedly in May. Officials said the charges could be reinstated later and declined to say whether the decision was influenced by concern about Mr. Qahtani’s treatment.

Mr. Bush has defended the use the interrogation methods, saying they helped provide critical intelligence and prevented new terrorist attacks. But the issue continues to complicate the long-delayed prosecutions now proceeding at Guantánamo.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Qaeda member accused of playing a major role in the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, was charged with murder and other crimes on Monday. In previous hearings, Mr. Nashiri, who was subjected to waterboarding, has said he confessed to participating in the bombing falsely only because he was tortured.

Rebuttal of "communist" assertion . . .

These techniques Did Not originate with the Communists:

The techniques were diagrammed and spelled out earlier, in Gestapo manuals (View a photocopy online of an original at GW University’s National Security Archives) produced in the 30’s, are identical (except for the sexual perversion) to all of the torture techniques used by the CIA (and who knows what other agents of the US gov) since the disastrous National Security Act was passed under Truman. The Gestapo’s favorite techniques (yielding terror and false confessions, not accurate info) included a combination of sensory deprivation (with or without sensory overload), self-inflicted pain (stress positions etc), environmental stress (hot, cold etc), sleep deprivation, controlled starvation, with or without asphyxiation techniques(such as water boarding). Remember the Abu Ghraib photos of thugs torturing with asphyxiation by sitting on the board sandwiched chests of their civilian prisoners. Many die from asphyxiation techniques. One of the few convictions for U.S. torture in Iraq was for the asphyxiation torture death of uniformed Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush (the heavy set officer that officially surrendered to Gen Schwarzkopf at the end of Gulf War I) who had turned himself in for questioning while the U.S. was holding members of his family. He had been water-boarded but died while tightly bound head-first in a sleeping bag. Celebrities and pundits, who undergo fake water-boarding, help to trivialize one of the worst tortures in history.

Through “Operation Paperclip”, the US secreted many Nazi war criminals to the US, not just rocket scientists, but sadistic torturers (among multiple other categories) so as to learn what they knew. It was therefore obvious from the very beginning (starting in 2001 at Bagram) to those with even a cursory knowledge of this history, that the 1st accounts coming out of Bagram air force base in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and all the rest meant not just isolated, rogue or poorly trained soldiers being cruel but the top-down institution of the Gestapo’s techniques as the policy of the Bush administration. It has been reported in the last several months that Bush is now “rendering” and torturing 10’s of thousands of people on a world-wide network of prison ships. (He stole that idea from the British).

The Soviets had their own version of “Operation Paperclip” and learned from the Germans as well. The big joke after World War II was that the US could brag that “our German scientists are better than the your (the Soviets) German scientists”.

It is quite curious that those who should know better would claim that these techniques were studied scientifically and perfected by the fascists, not the communists. That is not to say that all of the powerful democracies (including the U.S.) have used torture (and terrorism) extensively for over a century. The U.S. killed and tortured the people of the Philippines by the hundreds of thousands at the turn of the last century.

No need to blame the Communists on this one.. Makes you wonder what the source of the story was.

Peace, JK

Torturegate: DoJ's Bradbury says waterboarding NOT Legal

Let's look at the implications of the "new" "news" below -

Bush might just veto it the Senate bill, or he can do another of his famous signing statements to take the sting out of the provisions of the bill.

But the Senate vote seems like a good first step in the right direction. After the FISA debacle, I really thought this would be another poke in the eye for the rule of law - but I think those who testified in the committee did a really great job. I sat and watched it and took notes. I felt proud, actually proud, of everyone who testified, too, as if the America I once knew was still really alive.

Why did John McCain voted against this amendment even though it is almost exactly the same as one he proposed 6 months ago. One can guess he's appealing to the Dominionists to lock up his nomination. Must must torture the arab brethen not ready for the Rapture!! Give them one more dose of hell so that they convert or something.

The right wingers still have their knickers in a twist - they THINK that waterboarding (in particular) and other torturous techniques gets information in a short space of time and would like their ability to show their superiority to the "captured" by gagging them to death and we shall hear further complaining from their quarters - you can trust me on that. The concept of a LEASH is foreign to them.

Tis true that many of the forms of torture are left unmentioned - the ones that they used to accuse Fidel of using when I grew up. But the British have ALWAYS used grueling horrifying methods - peeling back fingernails, cutting off fingertips, things that when you just hink about them make you reel in pain. The IRA has many horriying tales to tale!!

And why woud I possibly think that the CIA will actually stop doing any of the extreme methods or having someone else do the dirty work for them as they so often do? I think this whole thing as been of huge PR campaign to make up for Abu Ghraib and to make it look as if something had CHANGED when in fact it's more likely they will say: "oh, it couldn't be US doing it, we did away with that!" The sudden comments by Bradbury seem to confirm my speculations, too. God knows that the Office of Legal Counsel always has something "up its sleeve" for the past seven years, why change now at this late date? It's a mere tool of Dick Cheney. Cheney's comments on torture were to let the world know that no matter what legal opinion anyone came up with, no matter what Congress did - he is the ROUGH TOUGH guy who would waterboard himself and everyone who "works for him" will still be doing it business as usual. {Will someone PLEASE impeach this guy and indict him and imprision him for an eon? Such a JERK.}

From Guantanamo to Bagram to other black sites, the torture continues. To deny people the arms of their loved ones when they have no idea that this loss can ever be changed is bitter torture. The Senate decision and Bradbury are NOT changing this because they see the humanity in others - they did to look superior. Nothing has changed, business of getting what you want as usual. They did it to look as if their world dominance is justified because they are so completely logical while concerned with the fate of US servicemen and women. Were they so kind to veterans returning home ..

Following the conventions is not there to work out some new rationale to appear weak to the enemy - they are there so society can progress but somehow in the past seven years of high minded arrogance the concept of being civilized enough to agree on a cooperative code of conduct seems to have gotten lost. The ability to have Joe Potato understand the importance of Geneva has been lost. We must fight on until we get it back in both the United States as well as Canada.

What makes people think that this kind of torture is happening on the other side? At least now we can bring to heel those who would make other nations and entities think that some in the US will not abide by this inhumanity. Too bad it took so much work to get the Senate to follow the rule of law when the law was clear along.

We can only wait to see what he Decider in Chief decides to do - is HE the last word on the law?

Veeger

Justice Says Waterboarding Not Legal

By LAURIE KELLMAN – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Justice Department official says laws and other limits enacted since three terrorism suspects were waterboarded has eliminated the technique from what is now legally allowed, going a step beyond what CIA Director Michael Hayden has said.

"The set of interrogation methods authorized for current use is narrower than before, and it does not today include waterboarding," Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, says in remarks prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee.

"There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law," he said. It is the first time the department has expressed such an opinion publicly.

Bradbury in 2005 signed two secret legal memos that authorized the CIA to use head slaps, freezing temperatures and waterboarding when questioning terror detainees. Because of that, Senate Democrats have opposed his nomination by President Bush to formally head the legal counsel's office.

Bradbury's testimony comes as majority Democrats in Congress try to clamp down on interrogation methods that can be used on terrorism suspects.

Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh tactics, despite Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning.

The House had approved the measure in December. Wednesday's Senate vote set up a confrontation with the White House, where Bush has promised to veto any bill that restricts CIA questioning.

The legislation bars the CIA from using waterboarding, sensory deprivation or other harsh coercive methods to break a prisoner who refuses to answer questions. Those practices were banned by the military in 2006.

Bradbury's comments go a step further than Hayden's last week. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, the CIA director acknowledged for the first time publicly that the CIA has used waterboarding against three prisoners.

Hayden said current law and court decisions, including the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, cast doubt on whether waterboarding would be legal now. Hayden prohibited its use in CIA interrogations in 2006; it has not been used since 2003, he said.

The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all detainees in U.S. custody, including CIA prisoners.

Waterboarding is still officially in the CIA tool kit but it requires the consent of the attorney general and president on a case-by-case basis.

On the Net:

• House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee: http://judiciary.house.gov/committeestructure.aspx

see also: http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/15447266.html

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/durbin_calls_for_investigation.php

Senate Passes Ban On Waterboarding, Other Techniques

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page A03

The Senate voted yesterday to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics used by the CIA, matching a previous House vote and putting Congress on a collision course with the White House over a pivotal national security issue.

In a 51 to 45 vote, the Senate approved an intelligence bill that limits the CIA to using 19 less-aggressive interrogation tactics outlined in a U.S. Army Field Manual. The measure would effectively ban the use of simulated drowning, temperature extremes and other harsh tactics that the CIA used on al-Qaeda prisoners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

President Bush has vowed to veto the legislation, which the House approved in December, and Congress does not appear to have enough votes to override a veto.

House lawmakers, meanwhile, bickered yesterday over a Senate bill approved Tuesday that would permanently expand the government's ability to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects without warrants and would protect telecommunication firms from lawsuits for helping conduct such wiretaps. A temporary law that does not include the immunity provision is due to expire Saturday.

House Democrats had sought to extend the temporary law for 21 days to allow more time for debate, but the full chamber overwhelmingly rejected that idea by a vote of 229 to 191. Thirty-four Democrats joined Republicans in defeating the measure.

The outcome marked a notable victory for Bush, who had threatened to veto any delay and warned yesterday that "terrorists are planning new attacks on our country . . . that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled last night that debate over the bill is unlikely to end quickly and that Democrats may let the temporary law expire. Although Bush and his aides have said such a move would undermine current surveillance efforts and pose a national security threat, Democrats note that intelligence-gathering orders under the temporary law are good for a year and that routine surveillance powers would remain.

"The President and House Republicans refused to support the extension and therefore will bear the responsibility should any adverse national consequences result," Pelosi said in a statement.

In the Senate, the move to ban coercive techniques at the CIA follows two weeks of intense public debate over the agency's use of waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, on three al-Qaeda prisoners in 2002 and 2003. It also comes in the same week that the Bush administration announced plans to try six prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Five of the six were subjected to harsh CIA tactics.

Congress banned any military use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics through the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006, which was co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), now the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

But McCain sided with the Bush administration yesterday on the waterboarding ban passed by the Senate, saying in a statement that the measure goes too far by applying military standards to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws already forbid waterboarding, and he urged the administration to declare it illegal.

"Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a clear violation"

of laws and treaties, McCain said.

The two Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), have said waterboarding is clearly illegal and should be banned, but neither voted yesterday because they were campaigning elsewhere.

A Justice Department senior official is expected to tell House lawmakers today that "there has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law."

The prepared remarks by Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, for a Judiciary subcommittee hearing was obtained in advance by The Washington Post. It essentially reiterates the view of Mukasey, who testified last week that he had not analyzed the legality of waterboarding because it is no longer used. Neither answers the question of whether waterboarding would be legal now.

Human rights groups and civil liberties advocates argue that waterboarding amounts to illegal torture.

"This legislation will ensure that the United States no longer employs interrogation methods it would condemn if used by our enemies against captured Americans,"

said Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First.

The Army manual forbids eight harsh techniques, including waterboarding, mock executions, use of beatings and electric shocks, forced nakedness and sexual acts, and causing hypothermia or heat injuries.

Washingtonpost.com staff writer Ben Pershing contributed to this report.

-<<:>>-

GENERAL JOSEPH HOAR, USMC (RET.) GENERAL PAUL J. KERN, USA (RET.)
GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK, USMC (RET.) GENERAL DAVID M. MADDOX, USA (RET.)
GENERAL BARRY MCCAFFREY, USA (RET.) GENERAL MERRILL A. MCPEAK, USAF (RET.) ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER, USN (RET.) GENERAL WILLIAM G. T. TUTTLE JR., USA (RET.) GENERAL CHARLES E. WILHELM, USMC (RET.) GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.) LIEUTENANT GENERAL ROBERT G. GARD JR., USA (RET.) VICE ADMIRAL LEE F. GUNN, USN (RET.) LIEUTENANT GENERAL HENRY J. HATCH, USA (RET.) LIEUTENANT GENERAL CLAUDIA J. KENNEDY, USA (RET.)
LIEUTENANT GENERAL DONALD L. KERRICK, USA (RET.) VICE ADMIRAL ALBERT H. KONETZNI JR., USN (RET.) LIEUTENANT GENERAL CHARLES OTSTOTT, USA (RET.) LIEUTENANT GENERAL HARRY E. SOYSTER, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL LEO M. CHILDS, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL JAMES P. COLLINS, USA (RET.)
MAJOR GENERAL PAUL EATON, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL EUGENE FOX, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL JOHN L. FUGH, USA (RET.) REAR ADMIRAL DON GUTER, USN (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL FRED E. HAYNES, USMC (RET.) REAR ADMIRAL JOHN D. HUTSON, USN (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL MELVYN MONTANO, ANG (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL ERIC OLSON, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL THOMAS J. ROMIG, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL GERALD T. SAJER, USA (RET.) MAJOR GENERAL ANTONIO ‘TONY’ M. TAGUBA, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL DORIAN ANDERSON, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID M. BRAHMS, USMC (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL CLARKE M. BRINTNALL, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL JAMES P. CULLEN, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL EVELYN P. FOOTE, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL GERALD E. GALLOWAY, USA (RET) BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID R. IRVINE, USA (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN H. JOHNS, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL RICHARD O’MEARA, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL MURRAY G. SAGSVEEN, USA (RET.) BRIGADIER GENERAL ANTHONY VERRENGIA, USAF (RET.)
BRIGADIER GENERAL STEPHEN N. XENAKIS, USA (RET.)

February 12, 2008
The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV, Chairman
The United States Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Christopher S. Bond, Vice Chairman
The United States Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Rockefeller and Vice Chairman Bond:

As retired military leaders of the U.S. Armed Forces, we write to express our strong support for Section 327 of the Conference Report on the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, H.R. 2082. Section 327 would require intelligence agents of the U.S. government to adhere to the standards of prisoner treatment and interrogation contained in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Human Collector Operations (the Army Field Manual).

We believe it is vital to the safety of our men and women in uniform that the United States not sanction the use of interrogation methods it would find unacceptable if inflicted by the enemy against captured Americans. That principle, embedded in the Army Field Manual, has guided generations of American military personnel in combat.

The current situation, in which the military operates under one set of interrogation rules that are public and the CIA operates under a separate, secret set of rules, is unwise and impractical. In order to ensure adherence across the government to the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and to maintain the integrity of the humane treatment standards on which our own troops rely, we believe that all U.S. personnel – military and civilian – should be held to a single standard of humane treatment reflected in the Army Field Manual.

The Field Manual is the product of decades of practical experience and was updated in 2006 to reflect lessons learned from the current conflict. Interrogation methods authorized by the Field Manual have proven effective in eliciting vital intelligence from dangerous enemy prisoners. Some have argued that the Field Manual rules are too simplistic for civilian interrogators. We reject that argument. Interrogation methods authorized in the Field Manual are sophisticated and flexible. And the principles reflected in the Field Manual are values that no U.S. agency should violate.

General David Petraeus underscored this point in an open letter to the troops in May in which he cautioned against the use of interrogation techniques not authorized by the Field Manual:

What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight. . . . is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect…. Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk;” however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact, our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.

Employing interrogation methods that violate the Field Manual is not only unnecessary, but poses enormous risks. These methods generate information of dubious value, reliance upon which can lead to disastrous consequences. Moreover, revelation of the use of such techniques does immense damage to the reputation and moral authority of the United States essential to our efforts to combat terrorism.

This is a defining issue for America. We urge you to support the adoption of Section 327 of the Conference Report and thereby send a clear message – to U.S. personnel and to the world – that the United States will not engage in or condone the abuse of prisoners and will honor its commitments to uphold the Geneva Conventions.

Sincerely,

TORTUREGATE: background on waterboarding

Published on Friday, February 8, 2008 by The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
Waterboarding and Inquistion
by David M. Gitlitz

Why has the Bush administration been dancing around the question of whether waterboarding is torture?

Waterboarding was one of the most common tortures employed by the Spanish Inquisition for the first half of its 450-year-long history (circa 1480-1834). This has never been a secret. It is attested to by reams of documents - letters, debates, manuals of instruction and copious records of trials that include verbatim accounts of the torture sessions themselves - in the Historical Archives of Spain and Mexico, in which I have worked for the last 30 years. The information about inquisitorial waterboarding has also been available to the English-reading general public since publication of H.C. Lea’s A History of the Inquisition, the last volume of which appeared a hundred years ago this year.

Here is Lea’s description of the inquisitorial waterboarding:

“The patient was placed on an escalera or potro - a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder. It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat kept it immovable. A bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a toca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from a jarra or jar, holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient gasped and felt he was suffocating, and at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight.”

The Spanish Inquisition, unlike many American lawmakers and members of the executive branch, did not waffle about labeling waterboarding a torture. Waterboarding was not invented in Spain: Since the middle of the 13th Century it had been used by European civil and ecclesiastical courts, particularly the Papal Inquisition, in Rome. In Spain no one voiced doubts, as did Michael Mukasey during his October confirmation hearings for U.S. attorney general, and at a hearing just the other day, about whether waterboarding might not technically be torture.

President Bush, on the other hand, has no doubts at all. Unlike his nominee, he spoke with inquisitor-like certainty when he proclaimed that our physically coercive techniques “are safe, they are lawful and they are necessary.” He apparently sees no contradiction in simultaneously insisting that these “classified interrogation procedures” be conducted offshore so as to remove them from the jurisdiction and safeguards of the American judicial system.

The Spanish Inquisition guaranteed to the accused many of the legal protections that the current administration has worked so hard to sweep under the rug. Within the context of their times the Inquisition’s stance, succinctly laid out in its 1561 Manual of Instruction to Inquisitors, was remarkable. Both the prosecuting and court-appointed defense attorneys had access to the substance of all of the testimonies relating to the accused. The accused could disqualify the testimony of anyone whom he or she could prove had animus against them. Inquisitors had to weigh the full arguments of the defense and the prosecution before ordering a torture session. The order required a unanimous vote of the judges. If the defense attorney didn’t accept the decision, he could appeal the ruling to the Inquisition’s Supreme Council (though in practice they rarely did).

Gathered in the torture chamber itself were the inquisitors, a bishop’s representative, and a recording secretary adept at speedwriting, which was the videotaping of its day. The attending doctor could rule the accused unfit to be tortured, and could order the procedure stopped at any time. Once the accused was brought into the torture chamber, he was offered several chances - the average seems to have been about six- to make full voluntary confession. Fear in the presence of imminent pain was generally enough to loosen the accused person’s tongue. It was only when fear alone did not work that torture was applied, with each step of the procedure, each jar of water and turn of the winch, each question and each choked-out answer, duly noted by the recording secretary. None of the participants ever destroyed those documents out of fear of embarrassment or indictment for their actions. Nor did their bosses. The original recordings were archived, and after 500 years are still available.

I am not praising the Spanish Inquisition. I know enough about the real Inquisition - not the cartoon version of Monty Python nor the sensationalist horrors of the Black Legend - to know that the Inquisition was heinous in almost every way. Though debates raged then and still rage among scholars about the reliability of the information elicited by these procedures, there is no disagreement about one fact: Waterboarding was torture. That was its intent, and that, in conjunction with a variety of other torments, was how the Spanish inquisitors used it. Even today popular imagination condemns them for it. For the United States to adopt even one of the Inquisition’s torture techniques exposes us, rightly, to moral condemnation.

The United States has long been a beacon to the world for its ethical principles (even when sometimes these have been honored in the breach). Equal treatment under the law. Habeas corpus. Free and open discussion informed by access to information and a free press. Checks and balances to ensure that these rights are protected.

That the Bush-Cheney administration has squandered our human and material resources in this so-called war against terror is a calamity that will affect us for decades. But that they have blown away our moral capital, that they have compromised the principles that define us as a nation, that is a tragedy.

David M. Gitlitz is a professor of Hispanic studies at the University of Rhode Island.

© 2008 The Providence Journal Co.

US National Security EMBRACING TORTURE, good links

NATIONAL SECURITY

Embracing Torture

Earlier this week, CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged for the first time publicly that the agency had used the tactic of waterboarding on at least three prisoners nearly five years ago. Waterboarding is an interrogation practice in which, "the victim's lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies." As Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, told Congress, "

Waterboarding is a long-standing form of torture used by history's most brutal governments, including those of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, North Korea, Iraq, the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia."

Yesterday, "after years of dodging and dissembling, the Bush administration boldly embraced" its record of torture and said it would "definitely want to consider" using it again. "It will depend upon circumstances," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding that future acts of waterboarding would "need the president's approval," and the White House would notify "appropriate members of Congress."

LEGAL PARSING: In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. "Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago." Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said in an interview this month, "There's just no doubt in my mind -- under any set of rules -- waterboarding is torture." But inside the Bush administration, such clarity has succumbed to legal parsing.

"I would feel" waterboarding was torture "if it were done to me,"

Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress recently. But Mukasey, who promised to lead a legal review of the practice before being confirmed, is now refusing to brief Congress on the legality of waterboarding. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told the New Yorker in January,

"Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

But this week, McConnell said his comments should not be interpreted to reflect an official administration position. When he said waterboarding was "torture," McConnell explained to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), he meant he just personally didn't like water up his nose.

FROM DENIAL TO OPEN ADVOCACY: For years, the White House had done its best to deny the obvious: that it had employed waterboarding against prisoners. When Vice President Dick Cheney told a conservative talk radio host in Oct. 2006 that it would be a "no-brainer" to "dunk" an individual in water if it would save lives, the White House tried to dispel any notion that Cheney was embracing waterboarding. Now the White House strategy has changed -- "the administration has apparently decided that this is a debate they can win out in the open." The switch comes as Congress is considering legislation that "if passed, would require all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to abide by the Army Field Manual's prohibition against waterboarding." The White House said yesterday it wants to retain the option to use waterboarding, even while President Bush has frequently claimed "we do not torture." "Torture is illegal," Fratto said yesterday after McConnell's testimony.

"We don't torture -- we maintain and as we have said many times that the programs have been reviewed, and the Department of Justice has determined them to be legal."

SPOTLIGHT ON THE SENATE: In December, the House passed an amendment that extends the current prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against torture to U.S. intelligence agencies and personnel. Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Christopher Bond (R-MO) has said he would lead an effort to remove that requirement when the legislation reaches the Senate floor. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who in the past has made a series of statements against the use of waterboarding, has placed a hold on the anti-waterboarding bill. A number of key Republican swing votes -- including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) -- will likely make the difference if the bill comes to a vote. McCain has previously called waterboarding a "horrible, odious" technique that "should never be condoned in the U.S."

Torture gate: Durbin: Investigate CIA waterboarding

In the interests of clarity -

Time to get on with job boyz.

Go to it for this once - hold the Administration's feet to the fire as they have well and truly f*cked up on this one.

The law is the law - you are expected to uphold it. NO EXCUSES.

If you are reading this, write now and demand hearings! But don't forget that the object of the exercise is not to fry a few small fish, but to get the guy who sold the rotten fishing rod from the XIII century in the first place ...

Sheldon, this is YOUR moment to do the right thing and SHINE. Go for it!!

Veeger
(ps looking at this list of rePUGs on the committee makes me snarky. What a pack of reptiles are on this one peculiar, particular committee !!)

Senate Judiciary Committee

Patrick J. Leahy CHAIRMAN, D-VERMONT
Edward M. Kennedy D-MASSACHUSETTS	Arlen Specter RANKING MEMBER, R-PENNSYLVANIA
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. D-DELAWARE	Orrin G. Hatch R-UTAH
Herb Kohl D-WISCONSIN	Charles E. Grassley R-IOWA
Dianne Feinstein D-CALIFORNIA	Jon Kyl R-ARIZONA
Russell D. Feingold D-WISCONSIN	Jeff Sessions R-ALABAMA
Charles E. Schumer D-NEW YORK	Lindsey Graham R-SOUTH CAROLINA
Richard J. Durbin D-ILLINOIS	John Cornyn R-TEXAS
Benjamin L. Cardin D-MARYLAND	Sam Brownback R-KANSAS
Sheldon Whitehouse D-RHODE ISLAND	Tom Coburn

Durbin: Investigate CIA waterboarding

by James Oliphant

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin today demanded that Atty. Gen Michael Mukasey open a criminal probe into whether CIA officials broke the law in employing the interrogation technique known as waterboarding on three suspected terrorists.

Durbin, the Senate majority whip, says he will continue to hold up a confirmation vote on Chicago federal judge Mark Filip as the deputy attorney general until he receives a satisfactory response from Mukasey.

Durbin's request comes after CIA director Michael Hayden told a congressional committee today that waterboarding had only been used "only three detainees." Last week, Mukasey appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and said he would not flatly declare waterboarding to be illegal, but said he indicated there were some circumstances where it could be.

In a letter to Mukasey, Durbin wrote:

In light of your testimony that, “There are circumstances where waterboarding is clearly unlawful,” the Justice Department should investigate the instances in which the Administration has used waterboarding to determine whether any laws were violated. You suggested during last week’s hearing that you would not investigate these incidents because waterboarding was authorized by the Administration: “It’s a question of telling agents out there that we are investigating the CIA based on speculation about what happened and whether they got proper authorizations.” Needless to say, a Justice Department investigation should explore whether waterboarding was authorized and whether those who authorized it violated the law. Please respond to this question: Will the Justice Department investigate the Administration’s use of waterboarding to determine whether any laws were violated?

Durbin also wants responses from Mukasey on a host of other torture-related inquiries.

The senator wrote that he respects Judge Filip and does not object to his "continued public service" but at some point Mukasey "must accept his responsibility under our Constitution to acknowledge the role of Congress.”

Tension between the Senate and the Justice Department has been rising ever since Mukasey testified at his confirmation hearing that he wouldn't condemn waterboarding as illegal torture. Judiciary Committee members such as Durbin hoped Mukasey would have a better relationship with the committee than his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, but those hopes seem to be deteriorating.

The rancor over torture comes as the Senate this afternoon is addressing another front in the war against terrorism. Senators are currently debating amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on the floor of the chamber. The debate involves whether to make permanent expanding wiretapping powers that have been given to the government on a temporary basis and whether to provide large telecom companies with civil immunity for aiding the government in wiretapping requests after 9/11.

Comments:

"MUKASEY SPEASK TO CONGRESS"

UM. UM. UM. UM. UM. WELL I THINK, UM. UM. UM. UM. UM.

IF HE WAS BLACK MAN FROM THE WEST, THEN IT WOULD BE WATERBOARDING, AS THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM.

BUT IF I LAST CHECKED THE THREE WE WATERBORDED OR TORTURED WERE BROWN SKIN FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE.

THE NEWS REPORTER, WELL, THAT IS AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION AND OUR ADMINISTRATION DOESN'T DISCUSS ONGOING INVESTIGATIONS IN RELATIONSHIP TO GEORGE BUSH, DICK CHENEY OR ANY OF THIS MEN.

SO SENATOR, UM. UM...UM...UM...UM...

ONE THOUSAND "UM'S" MEANS THIS ATTORNEY CAN'T BE A DEFENSE ATTORNEY AND A PROSECUTING ATTORNEY AT THE SAME TIME. HE IS NOT WILLING TO HOLD "THESE MEN" TO THE LETTER OF THE LAW.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROSECUTIONS AS THE "SECRETARY" NEEDS MORE TO JUSTIFY HIS NEW "STATE GRANT PROGRAMS"

MR. UM MUKASEY HAS SPOKEN.

MAYBE THIS IS WHY GEORGE BUSH WANTS TO DECREASE DOJ FUNDING BY 200 MILLION DOLLARS.

Posted by: Roger

---

I can see the Dick Turbin comments by weak knee John D already. Paula too. But wait, even John McCain is against torture and waterboarding is certainly TORTURE. Kudos to Sen. Dick Durbin from the great state of Illinois. Thanks for defending America's good name. Something the Bush administration has trashed. God Bless America.

DeOppressoLiber

Posted by: Logic Prisoner

---

So does this mean waterboarding is "legal" now?

I can think of a couple of guys who have some answering to do to the Amercan people right about now.

Starting with this idiot:
http://photobucket.com/mediadetail/?media=http%3A%2F%2Fi221.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fdd113%2Flamepandp%2Ftorture.jpg&searchTerm=torture&pageOffset=6

Posted by: John E

---

re. waterboarding: OK the warning shot has been fired across the bow... It will henceforth be relegated to a more distant back burner of interrogation techniques than it already was. I think that is a safe place to keep it stored, but not eliminated always and forever.

Posted by: Nancy

---

Investigate, then impeach, our-soldiers-are-Nazis Durbin.

Posted by: Patton

---

Only the famed Nazi hunter could get to the bottom of this!

torturegate: BBC: CIA admits waterboarding inmates

If they are inmates they should be afforded the right to due process! Also, it was Abu Zubaydah who's tapes were destroyed ... or are there more tapes ??

CIA admits waterboarding inmates

The CIA says it used waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

The CIA has for the first time publicly admitted using the controversial method of "waterboarding" on terror suspects.

CIA director Michael Hayden told Congress however that it had only been used on three people, and not at all for the past five years.

He said the technique had been used on high-profile al-Qaeda detainees including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Waterboarding is an interrogation technique in which the detainee is put in fear of drowning.

Mr Hayden was speaking as National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell presented his annual threat assessment.

We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time Michael Hayden CIA director

Some critics describe the procedure as torture and Congress has been debating banning its use by the CIA.

President Bush has threatened to veto such a bill.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is accused of masterminding the 11 September attacks on the United States.

The two other men Mr Hayden said the CIA had also used waterboarding against are also top al-Qaeda suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Catastrophe fears

He told Congress: "We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time.

Michael Hayden (R) spoke as Mike McConnell reported to Congress

"There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we had limited knowledge about al-Qaeda and its workings.

"Those two realities have changed."

In his report, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell focussed attention on al-Qaeda and its leadership based in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Al-Qaeda remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States, both here at home and abroad," he said.

His report said al-Qaeda enjoyed many of the same benefits from its bases in the border areas as it had when it was in Afghanistan proper, and was able to:

• use the region as a staging area for attacks outside
• maintain a group of skilled operators able to direct operations around the world
• pass on morale-boosting messages from Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri
• improve its ability to attack the US itself.

Despite this, Mr McConnell praised the Pakistani authorities, saying they had done more to "neutralise" terrorists than any of the US's other partners - despite more than 860 members of their security forces being killed by bombs in 2007.

And although al-Qaeda had suffered some reverses, he said, it remained active and dangerous in Iraq, in North Africa, in the Arabian peninsula, Lebanon, East Africa, Pakistan and South- East Asia.

Other worries outlined by Mr McConnell included:

• Russia, China and oil producers using their wealth to advance political goals
• nuclear proliferation, especially Iran and North Korea
• computer system vulnerabilities.

"The threats we face are global, complex and dangerous," he wrote.

"We must have the tools to enable the detection and disruption of terrorist plots and other threats."

CIA 'SECRET WAR'

KEY STORIES

Water-boarding 'would be torture'

Agent defends 'water-boarding'

Inquiry into destroyed CIA tapes

CIA rejects secret jails report

CIA jails in Europe 'confirmed'

Italy CIA kidnap trial adjourned

BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS

Water-boarding
Paul Reynolds examines the practice and legality of simulated drowning

Q&A: Water-boarding

Credibility test for CIA

Tales of torture

Q&A: Secret jails claims

HAVE YOUR SAY

Interrogation tapes: Your reaction