If there is anyone left who was unconvinced that the United States practices torture by deliberate policy, but who is susceptible to evidence, I’d like to welcome that person to the ranks of the disgusted and disillusioned.
Among the highlights of the new documents uncovered by the ACLU:
- Even people on the inside are calling the interrogation techniques practiced at Gitmo “torture” now. One memo says that the torturers in the Department of Defense were impersonating FBI agents during torture and interrogation — “If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done by the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [be] left holding the bag before the public.”
- A memo that makes frequent mentions of interrogation techniques that were beyond-the-pale for the FBI but were “authorized by the President under his Executive Order.”
- An internal FBI memo that reads in part: “As requested, here is a brief summary of what I observed at GTMO. ¶ On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. When I asked the MP’s what was going on, I was told that interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved. On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.”