WASHINGTON, 22 December 2004 — The White House directly authorized inhumane interrogation techniques of detainees in Iraq such as sleep deprivation and the use of dogs, according to a civil liberties group that released documents in a case against the government.
The American Civil Liberties Union cited cite an e-mail from the FBI that was intended to steer their own agents away from such behavior.
In one e-mail, dated May 2004, a concerned FBI agent cites an executive order from US President George Bush that also authorized “sensory deprivation through the use of hoods” and the use of stress positions.
The e-mail was sent by an FBI “on scene commander — Baghdad” to a handful of senior FBI officials, and notes that such techniques were banned for FBI agents, despite apparent presidential authorization.
The ACLU called upon the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order.
The documents released by the ACLU on Monday also describe incidents at the Guantanamo Bay prison for Al-Qaeda suspects. In one account, an FBI agent describes how detainees were shackled hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, for 18 to 24 hours at a time. Most had “urinated or defecated” on themselves, the ACLU said.
“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,” according to an e-mail from an FBI agent dated Aug. 2, 2004.
The documents were released by court order after the ACLU and four other civil rights groups sued for the information under the freedom of information act.
The information is to be used as evidence in a lawsuit meant to determine the use of inhuman techniques on prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo.
The details were the latest to be released by the government in response to the lawsuits. They also described incidents of beatings and lit cigarettes being stuck in prisoners’ ears.
The claims made in one particular memorandum, which was brought to the attention of senior government officials in June, are based on eyewitness accounts, but the identity of the informant and the time and date of the abuse remains unclear.
Last week, in connection with the case, US military officials released documents uncovering new abuses by US Marines of Iraqi prisoners that included the use of electroshocks to force a detainee to “dance”.
Cases in last week’s batch included the holding of a pistol to the back of a detainee’s head while another marine took a picture, in Karbala in May 2003; a “mock execution” in Adiwaniyah in June 2003 of four Iraqi juveniles ordered to kneel; and severe burning of a detainees hands after alcohol had been poured over them, in Al Mumudiyah in August 2003.
Twenty-four soldiers participated in the cases that are documented. The Washington Post reported that 11 military officials have already been sentenced by a military court in connection with the abuses.
Also last week, The Washington Post reported that the CIA had kept a special detention area at the Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba for high value terrorist suspects that had not been made public.
Guantanamo prisoners, some of whom have been held for nearly three years without seeing a lawyer, recently gained the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts under a Supreme Court ruling.
