“Newsweek” published in its May 9 issue an article (since retracted) that included two sentences causing riots and demonstrations in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries in which 16 people have been killed and another 100 injured. Citing investigators probing alleged abuses at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the article stated that US interrogators had flushed a copy of the Qur’an down a toilet. The response from the Muslim world was one of outrage and destruction. Protesters in Afghanistan smashed windows, burned pictures of President Bush and United Nations vehicles and attacked government offices and international agencies. Approximately 1,500 activists from the Hamas staged an anti-US demonstration in the Gaza Strip.
The reaction from the Pentagon was to insist that there was no evidence to corroborate this report. Gen. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that after examining the interrogation logs there was no such notation. Yet, the fury over this alleged incident has captured worldwide headlines. The reason is the United States military has lost all creditability in regards to the treatment of prisoners captured during its war on terror.
According to Human Rights Watch, the abuse of detainees at the hands of the US military is far-reaching and widespread. Beginning with Abu Ghraib, where they claim Gen. Sanchez was responsible for the use of dogs to terrorize prisoners and the abuses that occurred during his watch, they point to incidents of maltreatment in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. In Afghanistan nine detainees have died while in US custody, including four cases already determined by US Army investigators to be murder or manslaughter. Former prisoners have complained of torture and mistreatment. The Schlesinger panel appointed by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has noted 55 cases of detainee abuse in Iraq and 20 instances of deaths that are still under investigation.
The CIA has transferred between 100 to 150 prisoners to various counties in the Middle East known to use torture tactics as a means of obtaining information, as well as holding suspects in undisclosed locations for as long as a year and a half before they resurface in Guantanamo Bay.
Guantanamo Bay, the US Naval Station now infamous as the prison experiment known as Camp Delta, has compiled a growing list of alleged abuses including reports from FBI agents who witnessed abuses that included forcing detainees to sit in their own excrement, threats of torture and death and the use of military dogs.
Erik Saar, an Arabic speaking translator who served as a US soldier in Guantanamo Bay from December 2002 until June 2003, has written a book about this topic. He mentions the same incident referred to in the Newsweek article where a female interrogator stripped down to her underwear and smeared fake blood on a prisoner after telling him that she was menstruating.
There can be no doubt that mistreatment of prisoners is occurring and that it is no longer a safe defense by the US military to hide behind the argument that a handful of “bad soldiers” are to blame. What is to blame is a policy that is proving to be more detrimental to the United States war on terror than the insurgent attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq. Statements from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemning such actions are inadequate at best.
What the United States must do is to, “clean up their act” and then try and win back some sense of creditability. According to their own documentation, the military officials at Guantanamo Bay have completed tribunal hearings for all 558 detainees and have compiled a comprehensive report detailing what they have learned.
While this report states that the camp has become, “the single best repository of Al-Qaeda information” the numbers of dangerous elements are quite few. After more than 4,000 interrogation reports, the report concludes that some Al-Qaeda operatives were pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Yet it also states that not all the prisoners being held are suspected of being front-line soldiers. In fact, only 20 detainees have been positively identified as Osama Bin Laden’s personal bodyguards along with one of his spiritual advisers and a probable Sept. ll hijacker. By its own admission the report contends that many of the detainees are bystanders or small-time militants. It goes on to state that 10 prisoners who were sent home last fall returned to fight against the United States. Out of 558 detainees it is apparent that very few have proven to be “high risk”.
It may be time for the US Congress to intervene and to conduct its own independent investigation into these abuses, in spite of the displeasure this would create within the Pentagon. As part of this process it is also time for speedy and fair trials for the detainees in all prison camps currently under US control.
To continue to ignore public opinion and to allow this mistreatment to continue undermines the war against terrorism and gives creditability to the wrong side.
— Adrienne McPhail is an American journalist located in Yokosuka, Japan.
