Red Cross: Torture Committed At CIA Sites

Secret Report Accuses U.S. Of "Cruel, Inhuman And Degrading" Treatment Of High-Profile Detainees

(CBS)  The United States engaged in acts of torture and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” upon prisoners held at secret detention sites operated by or in conjunction with the CIA, according to details from a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Such acts constitute violations of the United Nations' Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, the Red Cross said.

The ICRC is the appointed legal guardian of the Geneva Conventions and oversees the treatment of prisoners of war.

The secret report was based on interviews conducted by representatives of the Red Cross with detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. military prison in Cuba where prisoners captured during the Bush administration's war on terror have been held, many for years without charge.

Prior to their arrival at Guantanamo, many have been shuttled between detention facilities in other countries, including "black sites" operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. Some sites are in countries, like Thailand, in which the use of torture has been documented by human rights organizations.

The report followed negotiations with the Bush administration over granting access to 14 "high-value" detainees, which the U.S. had previously deemed off-limits to the Red Cross, to monitor their treatment.

ICRC representatives conducted interviews with the prisoners at Guantanamo in the fall of 2006 to determine the circumstances of their detention and treatment, which for the detainees ranged from a period of 16 months to nearly four-and-a-half years. The interviews were conducted in private, with assurances that the details would not be made public. A few prisoners asked that their identities not be revealed.

The 43-page secret report dated February 2007 was provided to the CIA and passed on to higher U.S. officials, including President Bush, according to The Washington Post.

A copy of the report was obtained by journalist Mark Danner and excerpted in his article published Monday in the New York Review of Books, "U.S. Torture: Voices From The Black Sites."

[You may also download a pdf file of the report.]

It discusses elements of the CIA rendition and detention program, in which prisoners were transported - shackled and blindfolded - to secret "black sites" where they faced interrogation using what President Bush, in a September 6, 2006 speech publicly revealing the program, termed "an alternative set of procedures."

These techniques, the Red Cross states, included suffocation by water, beatings, confinement in a box, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to cold temperatures or cold water, starvation and prolonged stress positions.

According to the report's authors, “in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program ... constituted torture.”

“In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Claire Algar, executive director of the human rights group Reprieve UK, which has represented terror suspects, told CBS News that the Red Cross report is believable: "The ICRC is an extremely reputable source, and this accords very much with what Reprieve's clients have said."

The report notes that many of the prisoners interviewed related common stories, even though they had no contact with one another.

Among the high-profile prisoners interviewed was Abu Zubaydah, whom President Bush described as "a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden." He was captured after being wounded in a 2002 firefight in Faisalabad, Pakistan. After being treated in a Lahore military hospital, Zubaydah was reportedly moved to Thailand and then possibly Afghanistan.

Zubaydah said that initially his interrogations in Thailand consisted of being shackled naked to a bed and having solid foods withheld for two or three weeks. He was deprived of sleep and subjected to cold temperatures.

The report says that interrogators from the CIA alternated harsh and lenient treatment in order to obtain information. In summer of 2002 top administration lawyers gave the CIA permission to use "more aggressive" techniques.

Zubaydah recounted instances of being beaten, being placed in a coffin-like box with no light and little air, and being waterboarded:

"I collapsed and lost consciousness on several occasions. Eventually the torture was stopped by the intervention of the doctor.

"I was told during this period that I was one of the first to receive these interrogation techniques, so no rules applied."

"Forced standing" was another technique that was recounted by prisoners in their interviews.

Walid Bin Attash, a Yemeni captured in Karachi in April 2003, told the ICRC that upon his arrival at the detention facility in Afghanistan

"I was stripped naked. I remained naked for the next two weeks. I was put in a cell measuring approximately [3 1/2 by 6 1/2 feet]. I was kept in a standing position, feet flat on the floor, but with my arms above my head and fixed with handcuffs and a chain to a metal bar running across the width of the cell. The cell was dark with no light, artificial or natural.

"During the first two weeks I did not receive any food. I was only given Ensure and water to drink. A guard would come and hold the bottle for me while I drank.... The toilet consisted of a bucket in the cell.... I was not allowed to clean myself after using the bucket. Loud music was playing twenty-four hours each day throughout the three weeks I was there."

The forced standing position was particularly grueling for Bin Attash, as he had only one leg.

"After some time being held in this position my stump began to hurt so I removed my artificial leg to relieve the pain. Of course my good leg then began to ache and soon started to give way so that I was left hanging with all my weight on my wrists. I shouted for help but at first nobody came. Finally, after about one hour a guard came and my artificial leg was given back to me and I was again placed in the standing position with my hands above my head. After that the interrogators sometimes deliberately removed my artificial leg in order to add extra stress to the position."

Khaled Shaik Mohammed, one of the prisoners interviewed, told the Red Cross that after being forced into stress positions, beaten, immersed in cold water and given enemas, he was informed by his interrogators that

"[T]hey had received the 'green light from Washington' to give him 'a hard time.' They never used the word 'torture' and never referred to 'physical pressure,' only to ' a hard time.' I was never threatened with death, in fact I was told that they would not allow me to die, but that I would be brought to the 'verge of death and back again.'"

Those treatments entailed beating, cold water immersions and waterboarding. He told the ICRC that he gave "a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. ... I'm sure that the false information I was forced to invent ... wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the U.S."

"This is clear evidence of torture, torture ordered by the most senior officials of government," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told CBS News.

"Even if you could say that some of these people might have an interest in exaggerating the mistreatment that they endured, when you hear the same thing over and over and over again, you begin to realize that this is exactly what happened, and they're describing quite accurately what occurred to them."

Roth said that a thorough investigation into what happened - both at these sites and in the highest offices of government - is required. "Some future presidents faced with a future security threat may resort to this kind of torture again, unless some kind of respected commission definitively repudiates it, and ideally the authors of this torture are brought to justice."

The report follows an earlier ICRC report dated February 2004 about the treatment of prisoners by U.S. coalition forces in Iraq. It alleged "serious violations of International Humanitarian Law," including brutality, physical or psychological coercion during interrogation, prolonged solitary confinement, and excessive and disproportionate use of force "resulting in death or injury."


By CBSNews.com producer David Morgan

[promaclaura]

THESE ARE THE NUMBERS HOWER, PROVIDED BY CBS. I WOULD SAY THE INFRASTRUCTURE HAS IMPROVED FROM WHAT IT WAS WHEN WE GOT THERE.
Posted by promaclaura at 5:38 AM : Mar 17, 2009
----------------------------
No wonder Americans are so gullible! You didn't even look at where the data originally came from, did you? Go on...... look it up for yourself right NOW. You will see the State Department and Defense Department at the top of the list!

This information is no more reliable than the WMD cr@p nearly all you idiot Americans believed before. Why are Americans totally unable to learn?????????
Posted by hower4 at 5:58 AM : Mar 17, 2009

Hower, these are the listed sources, a WELL rounded group and probably accurate, try again.

Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Defense Department, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, The Brookings Institution, Refugees International, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, International Organization for Migration, Committee to Protect Journalists, National Priorities Project, The Brussels Tribunal, Department of Labor, Congressional Research Service.

[actornaught]

...Like most Americans, the simple truth is that you would rather kill than save...
Posted by hower4 at 7:19 AM : Mar 17, 2009

That's a lie. Don't lump "most americans" with the obnoxiously vocal neo-conned knee-jerks. Little bush got elected, in part, because he promised in regards to Iraq, "no nation building". He then further lied us into his phony "war on terror". Feel free to arrest him, if we don't first.

Most Americans see him for the defective that he is, and luckily the smarter people prevailed and put in BHO over bush-lite mccain.

Politicians are liars, it's in their job description. But what they end up doing will always be unknown until it's history. And history will surely say that bush was America's Dictator.

[scydka]

Enough of the American bashing. I'm seriously sick of it. Everyone hates America, yet we save your ***** in every single war and your cowardly governments, despite being terrified of war, follow us into whatever we get involved in.

As for the terrorists, who CARES?! They're terrorists. If anyone deserves to be tortured, it's them. Or do we want to give off the impression that we treat people who crash planes into the Pentagon with the dignity they don't deserve? While we're at it, let's build a Starbucks and a spa in Guantanimo (sp).

Let's see the UK deal with the terrorists, who, by the way, are opposed to everything you believe in as well and have bombed you too. Let's see you treat them humanely. I'm sure they'll extend to you the same favour.

[arcjw]

I wanted to comment on a couple things regarding International Committee of the Red Cross. This organization is the group the created and checks on compliance for the Geneva conventions. They created international humanitarian law, and they work to ensure humane treatment of non-combatants in times of war. The term non-combatant includes civilians, the injured, and prisoners of all kinds who have been captured on a battlefield. The American Red Cross is part of the Red Cross movement, but is not involved in the checks on the Geneva convention because we are often involved in one side of the conflict. Historically, there have been no American's on the ICRC because of the perceived conflict of interest. The American Red Cross and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (distinct from ICRC) work primarily on disaster relief.

The report that was leaked was not intended to be seen by the public. ICRC creates these reports so the hosting governments understand the conditions of prisoners that are being held with the assumption that they would want to follow the Geneva conventions.

ICRC remains neutral in all conflicts. During the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia, they negotiated with the warlords who were holding the American Prisoner Mike Durant for his release. They did this because the warlords knew that they were also negotiating the safe and humane treatment of their people. The warlord holding the American soldier was not a signator of the Geneva convention, but the neutrality of this organization made it possible for his release.

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/0B6EC41A96897066C1256EE000472874?OpenDocument&Style=Custo_Final.3&View=defaultBody8

Specialist Durant is just one example of the types of work ICRC does in conflicts around the world.

[promaclaura]

Most of the money promised for natural disaster relief is never actually paid. Fox News doesn't report that!

Do you even know how much you have spent on destroying Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries? It's VASTLY more than your aid budget! Go look up the numbers yourself..........

Most countries don't want American help, because it ALWAYS has strings attached (a miltary base here, an oil pipeline there, etc.) Look at the facts before you sit on your moral high horse.
Posted by hower4 at 5:06 AM : Mar 17, 2009

Iraq War: By The Numbers
Key Figures Including Troop Levels, Deaths, Cost And Infrastructure Since War Began
Comments 97
March 3, 2009

COST:

Over $601 billion, according to the National Priorities Project. According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress has approved more than $657 billion so far for the Iraq war.

OIL PRODUCTION:

Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day.

February 18, 2009: 2.30 million barrels per day.

ELECTRICITY:

Prewar nationwide: 3,958 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 4-8.

Feb. 10, 2009 nationwide: 5,550 megawatts. Hours per day: 14.3.

Prewar Baghdad: 2,500 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 16-24.

Feb. 10, 2009 Baghdad: Megawatts not available. Hours per day: 15.1.

Note: Current Baghdad megawatt figures are no longer reported by the U.S. State Department's Iraq Weekly Status Report.

TELEPHONES:

Prewar land lines: 833,000.

Jan. 5, 2009: 1,300,000.

Prewar cell phones: 80,000.

Jan. 5, 2009: An estimated 14.7 million.

WATER:

Prewar: 12.9 million people had potable water.

Jan. 15, 2009: 21.2 million people have potable water.

SEWERAGE:

Prewar: 6.2 million people served.

Dec. 31, 2008: 11.3 million people served.


THESE ARE THE NUMBERS HOWER, PROVIDED BY CBS. I WOULD SAY THE INFRASTRUCTURE HAS IMPROVED FROM WHAT IT WAS WHEN WE GOT THERE.

[formrusmcsgt]

I never imagined that I would live to see the day that my country would join the ranks of totalitarian regimes that throughout history have employed the barbaric practice of torture.

Regardless of our efforts to redeem ourselves, this will remain a permenant stain on our country's honor.

[promaclaura]

This is a classic neocon case of shoot the messenger and ignore the message....
Posted by dragonwagon5 at 4:23 AM : Mar 17, 2009
--------------------------------
NO, NO, NO!!!! You've got it completely wrong. This is simply that most Americans think helping other people around the world without getting something in return is weak and stupid and "un-American". You need to look at the values of your whole sick country.

When America spends more on construction than on destruction then I will change my mind, but you're not even close!
Posted by hower4 at 4:37 AM : Mar 17, 2009

What about all the aid we provided for other countries natural disasters? The tidal wave in Indonesia or the earthquake victims in Pakistan? I'm sure I could find more, this sick society has always pulled other countries out of the muck and get slapped in the face for it. So go "muck" yourself, we'll probably help you out, ya ingrate.

[opedanderson]

My uncle was tortured by German and Norwegian Nazis during WWII. As a member of the fightihg resistance army they also felt that they were protecting themselves against insurgency and terrorism. My uncle verified that he did in fact want to kill as many Nazis as he could whenever he was given a chance.

He was waterboarded, sleep and food deprived, toe-and finger nails pulled from his body before being told to run around in the snow. All the while, the torturers laughed at his obvious pain.

Despite being on the "right" side of the conflict and the injustice he felt on his own body, he never supported torture of any kind for any reason for the rest of his life.

[promaclaura]

Waterboarding IS torture. Torture is EVIL. Torture is ILLEGAL. No sane person supports torture. Period.
Posted by every1one at 5:32 PM : Mar 16, 2009

No sane person would have such "tender" feelings for those that committed 9/11

Posted by promaclaura at 6:25 PM : Mar 16, 2009

Only a bizarre creature such as yourself would link "tender feelings" with 9/11. The two things are completely unrelated and have nothing to do with the definition of torture or the Bush administration's practice of it.
Posted by cs4466 at 8:18 PM : Mar 16, 2009


In the most detailed public comments on a CIA program that had been shrouded in secrecy for years, Hayden said the agency had used simulated drowning to extract crucial information from terrorism suspects in 2002 and 2003.

He also testified that only three detainees were ever subjected to the method: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative tied to the Sept. 11 plot; and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.

Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hayden said the CIA had ceased using waterboarding nearly five years ago, but he made a vigorous case for preserving the agency's ability to use "enhanced" interrogation techniques.

Information provided by two of the waterboarded prisoners, Mohammed and Zubaydah, accounted for 25% of the human intelligence reports circulated by the CIA on Al Qaeda in the five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hayden said.

THE POSTER I WAS REFERRING TO WAS POSTING FROM THE TERRORISTS POINT OF VIEW ON WATERBOARDING, HE HAD SUCH "TENDER" FEELINGS FOR THE INDIVIDUALS THAT COMMITTED 9/11. NOTHING WAS "TENDER" ABOUT 9/11 AND THE GUYS THAT WERE WATERBOARDED PERPETRATED IT (THE USS COLE AS WELL). DO I FEEL THE NEED TO CONSIDER THEIR FEELINGS? I'LL GIVE THEM AS MUCH CONSIDERATION AS THEY GAVE THEIR VICTIMS.

[skyk-2009]

Seems the loons on the left always side with americas enemies.........all should be deported the the totalitarian utopia of there choice.
Posted by shawshank22 at 2:26 AM : Mar 17, 2009

YOU think the Red Cross, who has been the Legal Oversight on Torture for a very long time, is the Enemy? Honest you "Ditto Heads" get more weird by the day! My Uncle, who was a POW in WW II always praised that Organization, saying if not for them their treatment would have been far worse! Maybe you should take off the Foil here, join the rest of us.

[skyk-2009]

And there's plenty of room for terrorist sympathizers like the Red Cross. I suggest they check in for a while.
Posted by neo267-2009 at 2:31 AM : Mar 17, 2009

To some our word means nothing. To some our commitments mean nothing. To some the things or fathers fought and died for mean nothing. YOU are one of those people... NOT American but claiming to be! Grow a back bone for crying out loud! Don't be a coward all your life, stand up for what the Nation has stood for since the very beginning!

[neo267-2009]

And there's plenty of room for terrorist sympathizers like the Red Cross. I suggest they check in for a while.

[FreddyBartholomew]

"Water boarding is not torture. It is part of our special forces training. "

No, it's not. Enhanced interrogation was removed from the Army Field Manual years ago. You are a liar and a fake.

[shawshank22]

Seems the loons on the left always side with americas enemies.........all should be deported the the totalitarian utopia of there choice.

[bstrabley18]

special training choose to go through that training. These are people picked off the street, thrown into a coffin cell and tortured without reason. they didn't have a jury choose there fate. what if you were thrown into a prison and tortured because they think you know something but you don't know what they want. All are government is doing is causing more people to dispise american's and the government, and most likely cause a new group of 'terrorists'.

[Skydancer768]

Dear God! I can't believe there are actually people in our country who believe these kinds of practices are not torture! They induce excruciating pain and fear. That is torture. Anybody who believes otherwise is truly a monster. It doesn't matter what the person has done, or is BELIEVED to have done, it is YOUR actions that matter and it is WRONG for one human being to treat another human being that way. NO MATTER WHAT! The fact that you're a smaller monster than the terrorists, doesn't mean you aren't a monster. At least I expect terrorists to be monsters. I DON'T expect my fellow countrymen to be monsters!

[cydygitt1]

The time to prosecute Bush/Cheney for war crimes has come.

Posted by cs4466
============

Water boarding is not torture.

Posted by corey24454
===============

What exactly do you not understand about the following:

The United States engaged in acts of torture and ?cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment? upon prisoners held at secret detention sites operated by or in conjunction with the CIA, according to details from a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Just because you worship the EVIL dirty dickie and his waterboarding tactics, does not make those acts of torture any more humane by moral Americans.

The bush/cheney regime should be held accountable for the WAR CRIMES they committed and ordered -- tried, and if convicted, prosecuted to the full extent of the law!

[searingtruth]

"There is a battle for good. But we are not fighting it."
SearingTruth

A Future of the Brave

[cydygitt1]

Sad, isn't it? I can never view the USA the same way again. From now on, it's a nation whose leadership endorsed torture.

Posted by daffy64
===========

Exactly why we should never allow the bush/cheney regime to continue to skate on their WAR CRIMES committed during the past 8 years! They need to be held accountable.

[cs4466]

Waterboarding IS torture. Torture is EVIL. Torture is ILLEGAL. No sane person supports torture. Period.
Posted by every1one at 5:32 PM : Mar 16, 2009

No sane person would have such "tender" feelings for those that committed 9/11

Posted by promaclaura at 6:25 PM : Mar 16, 2009

Only a bizarre creature such as yourself would link "tender feelings" with 9/11. The two things are completely unrelated and have nothing to do with the definition of torture or the Bush administration's practice of it.