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II. A World of Abuse

As a consequence of these policies, which were approved at least by cabinet-level officials of the U.S. government, the United States has been implicated in crimes against detainees across the world — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret detention centers, as well as in countries to which suspects have been rendered. At least 26 prisoners are said to have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspected were acts of criminal homicide.²² Overall, according to a compilation by the Associated Press, at least 108 people have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Iraq.²³

What follows is a brief summary of what is now known:

Afghanistan

Nine detainees are now known to have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan — including four cases already determined by Army investigators to be murder or manslaughter. Former detainees have made scores of other claims of torture and other mistreatment.

In March 2004, prior to the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos, Human Rights Watch released an extensive report documenting cases of U.S. military personnel arbitrarily detaining Afghan civilians, using excessive force during arrests of non-combatants, and mistreating detainees. Detainees held at military bases in 2002 and 2003 described to Human Rights Watch being beaten severely by both guards and interrogators, deprived of sleep for extended periods, and intentionally exposed to extreme cold, as well as other inhumane and degrading treatment.²⁴ In December 2004, Human Rights Watch raised additional concerns about detainee deaths, including one alleged to have occurred as late as September 2004.²⁵ In March 2005, The Washington Post uncovered another death that occurred in CIA custody, noting that the case was under investigation but that the CIA officer implicated had been promoted.²⁶

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

There is growing evidence that detainees at Guantánamo have suffered torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Reports by FBI agents who witnessed detainee abuse — including the forcing of chained detainees to sit in their own excrement — have recently emerged, adding to the statements of former detainees describing the use of painful stress positions, extended solitary confinement, use of military dogs to threaten them, threats of torture and death, and prolonged exposure to extremes of heat, cold and noise.²⁷ Videotapes of riot squads subduing suspects reportedly show the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down.²⁸ Ex-detainees said they had been subjected to weeks and even months in solitary confinement — which was at times either suffocatingly hot or cold from excessive air conditioning — as punishment for failure to cooperate during interrogations or for violations of prison rules.²⁹

According to press reports in November 2004, the International Committee of the Red Cross told the U.S. government in confidential reports that its treatment of detainees has involved psychological and physical coercion that is “tantamount to torture.”³⁰

Iraq

Harsh and coercive interrogation techniques such as subjecting detainees to painful stress positions and extensive sleep deprivation have been routinely used in detention centers throughout Iraq. A panel appointed by the Secretary of Defense noted 55 substantiated cases of detainee abuse in Iraq, plus twenty instances of detainee deaths still under investigation.³¹ The earlier investigative report of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba found “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” constituting “systematic and illegal abuse of detainees” at Abu Ghraib.³² Another Pentagon report documented 44 allegations of such war crimes at Abu Ghraib.³³ An ICRC report concluded that in military intelligence sections of Abu Ghraib, “methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.”³⁴

CIA “Disappearances” and Torture

At least eleven al-Qaeda suspects, and most likely many more, have “disappeared” in U.S. custody. The CIA is holding the detainees in undisclosed locations, with no notification to their families, no access to the International Committee of the Red Cross or oversight of any sort of their treatment, and in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held, ³⁵ effectively placing them beyond the protection of the law. One detainee, Khalid Shaikh Muhammed (a presumed architect of the 9/11 attacks), was reportedly subjected to waterboarding. It was also reported that U.S. officials initially withheld painkillers from detainee Abu Zubayda, who was shot during his capture, as an interrogation device.³⁶

“Extraordinary Renditions”

The CIA has regularly transferred detainees to countries in the Middle East, including Egypt and Syria, known to practice torture routinely. There are reportedly 100 to 150 cases of such “extraordinary renditions.”³⁷ In one case, Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian in transit in New York, was detained by U.S. authorities and sent to Syria. He was released without charge from Syrian custody ten months later and has described repeated torture, often with cables and electrical cords.In another case, a U.S. government-leased airplane transported two Egyptian suspects who were blindfolded, hooded, drugged, and diapered by hooded operatives, from Sweden to Egypt. There the two men were held incommunicado for five weeks and have given detailed accounts of the torture they suffered (e.g. electric shocks), including in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison.³⁸ In a third case, Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian in American custody, was transported from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Egypt to Guantánamo Bay. Now back home in Australia, Habib alleges that he was tortured during his six months in Egypt with beatings and electric shocks, and hung from the walls by hooks.³⁹

“Reverse Renditions”