And yet, an Inspector General report, issued on May 7,2004 , by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, stated that it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.
Steven Bradbury, then deputy assistant attorney general, concluded in a memo written May 30, 2005, and released last month by the Obama administration, that it is difficult to quantitfy with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program.
Mr Cheney has no such difficulties in declaring that thanks to him and his like-minded colleagues, he saved hundreds of thousands of lives...
Furthermore, there are reports that interrogators may even have gone beyond the tactics authorized by the Bush-Cheney administration (particularly in the case of waterboarding).
Although, among the various torture tactics, most of the media attention has focused on waterboarding, the preferred technique was, in fact, sleep deprivation. A former US government official told Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times : waterboarding was obviously the most controversial, but sleep deprivation is probably the most effective thing they had going. The technique was banned by President Obama in January.
The LAT, based on the memos made public last month, describes the technique thus: the prisoners had their feet shackled to the floor and their hands cuffed close to their chins. Detainees were clad only in diapers and not allowed to feed themselves. A prisoner who started to drift off to sleep would tilt over and be caught by his chains, and thus awaken...
The process could go on for as long as eleven days!
One detainee, Mohammed Jawad, a young Afghan who was 16 at the time of his capture, changed cells 112 times in 14 days...At Guantanamo, this procedure was referred to as the "frequent flyer program"...
The technique was highly valued because it appeared less physically debilitating than other more conventional and harsher means. It left no overt traces.
It was particularly effective when combined with other techniques, such as slapping the detainee and confining him in small boxes.
James Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University, in Great Britain, was appalled to learn that some of his work had actually inspired the interrogators: my response was shocked concern. Even though the pain of sleep deprivation can't be measured in terms of physical injury or appearance does not mean that the mental anguish is not as bad...To claim that 180 hours is safe in this respect is nonsense.
Even if detainees do talk, I would doubt whether the state of mind would be able to produce credible information, unaffected by delusion, fantasy or suggestibility.
Yet, other medical professionals, this time not unwittingly, participated from the very outset in the development of the CIA's torture program. The Defense Department's JPRA (Joint Personnel Recovery Agency) administers the SERE program (The US Army's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training), which is designed to train US personnel in resisting torture should they fall in enemy hands. The training is based on simulation, however. The trainees are not subjected to the types of sessions real detainees undergo at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
A senior JPRA SERE psychiatrist, Dr. John "Bruce" Jessen, was asked in late 2001 to evaluate Al Qaeda's own resistance tactics. Soon, according to a report issued by the Committee on Armed Services of the US Senate, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody (November 2008), Jensen, who had no background whatsoever in interrogation, and the JPRA were training personnel in interrogation tactics. These were based on the SERE: waterboarding, walling, isolation, sleep deprivation. Harsher techniques were required, according to BSCT (Behavioral Service Consultation Team, at Guantanamo) psychiatrist Maj. Paul Burney, who declared in 2006, that there was a lot of pressure to use more coercive techniques, because detainees were not responding to conventional measures, and we were not being successful at establishing a link between Al qaeda and Iraq.
It seem, therefore, that the launching of the torture program is a direct consequence of the Bush-Cheney administration's desire to link Al Qaeda with Sadam Hussein, in order to justify the upcoming invasion of Iraq. Since, not surprisingly, no evidence was forthcoming, the administration increased the pressure on those detainees it did have its hands on, and crossed the Rubicon.
Hence, Jessen and psychologist John Leso drew up a series of interrogation techniques. Cat III techniques were reserved for the most important detainees: Category III techniques included the daily use of 20 hour interrogations; the use of strict isolation without the right of visitation by treating medical professionals or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); the use of food restriction for 24 hours once a week; the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee he might experience a painful or fatal outcome; non-injurious physical consequences; removal of clothing; and exposure to cold weather or water until such time as the detainee began to shiver.
Yet, their October 2, 2002 memo also included this clear warning: Physical and/or emotional harm from the above techniques may emerge months or even years after their use...Interrogation techniques that rely on physical or adverse consequences are likely to garner inaccurate information and create an increased level of resistance.
The recipient of the memo, Col. Louie "Morgan" Banks, head of the Psychological Applications Directorate at the US Army's Special Operations Command had his own misgivings, which he shared with the BSCT: The use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects ... When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, it is more common for them to resist harder ... If individuals are put under enough discomfort, i.e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain … it usually decreases the reliability of the information ... Because of the danger involved, very few SERE instructors are allowed to actually use physical pressures ... everything that is occurring [in SERE school] is very carefully monitored and paced ... Even with all these safeguards, injuries and accidents do happen. The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially ... My strong recommendation is that you do not use physical pressures ... [If GTMO does decide to use them] you are taking a substantial risk, with very limited potential benefit.
The psychologists, however, were not against psychological pressure, such as isolation, and sleep deprivation. The goal was to keep the detainee off balance; his environment was to be one of controlled chaos.
The list of techniques contained in the memo, and approved by Donald Rumsfeld, were to be adopted at Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course, at Abu Ghraib...The warnings issued by the medical professionals were simply ignored.
Maj. Burney, however, was present at some interrogation sessions of Mohmmed al-Khatani, the suspected twentieth 9/11 hijacker, who was subjected to stripping, forced grooming, invasion of space by a female interrogator, being treated like an animal, intimidated by a military working dog, and forced to pray to an idol shrine. He, therefore, knew how his professional advice had been used.
John Leso told a former colleague that he was devastated to have been part of this, that he had received increasing pressure to teach interrogators procedures and tactics that were a challenge to his ethics as a psychologist and moral fiber as a human being.
Some professionals however, had objected at the outset to the treatment that had been reserved for Khatani. Michael Gelles, a psychologist and civilian working at Guantanamo, said: It wasn't what Americans did. Why would you prescribe something that doesn't work? It wasn't the right prescription for what we wanted to do ... to get accurate and reliable information.
Susan Crawford, who supervised the Military Commissions, later dropped all the charges against Khatani because he had been subjected to what she called the legal definition of torture .
Hence, though army psychologists may have been uneasy about their role in the implementation of the administration's torture program, which seemed to negate their responsibilities and obligations as health professionals, the Bush-Cheney "enhanced interrogation techniques" continued for years...Major Frakt, a defense lawyer in the Guantanamo Military Commissions, said: one of the things that disappointed me was how few people raised objections.
The American Psychological Association launched an investigation into the role played by psychologists in detainee interrogation, in 2005. It concluded that it was consistent with the APA ethics code. Six of the ten members of the task force had worked or still worked with the US Army and the CIA...
The evidence that has come to light fails to confirm Mr Cheney's initial premise that torture is an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence. Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who interrogated Abu Zubaydah, recently wrote in the NYT: I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.
Let us for a moment pretend that Mr Cheney is right, and that torture does work...
What, in the end, would that change? Not the vile and despicable nature of the procedures. Civilized societies do not, should not, cross that line, for whatever reason. Therein lies the meaning, the very essence of civilization. It is difficult to imagine how the use of Gestapo tactics can serve the noble cause of freedom and democracy...
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire