Four CIA chiefs said 'don't reveal torture memos'
Agency's ex-directors objected to interrogation techniques being revealed. But Barack Obama went ahead anyway
Four former CIA directors opposed the release of classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed disclosure of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say.
President Barack Obama ultimately overruled the objections after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks that followed the former directors' intervention. The memos were released on Thursday.
Mr Obama's involvement grew as the decision neared, and he even led a National Security Council session on the matter, four senior administration officials said. White House adviser David Axelrod, who said he also talked to Mr Obama about the pending release of the memos in recent weeks, said the ex-directors' opposition was considered seriously but did not impede the decision-making process. "The CIA directors weighed in and it slowed things down," Mr Axelrod said on Friday.
The memos detailed the legal rationales that senior Bush administration lawyers drew up authorising the CIA to use simulated drowning and other harsh techniques on terror suspects. They described how prisoners were naked, shackled and hooded at the start of interrogation sessions. When the CIA interrogator removed the hood, the questioning began. When a prisoner resisted, the documents outlined techniques the CIA could use to bring him back in line:
* Nudity, sleep deprivation and dietary restrictions kept prisoners compliant and reminded them they had no control over their basic needs. Clothes and food could be used as rewards for co-operation.
* Slapping prisoners on the face or abdomen was allowed. So was grabbing them forcefully by the collar or slamming them into a false wall, a technique called "walling" intended to induce fear rather than pain.
* Water hoses were used to douse the prisoners for minutes at a time. The hoses were turned on and off as the interrogation continued.
* Prisoners were put into one of three "stress positions", such as sitting on the floor with legs out straight and arms raised in the air.
* At night, the detainees were shackled, standing naked or wearing a nappy. The length of sleep deprivation varied but was authorised for up to 180 hours, or seven and a half days. Interrogation sessions ranged from 30 minutes to several hours and could be repeated as necessary, and as approved by psychological and medical teams.
The Bush administration approved the use of waterboarding, a technique in which a suspect was strapped to a board, his feet raised above his head, and his face covered with a wet cloth as interrogators poured water over it. The body responds as if it is drowning, over and over as the process is repeated. "We find that the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death," Justice Department attorneys wrote. "From the vantage point of any reasonable person undergoing this procedure in such circumstances, he would feel as if he is drowning at the very moment of the procedure due to the uncontrollable physiological sensation he is experiencing."
But attorneys decided that waterboarding caused "no pain or actual harm whatsoever" and so did not meet the "severe pain and suffering" standard to be considered torture.
President Obama has ended the CIA's interrogation programme. CIA interrogators are now required to follow army guidelines, under which waterboarding and many of the techniques listed above are prohibited.
The President gave the question of these documents' release "the appropriate reflection", Mr Axelrod said. He said Mr Obama's deliberations revolved around "the issue of national security versus the rule of law", and amounted to "one of the most profound issues the President of the United States has to deal with".
On 18 March, the Justice Department told the Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, as he was leaving for a foreign trip, that it would be recommending that the White House release the memos almost completely uncensored, officials said. Mr Panetta told the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, and officials in the White House that the administration needed to discuss the possibility that the memos' release might expose CIA officers to lawsuits on allegations of torture and abuse. Mr Panetta also pushed for more censorship of the memos, officials said. The Justice Department informed other senior CIA leaders of the decision to release the memos and, as a courtesy, told former agency directors.
Senior CIA officials objected, arguing that the release would damage the agency's ability to interrogate prisoners. They also said the move would tarnish CIA officers who had acted on the Bush officials' legal guidance. And they warned that the action would erode foreign intelligence services' trust in the CIA's ability to protect national security secrets. The four former directors immediately protested to the White House, officials said. The enhanced interrogation procedures outlined in the memos had been approved on Mr Tenet's watch during the Bush administration.
On 19 March, the Justice Department requested a two-week delay in responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that asked for release of the memos. Justice officials told the court dealing with that lawsuit that it was considering releasing the memos voluntarily. Two weeks later, Justice Department lawyers told the court the memos would come out on or before 16 April.
Inside the White House, according to aides, Mr Obama expressed concerns that releasing the memos could threaten current intelligence operations as well as US officials. He also echoed the CIA chiefs' worries about US relationships with always-skittish foreign intelligence services. The Justice Department argued that the ACLU lawsuit would in the end force the administration to release the documents anyway, officials said.
Mr Obama eventually agreed. The administration decided it would be better to make the release voluntarily, so as not to be seen as being forced to do so, the officials said. The only items blacked out included names of US employees or foreign services or items related to techniques still in use. Still, CIA officials needed reassurance about the decision, the officials said.
Mr Obama took the unusual step of accompanying his decision with a personal letter to CIA employees. He also devoted a big share of his public statement to saying and repeating that he believed strongly in keeping intelligence operations secret, and operations about them classified. He said he would not apologise for doing so in the future
What the memos reveal
The Bush administration memos describe the interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects, the fullest government account of the techniques to date. They range from waterboarding – or simulated drowning – to using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls. The treatment of two suspects in particular are described:
Abu Zubaydah In 2002, the Justice Department authorised CIA interrogators to step up the pressure even further on the suspected terrorist. Justice Department lawyers said the CIA could place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box. Because Zubaydah appeared afraid of insects, they also authorised interrogators to place him in a box filled with caterpillars (though the tactic was not in fact used). Finally, the Justice Department authorised interrogators to take a step into what the United States now considers torture: waterboarding. Zubaydah was strapped to a board, his feet raised above his head. His face was covered with a wet cloth as interrogators poured water over it.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed A memo dated 30 May 2005 says that before the harsher methods were used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al-Qa'ida detainee, he refused to answer questions about pending plots against the US. "Soon, you will know," he said, according to the memo. It says the interrogations later extracted details of a plot called the "second wave", using East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner in Los Angeles. Plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb", spreading radioactive materials by means of explosivesTorture memos reveal brutality of US imperialism
By Tom Eley
18 April 2009
On Thursday, the US Justice Department released four legal memos crafted during the Bush administration that authorized agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to commit specific acts of torture against prisoners swept up in the “war on terror.” The Obama administration faced a Thursday deadline to release the memos after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The release of the legal opinions, written by lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2002 and 2005, adds to an overwhelming body of evidence that proves the Bush administration carried out a large-scale and systematic torture operation in flagrant violation of domestic and international law. The public record already included accounts from victims, a recently leaked International Committee of the Red Cross report documenting various instance of torture, and numerous media accounts that include quotes from interrogators and Bush administration officials endorsing torture.
Yet in multiple statements by President Obama, CIA chief Leon Panetta, and director of national intelligence Dennis Blair, the White House has announced that it will neither investigate nor prosecute those who carried out torture. Panetta has also declared that the CIA will provide legal counsel to any agent that might become subject to investigations into torture.
The memos, released in redacted form to protect the identity of CIA interrogators, describe acts of torture in clinical detail, always associating these with a threadbare legal defense. Among the forms of torture endorsed by the memos are:
*Walling. “The interrogator pulls the individual forward and then quickly and firmly pushes the individual into the wall... During this motion, the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel... to help prevent whiplash.”
*Water dousing. “Cold water is poured on the detainee either from a container or from a hose without a nozzle... The maximum period of time that a detainee may be permitted to remain wet has been set at two-thirds the time at which, based on the extensive medical literature and experience, hypothermia could be expected to develop... For water temperature at 41 [degrees Fahrenheit] total duration of exposure may not exceed 20 minutes...”
*Facial Slap. “The purpose of the facial slap is to induce shock, surprise, and/or humiliation.”
*Cramped Confinement. “The confined space is usually dark... For the larger confined space, the individual can stand up or sit down; the smaller space is large enough for the subject to sit down. Confinement in the larger space can last up to eighteen hours; for the smaller space... no more than two hours.”
*Stress positions. “A variety of stress positions may be used... they are designed to produce physical discomfort associated with muscle fatigue... In wall standing, it will be holding a position in which all of the individual’s body weight is placed on his finger tips.”
*Nudity. “This technique is used to cause psychological discomfort, particularly if a detainee for cultural or other reasons, is especially modest.”
*Sleep deprivation. “The primary method of sleep deprivation involves the use of shackling to keep the detainees awake. In this method, the detainee is standing and is handcuffed, and the handcuffs are attached by a length of chain to the ceiling... a detainee undergoing sleep deprivation is generally fed by hand by CIA personnel so that he need not be unshackled. If the detainee is clothed, he wears an adult diaper under his pants. Detainees subject to sleep deprivation who are also subject to nudity... will at times be nude and wearing a diaper. The maximum allowable duration is 180 hours...”
*Use of insects. A memo authorizes agents to place an insect in the “cramped confinement box” of a prisoner who interrogators noticed had “a fear of insects.”
*Waterboarding. “In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench...Water is then applied to a cloth [that] is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth... This causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individuals’ blood [which] stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of ‘suffocation and incipient panic,’ i.e., the perception of drowning... The procedure may then be repeated... [A] medical expert... will be present throughout...”
Based on language in the memos, it is clear that they were the outcome of extensive discussions among the CIA, Justice Department, and likely high-ranking Bush administration officials. For example, the memos refer frequently to face-to-face meetings between Justice Department lawyers and CIA interrogators that had already taken place.
The memos’ evident purpose was to provide legal assurances to CIA interrogators that they would not face criminal prosecution for torture. The first memo, written by OLC counsel Jay Bybee in August of 2002 and addressed to John A. Rizzo, a deputy counsel to the CIA, considers several specific examples of torture, and concludes, case by case, that none of the methods proposed by the CIA violate Section 2340 of the US Code, which prohibits interrogation methods by those “acting under the color of law” that inflict physical or mental pain and suffering.
Bybee also suggested interrogators lacked the “specific intent” to inflict pain and suffering, and therefore any suffering that resulted was not torture.
The other three memos were penned by OLC attorney Steven G. Bradbury to Rizzo. A 2005 memo he wrote determined that the combined use of the methods outlined in the 2002 memo would not violate USC 2340.
The memos’ clinical and legalistic descriptions of torture fail to convey the horror experienced by those worked over by the CIA. Reading the memos in conjunction with the International Committee of the Red Cross report gives a much fuller sense of what these methods meant when put into practice on human bodies. (See "Red Cross report details CIA war crimes")
The media generally joined Obama in studiously avoiding use of the term “torture” in describing the CIA’s methods. The New York Times referred to the acts of torture as “brutal interrogation techniques.” For its part, the Washington Post ran an editorial hailing as wise and courageous Obama’s decision to protect “government agents who may have committed heinous acts they were told were legal.”
This “just-following-orders” defense is also commonly referred to as the “Nuremberg Defense,” as it was so commonly used by Nazi defendants in the war crimes trials after World War Two. The American and British officials who set up the Nuremberg trials established the vulnerability of this defense through Principle IV, which states, “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”
That is not the only precedent from WWII with a bearing on current developments. As the Times notes, “the United States prosecuted some Japanese interrogators at war crimes trials after World War Two for waterboarding and other methods detailed in the memos.”
In the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, or the Tokyo War Crimes Trials from 1946-1948, several Japanese soldiers were convicted of carrying out waterboarding, then commonly called “the water cure,” on US and other allied prisoners.
An American GI’s description of the experience could have just as well been uttered to describe the CIA’s method. “They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air. ...They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.”
The Obama administration is attempting to squelch any serious public inquiry into the criminal practices of its predecessor in the name of “moving on.” According to Obama, “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”
In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said, “It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.”
This is nonsense. The heinous actions carried out by CIA “terror suspects” had nothing to do with protecting America. Torture, extraordinary rendition, secret “black site” prisons—these were all part and parcel of American capitalism’s striving to offset its decline at the expense of the peoples of the Middle East—and the American working class.
In his confirmation hearings, Holder unambiguously labeled waterboarding as torture. Holder has not attempted to square this definition with his refusal to carry out his constitutional and legal duty to enforce domestic law and US treaty obligations by prosecuting the torturers.
Obama’s “forgiveness” of Bush is reminiscent of President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for his crimes against his political opponents that came to light in the Watergate scandal of 1972. Presidents can rely on their successors to forgive their major political crimes, and so trample over laws with increasing impunity.
The ruling elite’s clemency toward those who have committed the heinous crime of torture stands in sharp contrast to its enthusiastic prosecution of those filling up the American prison system—by far the largest in the developed world. Millions have been jailed for committing petty offenses against property or various drug-related crimes.
The media and leading politicians have joined hands in agreeing that there should be no investigation or criminal indictments of CIA officials or those in the Bush administration who gave orders to torture. Responding to the memos’ release, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont reiterated his call for a toothless “truth commission” that would take as a quid pro quo the forgiveness of all criminal acts in “the war on terror.”
The Obama administration wishes to avoid an investigation and public discussion of the torture memos because they serve as an indictment not only of the Bush administration, but the entire American ruling class. Leading Congressional Democrats were briefed on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
No comments:
Post a Comment