In December, the Washington Post ("U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations," 12/26/02) exposed how U.S. interrogators at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, and at other overseas sites, have been systematically abusing al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners in a "brass-knuckled quest for information" to uncover future terrorist plots. "Take-down teams," consisting of U.S. Army Special Forces troops, FBI and CIA agents and Northern Alliance troops, blindfold and beat prisoners, throwing them into walls, binding them for long periods in contorted positions and depriving them of sleep for days at a time.
The teams then allegedly "package" some prisoners by hooding them, duct-taping them to stretchers and then flying them to friendly states less picky about the norms of human decency. According to the Post article, approximately 100 prisoners have been sent to basements in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia for interrogations.
"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists. "I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA."
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