ACLU: New documents show senior officials approved Gitmo abuse
02/23/2006 @ 11:23 am Filed by RAW STORY
embedded links@ http://rawstory.com/news/2005/ACLU_New_documents_show_senior_officials_0223.html The American Civil Liberties Union released newly obtained documents Thursday showing that senior Defense Department officials approved aggressive interrogation techniques that FBI agents deemed abusive, ineffective and unlawful, RAW STORY has learned.
“We now possess overwhelming evidence that political and military leaders endorsed interrogation methods that violate both domestic and international law,” Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU said in a release. “It is entirely unacceptable that no senior official has been held accountable.”
The ACLU's release follows.
# Included in today’s release is a memorandum prepared by FBI personnel on May 30, 2003, which supplies a detailed discussion of tensions between FBI and Defense Department personnel stationed at Guantбnamo in late 2002. According to the memo, Defense Department interrogators were encouraged by their superiors to “use aggressive interrogation tactics” that FBI agents believed were “of questionable effectiveness and subject to uncertain interpretation based on law and regulation.” The May 2003 memo specifically names Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who was then Commander of Joint Task Force-Guantбnamo, as having favored interrogation methods that FBI agents believed “could easily result in the elicitation of unreliable and legally inadmissible information.” The memo states that FBI personnel brought their concerns to the attention of senior Defense Department personnel but that their concerns were brushed aside.
Other documents released by the ACLU today provide more evidence that abusive interrogation methods used at Guantбnamo were endorsed by senior officials. One FBI e-mail, dated May 5, 2004, states that “hooding prisoners, threats of violence, and techniques meant to humiliate detainees” were “approved at high levels w/in DoD.” Another FBI e-mail states that certain techniques alleged to be abusive by some FBI agents were “approved by the Deputy Secretary of Defense.”
Today's release comes only days after the release by the New Yorker magazine of a memorandum from Alberto Mora, General Counsel of the United States Navy, describing Mora's unsuccessful efforts in late 2002 and early 2003 to convince the Pentagon to renounce the abuse of prisoners at Guantбnamo. Collectively, the Mora memorandum and the documents released by the ACLU today show conclusively that Pentagon officials at the highest levels authorized the abuse of prisoners and persisted in their endorsement of unlawful interrogation methods even after FBI and Navy personnel objected to those methods orally and in writing.
Still other documents released today by the ACLU provide FBI agents’ descriptions of interrogations they witnessed at Guantбnamo. One such document states: “Last evening I went to observe an interview of REDACTED with REDACTED. The adjoining room, observable from the monitoring booth, was occupied by 2 DHS investigators showing a detainee homosexual porn movies and using a strobe light in the room. We moved our interview to a different room. We’ve heard that DHS interrogators routinely identify themselves as FBI agents and then interrogate a detainee for 16-18 hours using tactics as described above and others (wrapping in Israeli flag, constant loud music, cranking the A/C down, etc.) The next time a real Agent tries to talk to that guy, you can imagine the result.”
While some of the documents indicate that FBI personnel objected to Defense Department interrogation policies at Guantбnamo, others raise serious questions about the FBI’s own policies – and particularly about the agency’s response to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. In one e-mail, dated Jan. 24, 2004, the FBI’s on scene commander in Baghdad discusses whether the FBI should investigate the abuse or whether it should leave the task to military investigators. The e-mail, which was sent to senior FBI officials at FBI headquarters, advises that the FBI should decline to investigate. “We need to maintain good will and relations with those operating the prison,” the e-mail states. “Our involvement in the investigation of the alleged abuse might harm our liaison.”
The FBI documents released today were previously released to the ACLU on December 15, 2004, with most of their contents redacted. The less-redacted versions released by the ACLU today were made available by the FBI after the ACLU challenged the FBI’s redactions in court. The ACLU’s challenge to other redactions in FBI documents is pending before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. A hearing has been scheduled for April 5.
“More than two years after we filed our Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI continues to withhold documents that the public clearly has a right to see,” said Jaffer. “As we’ve been saying from the outset, the public has a right to know what the government’s policies were and who put them in place.”
In a related case, the ACLU yesterday filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the appeal of Qassim v. Bush which argues that two detainees who have been cleared of charges by the Guantбnamo tribunal, whose continued military detention has been declared unlawful by a federal court and who cannot be repatriated, are legally entitled to be released under court supervision.
Today’s documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.
The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Jaffer, Amrit Singh, and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Arthur Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
To date, more than 90,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The ACLU has been posting these documents online at http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia
The friend-of-the-court brief in Qassim v. Bush is available online at www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen/24248lgl20060223.html
By Tom Coghlan and Tahir Luddin in Bagram Published: 13 April 2006
Top-secret US military intelligence documents which could compromise Hamid Karzai's government have turned up for sale in an Afghan bazaar, after apparently being stolen from a nearby US military base.
The security lapse will embarrass the US military, and the Afghan and Pakistani governments. The files are stored on computer memory sticks and among those to come to light so far are lists of top Afghan officials, including cabinet members, suspected of involvement in the drugs trade or of supporting the Taliban insurgency.
One of the most potentially damaging files, which was bought unwittingly by an Afghan journalist, names senior Afghan ministers whom US intelligence agencies believe to be drug smugglers. Described as "Tier One Warlords", they include Marshal Mohammad Fahim, former defence minister and now a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament; General Rashid Dostum, Chief of Staff of the army; and General Mohammad Daoud,presently the Interior Minister for Counter-Narcotics. The Interior Ministry has refused to comment.
All three have denied past speculation that they were involved in Afghanistan's £1.5bn drugs trade.
Another file includes a list of 12 senior provincial officials the US wants removed from office. These include provincial governors and police chiefs believed to be involved with the drugs trade or supporters of the Taliban.
One of those on the list is Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, until recently governor of Helmand province where the first of 3,500 British troops are currently deploying.
Mr Akhundzada was given a seat in Afghanistan's new upper house of parliament by President Karzai in December, shortly after 10 tons of opium were found stored in his offices. The "promotion" followed intense pressure from British and US officials to remove him. The current police chief of Helmand, Abdul Rahman Jan, is accused on the list of providing security for heroin shipments through the desert borders with Pakistan.
Other files implicate members of the Pakistani security forces in "assisting cross-border insurgent activities" and accuse the Pakistan government of "false and inaccurate reports of border incidents".
One memory stick obtained by The Independent contained files marked "SECRET//REL GTCF" on which was stored an intelligence assessment of the Taliban in the run-up to last year's parliamentary elections. This included lists of prominent Taliban commanders who were interested in joining a government reconciliation programme, as well as such intelligence titbits as the fact that one of the most senior Taliban commanders based in Pakistan, Mullah Obaidullah, misappropriated Taliban funds to finance a relative's wedding, angering Taliban rank and file.
Most of the documents appear to originate from late 2004 and the first half of 2005.
The computer memory sticks, which are about the size of a small Swiss army knife, were bought in the shabby bazaar which lines the road just 50 metres from the huge US airbase at Bagram, north of Kabul.
US authorities have not denied the security lapse. A US Army spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody said the US forces "take operational security seriously. We will not comment in detail on these reports but the circumstances are being reviewed."
Despite checks on all workers coming on or off the base, the bazaar is well known as a repository for equipment and goods stolen by Afghan workers or sold on the black market by US servicemen or contractors.
Top-secret US military intelligence documents which could compromise Hamid Karzai's government have turned up for sale in an Afghan bazaar, after apparently being stolen from a nearby US military base.
The security lapse will embarrass the US military, and the Afghan and Pakistani governments. The files are stored on computer memory sticks and among those to come to light so far are lists of top Afghan officials, including cabinet members, suspected of involvement in the drugs trade or of supporting the Taliban insurgency.
One of the most potentially damaging files, which was bought unwittingly by an Afghan journalist, names senior Afghan ministers whom US intelligence agencies believe to be drug smugglers. Described as "Tier One Warlords", they include Marshal Mohammad Fahim, former defence minister and now a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament; General Rashid Dostum, Chief of Staff of the army; and General Mohammad Daoud,presently the Interior Minister for Counter-Narcotics. The Interior Ministry has refused to comment.
All three have denied past speculation that they were involved in Afghanistan's £1.5bn drugs trade.
Another file includes a list of 12 senior provincial officials the US wants removed from office. These include provincial governors and police chiefs believed to be involved with the drugs trade or supporters of the Taliban.
One of those on the list is Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, until recently governor of Helmand province where the first of 3,500 British troops are currently deploying.
Mr Akhundzada was given a seat in Afghanistan's new upper house of parliament by President Karzai in December, shortly after 10 tons of opium were found stored in his offices. The "promotion" followed intense pressure from British and US officials to remove him. The current police chief of Helmand, Abdul Rahman Jan, is accused on the list of providing security for heroin shipments through the desert borders with Pakistan.
Other files implicate members of the Pakistani security forces in "assisting cross-border insurgent activities" and accuse the Pakistan government of "false and inaccurate reports of border incidents".
One memory stick obtained by The Independent contained files marked "SECRET//REL GTCF" on which was stored an intelligence assessment of the Taliban in the run-up to last year's parliamentary elections. This included lists of prominent Taliban commanders who were interested in joining a government reconciliation programme, as well as such intelligence titbits as the fact that one of the most senior Taliban commanders based in Pakistan, Mullah Obaidullah, misappropriated Taliban funds to finance a relative's wedding, angering Taliban rank and file.
Most of the documents appear to originate from late 2004 and the first half of 2005.
The computer memory sticks, which are about the size of a small Swiss army knife, were bought in the shabby bazaar which lines the road just 50 metres from the huge US airbase at Bagram, north of Kabul.
US authorities have not denied the security lapse. A US Army spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody said the US forces "take operational security seriously. We will not comment in detail on these reports but the circumstances are being reviewed."
Despite checks on all workers coming on or off the base, the bazaar is well known as a repository for equipment and goods stolen by Afghan workers or sold on the black market by US servicemen or contractors.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
