Monday, April 23, 2012
Failure to Prosecute Bush for Torture Merits UN Reprimand
Failure to Prosecute Bush for Torture Merits UN Reprimand, Attorneys Say
Human Rights Groups say Canada Violated
Convention Against Torture Obligations
April 23, 2012, Vancouver, BC and New York—On Friday, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) filed a report with the UN Committee Against Torture, arguing that Canada violated its obligations under the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) when it failed to investigate and prosecute former President George W. Bush for torture, during his visit to Canada in the fall of 2011. CCR and CCIJ have asked that the Committee to investigate the case and make specific recommendations to Canada regarding future compliance.
“We call upon the Committee Against Torture to take this opportunity to remind Canada – and other signatory States – of their obligation to investigate and prosecute torturers present in their territory, even when the alleged torturer is the former president of the United States,” said CCR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher. “Only when States comply with their obligations will the Convention Against Torture serve as an effective tool to end impunity and deter torture.”
In October, 2011, four individuals who allege they were tortured during Bush’s tenure as president of the United States lodged a private prosecution against him in Provincial Court in Surrey, British Columbia. Mr. Bush was visiting Canada for a paid speaking engagement at the Surrey Regional Economic Summit. CCR and CCIJ had previously called repeatedly for the Attorney General to investigate Mr. Bush for torture. Those calls went unanswered. Within hours of the filing with the court, the Attorney General stayed the private prosecution.
Matt Eisenbrandt, legal director of CCIJ, said, “The Canadian government violated its international obligations and forced these men to initiate their own legal proceedings. Those efforts were then thwarted by government officials, blocking all hopes for the survivors to get justice and allowing Mr. Bush to visit Canada with impunity.”
The four men, Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz, allege that they endured years of beatings, being hung from walls or ceilings while handcuffed, lack of access to toilets, sleep, food and water-deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, sensory overload and deprivation, and treatment while in U.S. custody at military bases in Afghanistan and/or at the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. Three of the plaintiffs have since been released without ever facing charges. Hassan Bin Attash remains in detention at Guantánamo Bay; he too has not been formally charged with any wrongdoing.
CCR and the CCIJ previously submitted a 69-page page draft indictment, with more than 4,000 pages of supporting material, contending that by Bush’s own admission he sanctioned and authorized acts that constitute torture under the Canadian criminal code and the CAT. George Bush and former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney both made trips to Canada in 2011, without any legal consequence. More than 50 human rights organizations from around the world and prominent individuals signed on to a letter in support of the call for George W. Bush’s prosecution, including former UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture and Nobel Peace Prize winners.
In February 2011, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other human rights organizations attempted to initiate criminal proceedings against Bush during a private speaking engagement in Geneva, but he canceled reportedly after news of the planned prosecution came to light. Following the cancellation, CCR and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights released the “Bush Torture Indictment,” which can serve as the basis for country-specific indictments against Bush in any of the 147 countries that have ratified the UN Convention Against Torture or have universal jurisdiction laws for torture.
The Canadian Centre for International Justice works with survivors of genocide, torture and other atrocities to seek redress and bring perpetrators to justice. The CCIJ seeks to ensure that individuals present in Canada who are accused of responsibility for serious human rights violations are held accountable and their victims recognized, supported and compensated. For more information visit www.ccij.ca and follow @CCIJ_CCJI.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org and follow @theCCR.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Poland's Investigation in to CIA Torture Prison in Poland
There continue to be movements on the legal front internationally regarding American torture. Here's news from Poland.
Guest Post: Polish Journalist Discusses the Ongoing Investigation into the CIA’s Torture Prison in Poland
17.4.12
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/04/17/guest-post-polish-journalist-discusses-the-ongoing-investigation-into-the-cias-torture-prison-in-poland/
Since November 2005, when the Washington Post first reported that the CIA had held “high-value detainees” in its “war on terror” in secret prisons in eastern Europe, and Human Rights Watch then revealed that prisons were located in Poland and Romania, concerned politicians and organizations have worked hard to expose the truth about these prisons (and another that was later discovered in Lithuania).
No one in a position of authority in these countries admitted that these prisons had existed, but important work confirming their existence was done within the EU and the Council of Europe, and of great significance, in June 2006 and June 2007, were two Council of Europe reports (2007 PDF), and a European Parliament report, in January 2007 (PDF). In the 2007 CoE report, Swiss Senator Dick Marty concluded that, after two years’ research and interviews with over 30 current and former members of the intelligence services in the United States and Europe, stated that he had enough “evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania.” Marty also identified both sites, and explained how the flights were disguised using fake flight plans.
One of the MEPs who worked on the EU investigation was Józef Pinior, a former member of the Solidarity movement, who was an MEP from 2004 to 2009, and was first a member, and then the Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee of Human Rights. Pinior has always claimed that, during his investigations, he was told about a document signed by Leszek Miller, Poland’s Prime Minister at the time the CIA prison was in operation, providing information regulating the operations of the prison – in a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north eastern Poland – including information about how, if necessary, to deal with corpses inside the facility.
Although Pinior never saw the document, he has stated that it came from a trustworthy source, although he has refused to name that source. As WL Central noted in an article mentioning Pinior in June 2011, “Asked whether this was a source from within Polish intelligence services, he refused to comment. He added that with 30 years experience in politics, he was fully aware of the implications of such a statement,” although he pointed out that, during his work on the investigation, he spoke to members of the Polish Secret Service, who “were uneasy about the fact that their facility was used for purposes which were not in their interest.”
The WL Central article also noted that Pinior described the document as being “brief, outlining logistics, and being addressed to the Polish Secret Service, wh[ich] operates the base in Stare Kiejkuty,” and also stated that “Zbigniew Wassermann and Zbigniew Ziobro, who were part of the PiS government succeeding Miller, saw and discussed this document along with four other officials, and that there are minutes of this meeting.”
Within Poland, Pinior was ridiculed for his statements at the time, although, as the years have passed, it has become increasingly obvious that his detractors were desperate to hide their knowledge of, or involvement in a project as shameful as the torture prison that they allowed the CIA to operate on Polish soil, and sensible people now recognize the importance of the stand that he took.
As I noted in an article in August 2010, it was not until September 2008 that a Polish intelligence official confirmed that the CIA had held terror suspects at the base in Stare Kiejkuty, and it took until March 2009 for the Polish Air Navigation Service Agency to release information about a specific flight to the site. Further incriminating information emerged in September 2009 and June 2010, and in August 2010 the Polish Border Guard Office provided even more significant information.
As a result of these disclosures, a Polish prosecutor began “investigating the possible abuse of power by Polish public officials with regard to a CIA black site” in 2008, although, as I noted in an article two weeks ago, “[T]he investigation only became widely noted in September 2010, when lawyers working with the Open Society Justice Initiative ‘filed an application demanding that the Appellate Prosecutor in Warsaw investigate and prosecute the people responsible for Guantánamo prisoner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri’s transfer, detention, and torture on Polish soil.’” Al-Nashiri was a “high-value detainee,” who was held and tortured in Thailand prior to his arrival in Poland. Al-Nashiri was granted victim status in October 2010, and of particular importance to his case was Mikołaj Pietrzak, representing al-Nashiri in the proceedings in Poland, who worked tirelessly to raise his client’s profile.
Guest Post: Polish Journalist Discusses the Ongoing Investigation into the CIA’s Torture Prison in Poland
17.4.12
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/04/17/guest-post-polish-journalist-discusses-the-ongoing-investigation-into-the-cias-torture-prison-in-poland/
Since November 2005, when the Washington Post first reported that the CIA had held “high-value detainees” in its “war on terror” in secret prisons in eastern Europe, and Human Rights Watch then revealed that prisons were located in Poland and Romania, concerned politicians and organizations have worked hard to expose the truth about these prisons (and another that was later discovered in Lithuania).
No one in a position of authority in these countries admitted that these prisons had existed, but important work confirming their existence was done within the EU and the Council of Europe, and of great significance, in June 2006 and June 2007, were two Council of Europe reports (2007 PDF), and a European Parliament report, in January 2007 (PDF). In the 2007 CoE report, Swiss Senator Dick Marty concluded that, after two years’ research and interviews with over 30 current and former members of the intelligence services in the United States and Europe, stated that he had enough “evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania.” Marty also identified both sites, and explained how the flights were disguised using fake flight plans.
One of the MEPs who worked on the EU investigation was Józef Pinior, a former member of the Solidarity movement, who was an MEP from 2004 to 2009, and was first a member, and then the Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee of Human Rights. Pinior has always claimed that, during his investigations, he was told about a document signed by Leszek Miller, Poland’s Prime Minister at the time the CIA prison was in operation, providing information regulating the operations of the prison – in a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north eastern Poland – including information about how, if necessary, to deal with corpses inside the facility.
Although Pinior never saw the document, he has stated that it came from a trustworthy source, although he has refused to name that source. As WL Central noted in an article mentioning Pinior in June 2011, “Asked whether this was a source from within Polish intelligence services, he refused to comment. He added that with 30 years experience in politics, he was fully aware of the implications of such a statement,” although he pointed out that, during his work on the investigation, he spoke to members of the Polish Secret Service, who “were uneasy about the fact that their facility was used for purposes which were not in their interest.”
The WL Central article also noted that Pinior described the document as being “brief, outlining logistics, and being addressed to the Polish Secret Service, wh[ich] operates the base in Stare Kiejkuty,” and also stated that “Zbigniew Wassermann and Zbigniew Ziobro, who were part of the PiS government succeeding Miller, saw and discussed this document along with four other officials, and that there are minutes of this meeting.”
Within Poland, Pinior was ridiculed for his statements at the time, although, as the years have passed, it has become increasingly obvious that his detractors were desperate to hide their knowledge of, or involvement in a project as shameful as the torture prison that they allowed the CIA to operate on Polish soil, and sensible people now recognize the importance of the stand that he took.
As I noted in an article in August 2010, it was not until September 2008 that a Polish intelligence official confirmed that the CIA had held terror suspects at the base in Stare Kiejkuty, and it took until March 2009 for the Polish Air Navigation Service Agency to release information about a specific flight to the site. Further incriminating information emerged in September 2009 and June 2010, and in August 2010 the Polish Border Guard Office provided even more significant information.
As a result of these disclosures, a Polish prosecutor began “investigating the possible abuse of power by Polish public officials with regard to a CIA black site” in 2008, although, as I noted in an article two weeks ago, “[T]he investigation only became widely noted in September 2010, when lawyers working with the Open Society Justice Initiative ‘filed an application demanding that the Appellate Prosecutor in Warsaw investigate and prosecute the people responsible for Guantánamo prisoner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri’s transfer, detention, and torture on Polish soil.’” Al-Nashiri was a “high-value detainee,” who was held and tortured in Thailand prior to his arrival in Poland. Al-Nashiri was granted victim status in October 2010, and of particular importance to his case was Mikołaj Pietrzak, representing al-Nashiri in the proceedings in Poland, who worked tirelessly to raise his client’s profile.
Friday, April 6, 2012
A doctor's view of the results of torture
Here a doctor treating a torture survivor views the results of torture as policy. The personal stories of torture reveal that torture policy and practice accomplish none of the state goals and only add to the troubles of pain and confusion in the world.
John Calvi
founding convener
Quaker Initiative to End Torture
Guantanamo Bay Failures Underline Need For a Humane Touch in the War on Terror
http://www.policymic.com/articles/5801/guantanamo-bay-failures-underline-need-for-a-humane-touch-in-the-war-on-terror
By Clara Gutteridge
Hidden away in this month’s Annals of Internal Medicine, the journal of the American College of Physicians, is a paper by American doctor Sondra Crosby about her experience treating a Tanzanian torture victim. Unfortunately, the paper cannot be reproduced here, and it is not generally accessible on the internet. Nevertheless, this clinician’s account of her client’s five-year ordeal in multiple U.S. detention sites, and her reflections on the unorthodox and creative methods required to provide support for him after his release, merits special attention.
By way of contrast with an increasingly fear-driven and reductive U.S. detainee policy, true national security will only be achieved when Americans are able to engage authentically and humanely with those they describe as terror suspects.
At a time when the domestic U.S. debate on the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. prisons in Afghanistan is hobbled by political short-termism and an increasingly internecine discourse around “recidivism,” a little humanity goes a long way. Crosby’s acutely humane response to her client opens a window into the human cost of the War on Terror, and charts an alternative course for dealing with the legacy of America’s overseas prisons.
Crosby’s client, “Rashid,” was released, with a document confirming both his detention and his innocence, in 2008. Rashid has told United Nations investigators how he was one of many foreigners captured in Somalia in 2003, sold for a bounty by Somali warlords to the CIA, and rendered via Kenya and Djibouti to U.S. prisons in Afghanistan.
Five torturous years later, Rashid was unceremoniously flown back home. During his time in U.S. detention, Rashid’s life had totally unravelled. Suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder after his release, Rashid was unable to work and had no means to support himself. His lack of self-sufficiency led to further depression and feelings of inadequacy and shame because he had to rely on his family for his basic needs.
A year later, Rashid met Crosby, a physician evaluator for American NGO Physicians for Human Rights. Crosby describes times during the clinical evaluation when both doctor and patient broke down in tears: Rashid described severe beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, forced nakedness and humiliation, sexual assault, being locked naked in a coffin, and forced to lie naked on a wet mat, naked and handcuffed, and then rolled up into a wet mat “like a corpse.” The list goes on.
The Obama administration has steadfastly refused to address the possibility of reparations or accountability for victims of U.S. torture during the War on Terror. Crosby writes that it was difficult to leave Rashid after having uncovered such desperate need, and having no available resources to alleviate his suffering. Nevertheless, cooperation between Physicians for Human Rights and a local organization “made treatment a reality for this man.” Anti-depressants were sent by post, a psychologist from a neighbouring country made regular trips to meet Rashid. Crosby has continued to keep in touch with Rashid by telephone, developing a relationship of trust against all the odds. Over two years later, Crosby writes: “I have detected something new in our communication – hope. Rashid is now hopeful about his recovery and future. And I am hopeful that it is possible to repair the wounds my country has inflicted.”
Kristine A. Huskey, J.D.
Director, Anti-Torture Program
Physicians for Human Rights
1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 1.202.728.5335 x300 | Mobile: 1.857.600.5418 | Fax: 1.202.728.3053
khuskey@phrusa.org | physiciansforhumanrights.org
John Calvi
founding convener
Quaker Initiative to End Torture
Guantanamo Bay Failures Underline Need For a Humane Touch in the War on Terror
http://www.policymic.com/articles/5801/guantanamo-bay-failures-underline-need-for-a-humane-touch-in-the-war-on-terror
By Clara Gutteridge
Hidden away in this month’s Annals of Internal Medicine, the journal of the American College of Physicians, is a paper by American doctor Sondra Crosby about her experience treating a Tanzanian torture victim. Unfortunately, the paper cannot be reproduced here, and it is not generally accessible on the internet. Nevertheless, this clinician’s account of her client’s five-year ordeal in multiple U.S. detention sites, and her reflections on the unorthodox and creative methods required to provide support for him after his release, merits special attention.
By way of contrast with an increasingly fear-driven and reductive U.S. detainee policy, true national security will only be achieved when Americans are able to engage authentically and humanely with those they describe as terror suspects.
At a time when the domestic U.S. debate on the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. prisons in Afghanistan is hobbled by political short-termism and an increasingly internecine discourse around “recidivism,” a little humanity goes a long way. Crosby’s acutely humane response to her client opens a window into the human cost of the War on Terror, and charts an alternative course for dealing with the legacy of America’s overseas prisons.
Crosby’s client, “Rashid,” was released, with a document confirming both his detention and his innocence, in 2008. Rashid has told United Nations investigators how he was one of many foreigners captured in Somalia in 2003, sold for a bounty by Somali warlords to the CIA, and rendered via Kenya and Djibouti to U.S. prisons in Afghanistan.
Five torturous years later, Rashid was unceremoniously flown back home. During his time in U.S. detention, Rashid’s life had totally unravelled. Suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder after his release, Rashid was unable to work and had no means to support himself. His lack of self-sufficiency led to further depression and feelings of inadequacy and shame because he had to rely on his family for his basic needs.
A year later, Rashid met Crosby, a physician evaluator for American NGO Physicians for Human Rights. Crosby describes times during the clinical evaluation when both doctor and patient broke down in tears: Rashid described severe beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, forced nakedness and humiliation, sexual assault, being locked naked in a coffin, and forced to lie naked on a wet mat, naked and handcuffed, and then rolled up into a wet mat “like a corpse.” The list goes on.
The Obama administration has steadfastly refused to address the possibility of reparations or accountability for victims of U.S. torture during the War on Terror. Crosby writes that it was difficult to leave Rashid after having uncovered such desperate need, and having no available resources to alleviate his suffering. Nevertheless, cooperation between Physicians for Human Rights and a local organization “made treatment a reality for this man.” Anti-depressants were sent by post, a psychologist from a neighbouring country made regular trips to meet Rashid. Crosby has continued to keep in touch with Rashid by telephone, developing a relationship of trust against all the odds. Over two years later, Crosby writes: “I have detected something new in our communication – hope. Rashid is now hopeful about his recovery and future. And I am hopeful that it is possible to repair the wounds my country has inflicted.”
Kristine A. Huskey, J.D.
Director, Anti-Torture Program
Physicians for Human Rights
1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 1.202.728.5335 x300 | Mobile: 1.857.600.5418 | Fax: 1.202.728.3053
khuskey@phrusa.org | physiciansforhumanrights.org
Guidebook to False Confessions
More information continues to come out about American torture as policy and practice. It can be confusing to follow so many threads. Here at the QUIT blog, I will share news stories that continue to reveal this unfolding part of our history and current state.
Below is a story of how a US torture manual was used to defend US torturers by a White House lawyer. Torture has always been against the law in the US beginning with the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Bill of Rights creating the first amendments to the US Constitution.
Protecting those who ordered and carried out the torture is a current preoccupation of government.
John Calvi
founding convener
The Quaker Initiative to End Torture
EXCLUSIVE: "Guidebook to False Confessions": Key Document John Yoo Used to Draft Torture Memo Released
Tuesday, 03 April 2012 11:43 By Jason Leopold, Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout | Report
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8278-exclusive-guidebook-to-false-confessions-key-document-john-yoo-used-to-draft-torture-memo-released
Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11, was tortured at CIA black site prisons beginning in May 2002. Seven of the ten techniques he was subjected came from a manual just released by the Defense Department under the Freedom of Information Act. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)In May of 2002, one of several meetings was convened at the White House where the CIA sought permission from top Bush administration officials, including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to torture the agency's first high-value detainee captured after 9/11: Abu Zubaydah.
The CIA claimed Zubaydah, who at the time was being held at a black site prison in Thailand, was "withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions," according to documents released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in April 2009.
So, "attorneys from the CIA's Office of General Counsel [including the agency's top lawyer John Rizzo] met with the Attorney General [John Ashcroft], the National Security Adviser [Rice], the Deputy National Security Adviser [Stephen Hadley], the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council [John Bellinger], and the Counsel to the President [Alberto Gonzales] in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S."
One of the key documents handed out to Bush officials at this meeting, and at Principals Committee sessionschaired by Rice that took place between May and July 2002, was a 37-page instructional manual that contained detailed descriptions of seven of the ten techniques that ended up in the legal opinion widely referred to as the "torture memo," drafted by Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attorney John Yoo and signed by his boss, Jay Bybee, three months later. According to Rice, Yoo had attended the Principals Committee meetings and participated in discussions about Zubaydah's torture.
That instructional manual, referred to as "Pre-Academic Laboratory (PREAL) Operating Instructions," has just been released by the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The document sheds additional light on the origins of the Bush administration's torture policy and for the first time describes exactly what methods of torture Bush officials had discussed - and subsequently approved - for Zubaydah in May 2002.
The PREAL manual was prepared by the Department of Defense's (DOD) Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) and used by instructors in the JPRA's Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) courses to teach US military personnel how to withstand brutal interrogation techniques if captured by the enemy during wartime. The manual states one of the primary goals of the training is "to give students the most reliable mental picture possible of an actual peacetime governmental detention experiences [sic]."
A US counterterrorism official and an aide to one of the Bush officials who participated in Principals Committee meetings in May 2002, however, confirmed to Truthout last week that the PREAL manual was one of several documents the CIA obtained from JPRA that was shared with Rice and other Principals Committee members in May 2002, the same month the CIA officially took over Zubaydah's interrogation from the FBI. As National Security Adviser to President George W. Bush, Rice chaired the meetings.
Rice and Bellinger have denied ever seeing a list of SERE training techniques. But in 2008, they told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which conducted aninvestigation into treatment of detainees in custody of the US government, that they recalled being present at White House meetings where SERE training was discussed.
Sarah Farber, a spokeswoman at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where Rice teaches political economy, said she would pass on Truthout's queries about claims that Rice reviewed and discussed the PREAL manual to Rice's office. But Rice's office did not respond to our inquiries.
Guidebook to False Confessions
Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, a career military intelligence officer recognized as one of the DOD's most effective interrogators as well a former SERE instructor and director of intelligence for JPRA's teaching academy, said he immediately knew the true value of the PREAL manual if employed as part of an interrogation program.
"This is the guidebook to getting false confessions, a system drawn specifically from the communist interrogation model that was used to generate propaganda rather than intelligence," Kleinman said in an interview. "If your goal is to obtain useful and reliable information this is not the source book you should be using."
Indeed, in their newly published book "The Hunt for KSM," which refers to self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, investigative reporters Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer wrote that the torture of the top al-Qaeda figure resulted in false confessions about pending attack plans.
Kleinman, who has testified before four committees of Congress about interrogation and detainee policy - and the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" - has publicly called for a thorough investigation into how a program such as this could have found its way into the interrogation doctrine that guided US-sanctioned operations.
"In SERE courses, we emphatically presented this interrogation paradigm as one that was employed exclusively by nations that were in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and international treaties against torture," Kleinman said. "We proudly assured the students that we - the United States - would never resort to such despicable methods."
Rice said she was assured the interrogation methods that were used on Zubaydah, which she and other officials signed off on, "had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm," according to written responses to questions about the origins of the torture program Rice provided the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Kleinman, however, said that's simply untrue.
"Dr. Rice is clearly an exceptionally bright individual, as were her colleagues. At the same time, however, they understood little about human intelligence gathering and even less about resistance to interrogation training. I simply don't understand how they could have promoted the assertion that, because these techniques have been used safely with tens of thousands of US military personnel in a carefully controlled training environment, they would also be employed safely in a real-world interrogation environment?" said Kleinman, who testified before the Armed Services Committee about the use of SERE techniques. "A critical distinction that has been consistently overlooked is that detainees have no idea whether interrogators are using [techniques like waterboarding] to intimidate them or to kill them. In a training environment, waterboarding would end as soon as you raised your hand, and the student could be absolutely confident that SERE instructors and medical personnel were always ready to respond to ensure they wouldn't be injured. In contrast, from the detainee's perspective, he is in the presence of the enemy."
Kleinman pointed to one of the techniques in the PREAL manual to demonstrate how the safety of detainees subjected to the methods was clearly not a cause for concern among the government officials who designed and approved of Bush's torture program. In a section describing the use of cramped confinement, one of the torture techniques Zubaydah was subjected to, the training manual says, "The maximum time allowed for a student to be in cramped confinement in 20 minutes." But the Yoo/Bybee torture memo says, "Confinement in the larger space can last up to eighteen hours; for the smaller space confinement lasts no more than two hours."
The PREAL document notes that the purpose of cramped confinement, like the 55-gallon drum and the water pit, is used to "demonstrate the reaction to uncooperative behavior, inconsistent logic, or to accelerate the physical and psychological stresses of captivity."
It also appears that James Mitchell, the psychologist under contract to the CIA and credited as being one of the architects of Bush's torture program, received some form of authorization to use cramped confinement and sleep deprivation in May 2002, the same month the PREAL manual appears to have been accessed and discussed among top Bush officials and the CIA.
The introduction of a cramped confinement box in May 2002 is what led Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who first interrogated Zubaydah shortly after he was captured, toleave the CIA black site prison in Thailand that month.
Soufan had complained to officials at FBI headquarters that Mitchell's interrogations of Zubaydah amounted to "borderline torture," according to a report released in 2008 by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine related to the FBI's role in harsh interrogations.
Soufan's partner on the other hand, FBI Special Agent Steve Gaudin, opted to remain at the black site prison. He told Fine's investigators that unlike Soufan, he had no "moral objection" to the interrogation techniques Mitchell subjected Zubaydah to because they were "comparable" to the "harsh interrogation" techniques he "himself had undergone" as part of the US Army's SERE training.
In his book, "The Black Banners," published last September, Soufan refers to the methods of interrogation Mitchell subjected Zubaydah to during May 2002 as "experiments."
Breaking Down the Prisoner
The CIA, apparently, was not legally authorized to subject detainees to some of the more extreme forms of torture described in the manual, such as immersion in an icy "Water Pit" and forced confinement in a 55-gallon drum or barrel, the purpose of which was to "demonstrate the reaction to uncooperative behavior and accelerate the physical and psychological stresses of captivity."
But other techniques cited in the PREAL instructional manual, such as walling, cramped confinement, facial slap, sleep deprivation, attention grasp, facial hold and stress positions were included in Yoo and Bybee's August 1, 2002 torture memo.
The manual also describes how the use of hooding (a form of sensory deprivation) and sexual humiliation can be used as a form of torture. Moreover, it also stressed the use of isolation, including a harsh form where the isolated prisoner was hooded and cuffed in what the manual called "Iso-stress," which the CIA and military has reportedly used against detainees. OLC, however, never signed off on isolation as a specific interrogation technique.
Where the PREAL manual and the torture memo differ is in the detailed descriptions of the purpose of subjecting a prisoner to these torture techniques. For example, the PREAL manual says the purpose of walling, where a prisoner is slammed against a "flexible" wall, would be to instill "fear," "despair" and "humiliation." The torture memo, however, states "walling" is a method used to "shock" or "surprise" the detainee.
The most controversial of the ten torture techniques used on Zubaydah - waterboarding - is not included in the PREAL manual. Waterboarding was cited in other SERE documents the CIA and DOD obtained from JPRA, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee that probed the treatment of detainees in custody of the US government.
The PREAL manual also includes a lengthy description on the use of water as a torture method, such as "water dousing." That technique, which the manual says was used to "create a distracting pressure, to startle" and to "instill humiliation or cause insult," was not approved until August 2004, when the head of OLC, Steven Bradbury, drafted a second torture memo to replace the one by Yoo and Bybee.
However, high-level intelligence source told Truthout in April 2010 that Zubaydah was repeatedly doused with cold water from a hose (an example cited in the PREAL manual's of how water could be used to torture a prisoner) while he was naked and shackled by chains attached to a ceiling in the cell he was kept in at the black site prison in Thailand.
The harsh physical techniques included in the manual are consistent with notes written by psychologist Bruce Jessen for a SERE survival-training course more than two decades ago, which said enemies who captured US personnel used methods of torture, such as those outlined in the PREAL manual, as a way of gaining "total control" over the prisoner. The "end goal," according to Jessen's handwritten notes, was to make the prisoner feel "completely dependent" on his captors so they would "comply with [their] wishes."
The purpose of such dependence, according to Jessen, who worked with Mitchell in designing Bush's torture program, was to coerce the prisoner's cooperation, the better to use the prisoner for "propaganda, special favors, confession, etc." Jessen's handwritten notes provided the first look into the true purpose of the "enhanced interrogation" program and were the subject of an exclusive investigative report published by Truthout last year.
The PREAL manual also notes the importance of propaganda in the prisoner of war setting. For instance, in a mock torture scenario prisoners are brought before a "press conference" to answer questions from "reporters." According to the manual, "reporters play the role of legitimate American newspersons," raising the question as to whether professional reporters were recruited as part of the PREAL training.
"Found" in OLC's Files
The PREAL manual was first identified in a report released by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in February 2010, which was the result of an investigation conducted by OPR over five and a half years into the legal work Yoo and Bybee did prior to writing the August 2002 torture memo. (Jeffrey Kaye wasthe first reporter to discuss the PREAL manual in a report published in Truthout in March 2010.)
The OPR report states that the "May 7, 2002" PREAL manual, marked "For Official Use Only," was found in OLC's files, but investigators said there was "no indication of how or when it was obtained."
Aaron Graves, a spokesman in DoD's FOIA division, said he did not know if the May 7, 2002, date at the bottom of each page of the manual meant it was drafted on that date, accessed from a government hard-drive, or placed into OLC's files on that date.
"Learned Helplessness"
The Justice Department's OPR report stated that interrogation methods US military personnel may experience after enemy capture differed from the mock prisoner of war scenarios SERE trainees underwent "in one significant respect ..." Quoting from the PREAL manual, the OPR report said, "Maximum effort will be made to ensure that students do not develop a sense of 'learned helplessness'" during role-playing scenarios.
That citation, we now know, can be found on page 4 of the PREAL manual, under "[P]re-Academic Laboratory Goals." It underscores how military and CIA interrogators deviated from the lessons of the SERE training when they subjected detainees to the same torture techniques used in the role-playing scenarios.
"Learned Helplessness" was one of the main goals of the Bush administration's torture program as overseen by Mitchell and Jessen. It is defined as "a laboratory model of depression in which exposure to a series of unforeseen adverse situations gives rise to a sense of helplessness or an inability to cope with or devise ways to escape such situations, even when escape is possible," according to the "American Heritage Medical Dictionary."
The learned helplessness theory was developed by psychologist Martin Seligman, who discussed it in May 2002 at the SERE training school in San Diego, the same month Mitchell, who attended the lecture, began subjecting Zubaydah to various torture techniques. The CIA sponsored Seligman's lecture.
Brent Mickum, Zubaydah's habeas attorney, reviewed the PREAL document and said it confirms what he has long believed: that Zubaydah's torture took place prior to the issuance of Yoo and Bybee's August 2002 torture memo.
"This document confirms, in my view, that my client's torture was over before that memo was ever issued," said Mickum. "I can't go into detail and why that is the government can only explain. I have been muzzled wrongfully even though the government contends that everything it did was legal."
Echoing Kleinman, Mickum added he was also struck by the PREAL manual's extensive warnings to SERE instructors about the safety of trainees subjected to brutal interrogation methods.
"Without commenting about anything that my client told me about what was done to him, what I can tell you is that there is no correlation between the safe treatment of SERE trainees listed in this particular document and what happened to my client. None whatsoever."
Author's Note: When the Department of Defense released the PREAL manual last month, several pages were missing from the PDF file and the file also contained a number of duplicate pages. We contacted the FOIA office about the issue and officials there restored the missing pages, except for one: page 33, which a FOIA officer said he is unable to track down.
Below is a story of how a US torture manual was used to defend US torturers by a White House lawyer. Torture has always been against the law in the US beginning with the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Bill of Rights creating the first amendments to the US Constitution.
Protecting those who ordered and carried out the torture is a current preoccupation of government.
John Calvi
founding convener
The Quaker Initiative to End Torture
EXCLUSIVE: "Guidebook to False Confessions": Key Document John Yoo Used to Draft Torture Memo Released
Tuesday, 03 April 2012 11:43 By Jason Leopold, Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout | Report
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8278-exclusive-guidebook-to-false-confessions-key-document-john-yoo-used-to-draft-torture-memo-released
Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11, was tortured at CIA black site prisons beginning in May 2002. Seven of the ten techniques he was subjected came from a manual just released by the Defense Department under the Freedom of Information Act. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)In May of 2002, one of several meetings was convened at the White House where the CIA sought permission from top Bush administration officials, including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to torture the agency's first high-value detainee captured after 9/11: Abu Zubaydah.
The CIA claimed Zubaydah, who at the time was being held at a black site prison in Thailand, was "withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions," according to documents released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in April 2009.
So, "attorneys from the CIA's Office of General Counsel [including the agency's top lawyer John Rizzo] met with the Attorney General [John Ashcroft], the National Security Adviser [Rice], the Deputy National Security Adviser [Stephen Hadley], the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council [John Bellinger], and the Counsel to the President [Alberto Gonzales] in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S."
One of the key documents handed out to Bush officials at this meeting, and at Principals Committee sessionschaired by Rice that took place between May and July 2002, was a 37-page instructional manual that contained detailed descriptions of seven of the ten techniques that ended up in the legal opinion widely referred to as the "torture memo," drafted by Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attorney John Yoo and signed by his boss, Jay Bybee, three months later. According to Rice, Yoo had attended the Principals Committee meetings and participated in discussions about Zubaydah's torture.
That instructional manual, referred to as "Pre-Academic Laboratory (PREAL) Operating Instructions," has just been released by the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The document sheds additional light on the origins of the Bush administration's torture policy and for the first time describes exactly what methods of torture Bush officials had discussed - and subsequently approved - for Zubaydah in May 2002.
The PREAL manual was prepared by the Department of Defense's (DOD) Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) and used by instructors in the JPRA's Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) courses to teach US military personnel how to withstand brutal interrogation techniques if captured by the enemy during wartime. The manual states one of the primary goals of the training is "to give students the most reliable mental picture possible of an actual peacetime governmental detention experiences [sic]."
A US counterterrorism official and an aide to one of the Bush officials who participated in Principals Committee meetings in May 2002, however, confirmed to Truthout last week that the PREAL manual was one of several documents the CIA obtained from JPRA that was shared with Rice and other Principals Committee members in May 2002, the same month the CIA officially took over Zubaydah's interrogation from the FBI. As National Security Adviser to President George W. Bush, Rice chaired the meetings.
Rice and Bellinger have denied ever seeing a list of SERE training techniques. But in 2008, they told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which conducted aninvestigation into treatment of detainees in custody of the US government, that they recalled being present at White House meetings where SERE training was discussed.
Sarah Farber, a spokeswoman at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where Rice teaches political economy, said she would pass on Truthout's queries about claims that Rice reviewed and discussed the PREAL manual to Rice's office. But Rice's office did not respond to our inquiries.
Guidebook to False Confessions
Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, a career military intelligence officer recognized as one of the DOD's most effective interrogators as well a former SERE instructor and director of intelligence for JPRA's teaching academy, said he immediately knew the true value of the PREAL manual if employed as part of an interrogation program.
"This is the guidebook to getting false confessions, a system drawn specifically from the communist interrogation model that was used to generate propaganda rather than intelligence," Kleinman said in an interview. "If your goal is to obtain useful and reliable information this is not the source book you should be using."
Indeed, in their newly published book "The Hunt for KSM," which refers to self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, investigative reporters Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer wrote that the torture of the top al-Qaeda figure resulted in false confessions about pending attack plans.
Kleinman, who has testified before four committees of Congress about interrogation and detainee policy - and the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" - has publicly called for a thorough investigation into how a program such as this could have found its way into the interrogation doctrine that guided US-sanctioned operations.
"In SERE courses, we emphatically presented this interrogation paradigm as one that was employed exclusively by nations that were in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and international treaties against torture," Kleinman said. "We proudly assured the students that we - the United States - would never resort to such despicable methods."
Rice said she was assured the interrogation methods that were used on Zubaydah, which she and other officials signed off on, "had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm," according to written responses to questions about the origins of the torture program Rice provided the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Kleinman, however, said that's simply untrue.
"Dr. Rice is clearly an exceptionally bright individual, as were her colleagues. At the same time, however, they understood little about human intelligence gathering and even less about resistance to interrogation training. I simply don't understand how they could have promoted the assertion that, because these techniques have been used safely with tens of thousands of US military personnel in a carefully controlled training environment, they would also be employed safely in a real-world interrogation environment?" said Kleinman, who testified before the Armed Services Committee about the use of SERE techniques. "A critical distinction that has been consistently overlooked is that detainees have no idea whether interrogators are using [techniques like waterboarding] to intimidate them or to kill them. In a training environment, waterboarding would end as soon as you raised your hand, and the student could be absolutely confident that SERE instructors and medical personnel were always ready to respond to ensure they wouldn't be injured. In contrast, from the detainee's perspective, he is in the presence of the enemy."
Kleinman pointed to one of the techniques in the PREAL manual to demonstrate how the safety of detainees subjected to the methods was clearly not a cause for concern among the government officials who designed and approved of Bush's torture program. In a section describing the use of cramped confinement, one of the torture techniques Zubaydah was subjected to, the training manual says, "The maximum time allowed for a student to be in cramped confinement in 20 minutes." But the Yoo/Bybee torture memo says, "Confinement in the larger space can last up to eighteen hours; for the smaller space confinement lasts no more than two hours."
The PREAL document notes that the purpose of cramped confinement, like the 55-gallon drum and the water pit, is used to "demonstrate the reaction to uncooperative behavior, inconsistent logic, or to accelerate the physical and psychological stresses of captivity."
It also appears that James Mitchell, the psychologist under contract to the CIA and credited as being one of the architects of Bush's torture program, received some form of authorization to use cramped confinement and sleep deprivation in May 2002, the same month the PREAL manual appears to have been accessed and discussed among top Bush officials and the CIA.
The introduction of a cramped confinement box in May 2002 is what led Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who first interrogated Zubaydah shortly after he was captured, toleave the CIA black site prison in Thailand that month.
Soufan had complained to officials at FBI headquarters that Mitchell's interrogations of Zubaydah amounted to "borderline torture," according to a report released in 2008 by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine related to the FBI's role in harsh interrogations.
Soufan's partner on the other hand, FBI Special Agent Steve Gaudin, opted to remain at the black site prison. He told Fine's investigators that unlike Soufan, he had no "moral objection" to the interrogation techniques Mitchell subjected Zubaydah to because they were "comparable" to the "harsh interrogation" techniques he "himself had undergone" as part of the US Army's SERE training.
In his book, "The Black Banners," published last September, Soufan refers to the methods of interrogation Mitchell subjected Zubaydah to during May 2002 as "experiments."
Breaking Down the Prisoner
The CIA, apparently, was not legally authorized to subject detainees to some of the more extreme forms of torture described in the manual, such as immersion in an icy "Water Pit" and forced confinement in a 55-gallon drum or barrel, the purpose of which was to "demonstrate the reaction to uncooperative behavior and accelerate the physical and psychological stresses of captivity."
But other techniques cited in the PREAL instructional manual, such as walling, cramped confinement, facial slap, sleep deprivation, attention grasp, facial hold and stress positions were included in Yoo and Bybee's August 1, 2002 torture memo.
The manual also describes how the use of hooding (a form of sensory deprivation) and sexual humiliation can be used as a form of torture. Moreover, it also stressed the use of isolation, including a harsh form where the isolated prisoner was hooded and cuffed in what the manual called "Iso-stress," which the CIA and military has reportedly used against detainees. OLC, however, never signed off on isolation as a specific interrogation technique.
Where the PREAL manual and the torture memo differ is in the detailed descriptions of the purpose of subjecting a prisoner to these torture techniques. For example, the PREAL manual says the purpose of walling, where a prisoner is slammed against a "flexible" wall, would be to instill "fear," "despair" and "humiliation." The torture memo, however, states "walling" is a method used to "shock" or "surprise" the detainee.
The most controversial of the ten torture techniques used on Zubaydah - waterboarding - is not included in the PREAL manual. Waterboarding was cited in other SERE documents the CIA and DOD obtained from JPRA, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee that probed the treatment of detainees in custody of the US government.
The PREAL manual also includes a lengthy description on the use of water as a torture method, such as "water dousing." That technique, which the manual says was used to "create a distracting pressure, to startle" and to "instill humiliation or cause insult," was not approved until August 2004, when the head of OLC, Steven Bradbury, drafted a second torture memo to replace the one by Yoo and Bybee.
However, high-level intelligence source told Truthout in April 2010 that Zubaydah was repeatedly doused with cold water from a hose (an example cited in the PREAL manual's of how water could be used to torture a prisoner) while he was naked and shackled by chains attached to a ceiling in the cell he was kept in at the black site prison in Thailand.
The harsh physical techniques included in the manual are consistent with notes written by psychologist Bruce Jessen for a SERE survival-training course more than two decades ago, which said enemies who captured US personnel used methods of torture, such as those outlined in the PREAL manual, as a way of gaining "total control" over the prisoner. The "end goal," according to Jessen's handwritten notes, was to make the prisoner feel "completely dependent" on his captors so they would "comply with [their] wishes."
The purpose of such dependence, according to Jessen, who worked with Mitchell in designing Bush's torture program, was to coerce the prisoner's cooperation, the better to use the prisoner for "propaganda, special favors, confession, etc." Jessen's handwritten notes provided the first look into the true purpose of the "enhanced interrogation" program and were the subject of an exclusive investigative report published by Truthout last year.
The PREAL manual also notes the importance of propaganda in the prisoner of war setting. For instance, in a mock torture scenario prisoners are brought before a "press conference" to answer questions from "reporters." According to the manual, "reporters play the role of legitimate American newspersons," raising the question as to whether professional reporters were recruited as part of the PREAL training.
"Found" in OLC's Files
The PREAL manual was first identified in a report released by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in February 2010, which was the result of an investigation conducted by OPR over five and a half years into the legal work Yoo and Bybee did prior to writing the August 2002 torture memo. (Jeffrey Kaye wasthe first reporter to discuss the PREAL manual in a report published in Truthout in March 2010.)
The OPR report states that the "May 7, 2002" PREAL manual, marked "For Official Use Only," was found in OLC's files, but investigators said there was "no indication of how or when it was obtained."
Aaron Graves, a spokesman in DoD's FOIA division, said he did not know if the May 7, 2002, date at the bottom of each page of the manual meant it was drafted on that date, accessed from a government hard-drive, or placed into OLC's files on that date.
"Learned Helplessness"
The Justice Department's OPR report stated that interrogation methods US military personnel may experience after enemy capture differed from the mock prisoner of war scenarios SERE trainees underwent "in one significant respect ..." Quoting from the PREAL manual, the OPR report said, "Maximum effort will be made to ensure that students do not develop a sense of 'learned helplessness'" during role-playing scenarios.
That citation, we now know, can be found on page 4 of the PREAL manual, under "[P]re-Academic Laboratory Goals." It underscores how military and CIA interrogators deviated from the lessons of the SERE training when they subjected detainees to the same torture techniques used in the role-playing scenarios.
"Learned Helplessness" was one of the main goals of the Bush administration's torture program as overseen by Mitchell and Jessen. It is defined as "a laboratory model of depression in which exposure to a series of unforeseen adverse situations gives rise to a sense of helplessness or an inability to cope with or devise ways to escape such situations, even when escape is possible," according to the "American Heritage Medical Dictionary."
The learned helplessness theory was developed by psychologist Martin Seligman, who discussed it in May 2002 at the SERE training school in San Diego, the same month Mitchell, who attended the lecture, began subjecting Zubaydah to various torture techniques. The CIA sponsored Seligman's lecture.
Brent Mickum, Zubaydah's habeas attorney, reviewed the PREAL document and said it confirms what he has long believed: that Zubaydah's torture took place prior to the issuance of Yoo and Bybee's August 2002 torture memo.
"This document confirms, in my view, that my client's torture was over before that memo was ever issued," said Mickum. "I can't go into detail and why that is the government can only explain. I have been muzzled wrongfully even though the government contends that everything it did was legal."
Echoing Kleinman, Mickum added he was also struck by the PREAL manual's extensive warnings to SERE instructors about the safety of trainees subjected to brutal interrogation methods.
"Without commenting about anything that my client told me about what was done to him, what I can tell you is that there is no correlation between the safe treatment of SERE trainees listed in this particular document and what happened to my client. None whatsoever."
Author's Note: When the Department of Defense released the PREAL manual last month, several pages were missing from the PDF file and the file also contained a number of duplicate pages. We contacted the FOIA office about the issue and officials there restored the missing pages, except for one: page 33, which a FOIA officer said he is unable to track down.
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