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Secret Red Cross Report Says CIA Detainees Were Tortured

Posted Mar 16, 2009 5:51 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concludes some al-Qaida detainees were tortured by the CIA and subjected to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

The Washington Post obtained a copy of the report from Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author. The story says the report is the most authoritative account of such treatment and the first that uses the word “torture” in a legal context.

“It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words 'torture' and 'cruel and degrading,' " Danner said told the Post. "The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law." Danner said the detainees’ accounts overlap “in minute detail” even though they were kept at separate locations and held in isolation.

The report cites an account from detainee Abu Zubaida, a senior al-Qaida official. The CIA provided medical treatment for gunshot wounds the detainee suffered in a shootout, then subjected him to harsh treatment after he recovered, according to the report.

Among the allegations: Zubaida was shackled to a chair for two to three weeks in a cold room with constant blaring music, and investigators sprayed water on his face to wake him every time he fell asleep. Later, interrogators slapped Abu Zubaida, tied a towel around his neck, and slammed him into a plywood wall. After the beatings, he was placed in a wooden box with no light and little air and forced to crouch in painful positions. Interrogators also placed a cloth on his face and poured water over it so he couldn’t breathe.

"I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless," he said. "I thought I was going to die."

Comments

1.

J.D.
Mar 16, 2009 7:23 AM CST

The International Red Cross is a radical pressure group bent on leftist interests. For quite some time it’s been the America-haters’ best friend.

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2.

B. McLeod
Mar 16, 2009 12:41 PM CST

That is simply a staggeringly erroneous assertion.

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3.

J.D.
Mar 16, 2009 2:03 PM CST

Don’t get it confused with the American Red Cross.

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4.

J.D.
Mar 16, 2009 2:14 PM CST

It wasn’t until 2006 that the International Red Cross recognized Israel as a state. It’s been excluding Israel for decades.

And it spreads anti-American propaganda. This isn’t the first time they’ve “leaked” “reports.”

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5.

Paul the Magyar
Mar 16, 2009 5:42 PM CST

The IRC has called out the US for the very same problems that many lawyers have observed:  The US has departed from its principles in condoning and commiting torture, murder, and “disappearance” of detained persons.  If the IRC is truly neutral—as we all hope and expect—it cannot avoid condemning the very acts which it was formed to police and prevent.  Instead of whining about the IRC, try lobbying your US government to behave according to the standards it voted to codify in the Geneva Convesntions and their progeny.  Oh, that is right—you wanted to give the Republican government a pass on civilized behavior and were cheerleading the shameful acts we endorsed through shabby memoranda written and approved by Addington, Bybee, Gonzales, Yoo and others.  Don’t fault the IRC, fault the Bush administration.  Have you no shame?  At last, have you no shame?

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6.

B. McLeod
Mar 17, 2009 12:30 AM CST

How did slow recognition of Israel’s statehood become linked with “America-hating”?  I don’t think Israel is the same country as the United States.  Neither are the interests of these two nations coterminous.  They aren’t flying that blue and white flag over California these days, are they, J.D.?

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7.

J.D.
Mar 17, 2009 9:49 AM CST

Perhaps I should rephrase it as “Western Civilization-hating” but the U.S. seems to be their main focus. The IRC despises Israel almost to the same extent as the crazy muslims they are defending—and those muslims want to kill you. So yeah, I take offense.

And Paul, let me ask you something. Does it trouble you that Veep Biden said he would let a suitcase nuke go off, killing thousands of Americans, before he’d dunk a terrorist’s head in water? In the hypo Tim Russert put out during the primaries, we had detained the very terrorist who admitted to hiding the bomb. We knew it would go off soon. We just didn’t know where.

Does it bother you that Biden would let you and your family be turned to ash because he’s concerned about the terrorist’s feelings and the inapplicable Geneva Convention? Is that the fatalist ideal you want from your leaders?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21013767/

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8.

Paul the magyar
Mar 17, 2009 5:47 PM CST

I have read the Russert Roundtable transcript.

President Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s responses are not as simplistic as you suggest.  Your hypothetical should read, “If most people would think that specific ends justified extremely abhorrent means, and the extremely abhorrent means could be guaranteed to produce the intended beneficial results, would these candidates admit in a public forum broadcast to the world that they would sanction these abhorrent means?” 

Thank you for elevating a roundtable hypothetical discussion of the “Dirty Harry” scenario to a matter of certainty with global geopolitical consequences. 

Of course, this is a simplistic and fantastic scenario, the subject of much endless philosophical, literary and religious debate.  (Not to mention movies.)

But lets add a few facts from the real world: No terrorist will have the capability, without state sponsorship, to explode a nuclear bomb in this country.  If such a bomb were detonated, the signature of the fallout would reveal the state sponsor and invite immediate and terrible retribution.  So no state sponsor is likely to disseminate the means, or cooperate with the actors, to provide for a nuclear bomb to be detonated in this country.

Fortunately, brighter minds than Dirty Harry’s have weighed the issue.  So we know that torture will get someone to admit to ANYTHING to stop the torture.  We know that torture does not work.  We know that our Constitution does not permit torture.  We know that torture undermines our moral stature, the respect of the world, the good faith of individuals who are friends to our country and who take steps (however small separately) every day around the world in our favor because they believe in our ideals.

Yes, I support the principles articulated by our newly-elected leaders.  If and when the facts arise which might make them—and me—reconsider, then I would and I hope they would.  But there is nothing to be gained by their endorsing torture to the world on a national television broadcast, or employing it as a widespread policy to be applied to hundreds or thousands of people without regard to the stakes involved or the circumstances at hand.  There is nothing to be gained by having potential or actual American leaders identify themselves with Nazis and criminals and terrorists.

So let us not be naive enough to think that we heard anything of import in the response to the hypothetical.  Let us, instead, support an Administration dedicated to elevating our policies to the level of our ideals.  Let us support laws which make torture rare or unknown.

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9.

Paul the Magyar
Mar 19, 2009 3:13 PM CST

Arrested on the charge “Living in Afghanistan”

“I’m very concerned about the kinds of things Cheney is saying to make it seem Obama is a danger to this republic,” Wilkerson said. “To have a former vice president fearmongering like this is really, really dangerous.”

“U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090319/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_guantanamo_wrongly_held

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10.

Paul the Magyar
Mar 20, 2009 7:11 PM CST

“Here’s a former FBI interrogator—who interrogated Al Quaeda suspects—saying categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence, but that it does sell impressionable people on the legitimacy of jihad, on the grounds that a regime that tortures deserves to be attacked.”

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/10/fbi-interrogator-tor.html

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