Chicago Police Taser 82-Year-Old Woman

The Guardian reports:

Chicago's Police Department is investigating an officer's use of a Taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who police say was swinging a hammer when they arrived.

Lillian Fletcher was rushed to the hospital after being jolted by the Taser last week but has been released, police said Tuesday.

Officials with the city's Department on Aging went to her home Oct. 29 to make a welfare check and called police when they saw Fletcher in a window swinging a hammer, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday.

Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Fletcher, one of them used a Taser, Bond said. The department is trying to determine whether the officer violated department policy on the use of stun guns.

Fletcher said Tuesday that officers pushed their way into her home. ``They shocked me,'' she said.

Fletcher at times sounded confused during the telephone interview. Her granddaughter Traci Taylor told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandmother has schizophrenia and dementia.

``My grandmother is easily confused,'' Taylor told the newspaper, adding that the woman can be belligerent but is about 5 feet 1 and weighs no more than 160 pounds.

``I just don't think they should be Tasing 82-year-old women. That's ridiculous,'' Taylor said.

Tasers use compressed nitrogen to fire two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing to deliver a 50,000-volt shock to immobilize people.

Touted by law enforcement officials as less lethal than other ways of subduing combative people in high-risk situations, the weapons have come under criticism nationwide after they were blamed for several deaths.

In 2005, the police superintendent at the time suspended the distribution of stun guns after the deaths of two people who had been hit by police with Tasers.

Today, about 150 field training officers are set to be issued new Tasers, and about 200 sergeants have had the weapons for about five years, Bond said.

The human rights group Amnesty International USA has voiced concerns that police departments are starting to use Tasers more routinely rather than in cases of serious danger.

Taser use by police drew national attention recently when police stunned and arrested a University of Florida student after his fervent, videotaped outburst at an event with Sen. John Kerry in September.

In Ohio, a patrolman accused of repeatedly jolting a woman who had been arrested with a Taser gun faces a disciplinary hearing Friday, The Tribune Chronicle of Warren reported. The woman had been arrested because she was acting unruly at a bar, police said.

No Age Limit on Gwinnett, Georgia Police Taser Policy

Halloween incident where police shocked teen sheds light on issue; critics complain kids as young as 6 can be Tasered.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

Last week's use of a Taser stun gun on a handcuffed 14-year-old trick or treater is within Gwinnett County police policy, which has no age provision, police said.

The only protection in the policy is for pregnant women because it could induce labor.

So what about a 5- or 6-year-old?

That's OK, according to Gwinnett police policy.

"People who are handcuffed are still a threat no matter what age," said Cpl. Illana Spellman, a Gwinnett County Police Department spokeswoman.

Taser shocks of youths, though, have been questioned by critics, including Amnesty International.

"We have heard about cases all over the nation, even the tasing of a 6-year-old boy in Miami," said Jared Feuer, a spokesman for the organization. "We believe the use of force on any child is excessive force. It doesn't matter if it does not violate police policy."

The Halloween night Taser shock of the teen is being reviewed by Gwinnett police supervisors.

But police brass have said that they don't believe the incident warrants an internal affairs investigation.

During the incident in a subdivision near Snellville, Officer W.A. Bohn was working off-duty detail when he heard the teen cursing loudly near young children, according to a police report.

After the teen tried to punch the officer, he called for backup and was able to get the girl handcuffed with the help of another officer.

The girl was shocked one time with the Taser after she continued to struggle, police said.

The use of the Taser has been a controversial subject across the nation.

Proponents say the 50,000-volt stun gun saves lives and injuries by stopping incidents from escalating to deadly force.

Opponents say the device needs to be studied more, can be misused and may have led to numerous deaths.

Frank Rotondo, director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, said his organization has studied the Taser and believes age should not be the deciding factor in use. "You would hope that you would not have to use the Taser on anyone, especially a child," Rotondo said Monday. "But you have to look at the behavior of the individual rather than the age. And in the Gwinnett case, the Taser was able to stop the behavior."

Gwinnett police Maj. Keybo Taylor said he is reviewing the incident.

Taylor said he has asked the foster mother of the teen to come to the Police Department to discuss the incident. However, the woman has refused.

"We are still reviewing it to see if any policies were violated, and so far we do not see any policies violated," Taylor said.

Mystery Underwear Stymies Guantanamo Investigators

The Washington Post reports:

The U.S. military has ended an inquiry into who smuggled unauthorized underwear and a bathing suit to two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without learning the source of the contraband skivvies, an attorney said on Wednesday.

The investigators concluded more vigilance was needed to prevent contraband from entering the camp that holds 330 suspected al Qaeda operatives, said Capt. Pat McCarthy, the military's chief lawyer for the detention operation at Guantanamo.

Media reports of underwear smuggling prompted snickers when it came to light last month and McCarthy admitted, "We laughed too."

But he said it was a serious breach because the Speedo bathing suit and the athletic-style briefs were made of very strong fabric that could enable them to be used as nooses, as could the cord that cinched the waist of the bathing suit.

"(It) sounds funny until a guy is hanging at the end of a Speedo drawstring," McCarthy told journalists visiting the base.

Officials said they were also concerned by the security breaches the incident exposed.

Four prisoners have been found dead and hanging in their cells from makeshift nooses, three in June 2006 and one in May 2007. Guantanamo officials have never said what was used to make the nooses except that the fourth was "a string type of noose." Formal investigations of all four deaths are still pending.

After the first deaths, the prisoners' underwear was switched from briefs with wide elastic bands to boxers made of flimsier fabric that rips under stress.

So camp officials were alarmed when two prisoners represented by lawyers from the same firm were found with the tough, stretchy Under Armour briefs favored by athletes. One also had the bathing suit.

The items were discovered during a recent routine check of the cells.

Investigators questioned everyone who came into contact with the two captives at the isolated, high-security camp on the U.S. base in eastern Cuba. When the guards and medics were cleared, the Office of the Navy Judge Advocate General sent the lawyers a letter in August asking if they had sneaked in the underwear.

The attorneys, Clive Stafford Smith and Zachary Katznelson of the British human rights group Reprieve, sent back a letter denying it and calling the question absurd. They said they had not seen the prisoners for many months.

Stymied, the investigators closed the probe.

"The conclusion is we are unaware of how they got that matter," McCarthy said. "We will continue to be vigilant to try to avoid a repeat of that."

Sole U.S. Officer Charged Over Abu Ghraib To Face Trial

TurkishPress.com reports:
The only US military officer charged with tormenting prisoners at Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib jail will stand trial in August, a judge ruled Tuesday, amid claims that the government itself is getting off scot-free.
While the court martial of Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan will go ahead, there is anger that no higher ranking commanders or politicians are in the dock, three years after reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib first emerged.

Defense lawyers for Jordan, 51, argued at a hearing at Washington's Fort McNair that he was never properly informed of his rights by investigators, thus undermining the government's prosecution case.

The presiding judge, Colonel Stephen Henley, backed part of their argument and agreed to slim down the charges.

As a result, Jordan now faces a maximum jail term of 16 and a half years, down from 22 years initially. But all the other charges still stand, including cruelty and mistreatment of detainees, obstruction of justice, dereliction of duty and disobeying orders.

The trial had been set to begin next month, but Henley pushed the date back to August 20 to allow for further review of emails and documents from Abu Ghraib. Another pre-trial hearing was scheduled for July 10.

Major Kris Poppe, one of Jordan's defense attorneys, said after the hearing that his client was "anxious to have his day in court."

"It's been a long process, and he's ready obviously to get to the conclusion," he told reporters.

Government lawyers refused to comment on their case against Jordan, who remains on active duty at the intelligence and security command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Jordan headed a US Army interrogation center at the notorious Iraqi prison, where sordid abuses of detainees became public in April 2004 with the publication of graphic photographs.

The photographs showed bloodied, bound and naked prisoners smeared with excrement, forced to perform sexual acts and cowering under attack from US guards' dogs.

A year ago, President George W. Bush said the Abu Ghraib scandal was the "biggest mistake" made by the United States in Iraq, regretting the damage it had inflicted in the court of global public opinion.

Seven low-ranking US soldiers -- controversially described by then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld as only "a few bad apples" -- have been jailed over the abuses.

But for human rights activists, official retribution for Abu Ghraib and for alleged mistreatment at places like the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay should go far higher up the chain of command.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it was "deeply disappointed" at a federal judge's decision in March to throw out a case against Rumsfeld brought by nine Iraqi and Afghan former detainees for the "torture" they suffered in US military custody.

"We believe that the law and constitution require more, and that the former secretary of defense must be held accountable for his policies that led to this abuse," ACLU attorney Lucas Guttentag said.

Specialist Charles Graner, shown in one photograph smiling and giving a thumbs-up over the corpse of an Iraqi prisoner, was said to have been the Abu Ghraib ringleader and was jailed for 10 years.

Graner's girlfriend of the time, Private Lynndie England, who was pictured holding a naked prisoner at the end of a dog leash, was sentenced to three years.

The prison commander at the time, Janis Karpinski, was the most senior officer to be reprimanded. She was demoted from brigadier general to colonel but faced no charges.

And Jordan's immediate superior, Colonel Thomas Pappas, has escaped prosecution after agreeing to testify against him.

Child Mortality Soars In Iraq

Uruknet reports:
A recent report by the US-based NGO Save the Children says that although Iraq’s under-five mortality rate is in the middle range when compared to other developing countries, it has worsened faster than in any other country. Observers say the main reason for this is the continuing violence and lack of funds for the health sector.

"Never in Iraq’s history have so many children died because of diseases and violence. The mortality rate among them has jumped to a level which will require years to be controlled," said Dr Jaffer Ali, a senior official and paediatrician in the Ministry of Health.

"In Iraq, children are dying from the easiest curable diseases worldwide like diarrhoea and pneumonia but with the deteriorated health situation in the country, the increase in the number of malnourished children and thousands of displaced living in poverty conditions, the possibility of reducing this high figure is remote," Ali added.

According to Save the Children’s report 'State of the World's Mothers’, released on 8 May, 50 Iraqi children died per 1,000 live births in 1990. Today, the rate is 125 per 1,000 births, more than double.

The organisation said some 122,000 Iraqi children died in 2005 before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were among newborn babies in the first month of life.

Pneumonia, diarrhoea

"Pneumonia and diarrhoea are the other two major killers of children in Iraq, together accounting for over 30 percent of child deaths. Only 35 percent of Iraqi children are fully immunized, and more than one-fifth are severely or moderately stunted," the report said.

Specialists said the remaining deaths resulted from the daily violence which has been taking the life of innocent infants.

"It is rare to see an explosion in which a child is not a victim. Schools have been attacked constantly and families targeted in which children are killed in cold blood," said Professor Abdel-Rahman Khalif, a human rights specialist at Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad.

Years of conflict

The Save the Children report also said that even before the US-led invasion in 2003, children were facing a grave humanitarian crisis caused by years of repression, conflict and external (UN-imposed) sanctions.

"Since 2003, electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation have worsened already difficult living conditions," the report said.

Local officials have said lack of resources for the health sector has also helped to worsen the situation.

"The priority in Iraq should be the health of the population but unfortunately this is being put aside and treated as an after-thought after many other sectors have been looked after," Ali from the Ministry of Health added.

UN Raps Iraq for Withholding 'Grim' Civilian Toll

Global Policy Forum reports:
The United Nations accused Iraq on Wednesday of withholding sensitive civilian casualty figures because the government fears the data would be used to paint a "very grim" picture of a worsening humanitarian crisis. The criticism was contained in a new U.N. human rights report on Iraq which drew fire from U.S. officials in Baghdad and the Iraqi government. They said it was flawed and contained numerous inaccuracies.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government would not release data on civilian deaths amid spiralling sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunni Arabs. "UNAMI emphasises again the utmost need for the Iraqi government to operate in a transparent manner," the mission said in its latest report on human rights in Iraq.

U.N. officials said they were given no official reason why their requests for specific official data had been turned down. U.S. military commanders now give percentages to express broad increases or decreases for civilian deaths. "We were told that the government was becoming increasingly concerned about the figures being used to portray the situation as very grim," UNAMI human rights officer Ivana Vuco told a news conference.

Maliki, whose administration has previously accused UNAMI of exaggerating civilian deaths, rejected the report. "The Iraqi government announces its deep reservation on the report, which lacks accuracy in the information presented, lacks credibility in many of its points and lacks balance in its presentation of the human rights situation in Iraq," said a statement from his office.

U.S. officials in Baghdad said the report was flawed, particularly on the issue of Iraqi detentions and in the interpretation of casualty figures. "There are numerous factual inaccuracies contained in the UNAMI document ... that undermine its overall credibility," a U.S. embassy official in Baghdad said.

Humanitarian Crisis

In January, UNAMI said 34,452 Iraqi civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded in 2006, figures that were much higher than any statistics issued by the government. On Wednesday it said Iraq faced "immense security challenges" and a "rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis."

The U.N. report expressed concern at the treatment of thousands of suspects detained under a major security crackdown in Baghdad, and about reports of collusion between Iraqi forces and some militias. It also said academics, journalists, doctors and members of religious and ethnic minorities were increasingly being killed, intimidated or kidnapped by armed groups.

Iraqi officials say the civilian casualty toll has declined in the capital since the launch of the Baghdad security plan nine weeks ago. U.S. military commanders say a surge in car bombings, however, has pushed up the overall toll countrywide. Under the crackdown, U.S. and Iraqi troops are sweeping through Baghdad neighbourhoods, setting up checkpoints and combat outposts and walling off some flashpoint areas.

But Iraq's military said it was altering a U.S. plan to enclose the Sunni enclave of Adhimiya in Baghdad with high concrete walls, after criticism it would fan sectarian tension. Some residents had likened it to Israel's West Bank barrier. Violence continued as a suicide attacker walked into a police station in volatile Diyala province and detonated a bomb, killing nine and wounding 16, police said.

The conflict in Iraq will be discussed at an international meeting next week in Egypt of Iraq's neighbours as well as officials from the United States and other countries. Iran, which attended a similar meeting in Baghdad last month, will decide soon whether to attend, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.

Maliki said during a visit to Kuwait that he hoped Iran would attend. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will be at the meeting, said this week it would be a "missed opportunity" if Iran, which Washington accuses of fomenting violence in Iraq, stayed away.

Rice has said she would be prepared to speak to the Iranians on the sidelines of the conference but has made clear discussions would be limited to Iraq and would not touch on Iran's sensitive nuclear program. "We will see what opportunities present themselves and I am sure the secretary will move appropriately on any of them," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey when asked if Rice planned to meet the Iranians if they attended the meeting.

Oil Privatization Through The Back Door

At Niqash, Greg Muttit writes:

In a survey in July 2003, Baghdad residents were asked what they thought was the main reason for America and Britain to go to war in Iraq. The most popular answer, with 47% of responses, was “to secure oil supplies”.

At first glance, it would seem that America and Britain have failed in this aim. Post-war Iraqi oil production peaked in April 2004 at 2.3 million barrels per day – still below the pre-war level of 2.5 mbpd – and has since dropped to around 2 mbpd.

But this reading would misunderstand the foreign oil interest. The aim for Iraq’s oil was not simply to obtain greater supplies – that could have been done by purchasing more oil from the former regime, and by removing sanctions. Rather, the US/UK interest was in controlling oil over the long term, through multinational companies based in their own countries.

In this respect, things now seem to be moving fast. On US President George Bush’s recent visit to Baghdad, oil was one of the key topics discussed. And last week, Bush’s Energy Secretary Sam Bodman called for an Iraqi oil law to lay out the rules of private investment.

The new Iraqi Oil Minister plans to pass an oil law through parliament by the end of the year – the timescale imposed by the International Monetary Fund – to enable the Iraqi government to sign contracts with “the largest oil companies”.

It seems the most likely type of contract being considered is the one advocated by the oil companies themselves, known as a ‘production sharing agreement’ (PSA). Four PSA contracts have already been signed by the Kurdistan Regional Government, with Norwegian, Turkish and Canadian companies.

So, what is a PSA? It is a structure which allows a foreign company to invest capital in developing an oilfield, in exchange for managing the oil production, and keeping a share of the oil.

Such contracts are often used in countries with small or difficult oilfields, or where high-risk exploration is required. They are not generally used in countries like Iraq, where there are large fields which are already known and which are cheap to extract. For example, they are not used in Iran, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, all of which maintain state control of oil.

In fact, of the top seven countries with the largest oil reserves, only Russia – which has the World’s seventh largest – has any PSAs. Russia signed three PSAs in the early 1990s, during its own rapid political and economic transition, but has signed no more since then. Those PSAs have been so controversial, due to the poor deal they give the state, that it is unlikely any more will be signed.

Now some of the very same people who pushed PSAs in Russia and the other former Soviet states of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are advocating their use in Iraq.

Part of the appeal of PSAs is that they give the appearance of sovereignty over natural resources: the state is described as “owner” of the resource, and the foreign company as its “contractor”. However, in practice, most oil industry analysts acknowledge that the terms of the contract can be written so as to have exactly the same effect as a more traditional privatisation, giving the company management control, and potentially huge profits.

And with PSAs commonly lasting for 30 or 40 years, or even longer, decisions made now could sow the seeds of economic and political difficulties for decades to come.

The most obvious impact of this is that the state would obtain less revenue, as a share would go to the foreign companies. The cost to the Iraqi economy over the length of the contracts could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Given that oil provides more than 90% of government revenue, giving away a significant chunk of this could have a major effect on public programmes of health, education and infrastructure.

A second consequence would be the effect on the workforce. Whereas publicly-owned enterprises can include employment or the development of the national skills base among their objectives, private companies’ sole aim is to maximise profit. The international oil companies have consistently done this by reducing the size of the workforce. Similarly, they bring in many of their workers from abroad. Although the government may negotiate a percentage of local workers to be specified in a PSA contract, generally the technical and management roles go to foreigners: the Iraqis would be left with the lowest-paid and least-skilled jobs.

Furthermore, the companies would have control over the rate of oil production. For an oil-dependent country such as Iraq, the rate of depletion of its non-renewable resources – the balance between maximising production now versus saving some for later – is one of the most important economic decisions.

This may also undermine Iraq’s future relationship with OPEC. Two OPEC members with major foreign investment, Algeria and Nigeria, have repeatedly failed to control foreign companies’ production in order to comply with OPEC quotas.

If this is not worrying enough, PSAs frequently contain a ‘stabilisation clause’, making the companies effectively immune to any future legislation or regulation. As a result, future governments for the next 40 years could be constrained in their ability to pass new laws or policies.

For example, imagine that in ten years’ time a new Iraqi government wanted to pass a human rights law, or wanted to introduce a minimum wage. If this affected the company’s profits, either the law would not apply to the company’s operations, or the government would have to compensate the company for any reduction in profits.

Perhaps the government might insist that the law must be applied. In that case the company could apply to an international investment court – most likely in Geneva or Washington, DC – whichever is specified in the contract. These courts, which often sit in secret, cannot consider the body of Iraqi law, let alone the Iraqi public interest: they only consider the commercial terms of the contract. If such a court found against the Iraqi government, the government would either have to comply, or would face having its assets seized in other countries.

The human rights organisation Amnesty International has described such contracts as having a “chilling effect” on human rights, meaning that the financial disincentives are likely to discourage governments from passing any progressive human rights policies.

Production sharing agreements thus make a pretence of preserving national control, while in fact handing it over to foreign companies – in effect, privatising by the back door.

No-one doubts that the Iraqi oil sector needs investment. The advocates of PSAs argue that, because PSAs are favoured by oil companies, they are the only way to provide investment. But this ignores a range of other options: investment could be provided from public budgets, by borrowing from international banks, or by inviting foreign companies under less extreme forms of contract – for example, the buyback contract used in Iran or the risk service contracts being considered in Kuwait. Indeed, in both of those countries foreign ownership of oil is forbidden by their constitutions.

The oil companies insist that to finance oil development from public expenditure would deprive the Iraqi government of the opportunity to spend its limited funds on other public priorities. It is true that if foreign companies provide the investment now, the government would not have to.

But the Iraqi people must ask whether relinquishing future revenue and surrendering sovereignty over Iraq’s natural resources are a fair price to pay.

Major General Miller Testifies In Abu Ghraib Torture Court Martial

The NYTimes reports:
Testifying at the court-martial of a dog handler accused of abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller said Wednesday that he never suggested that dogs be used to intimidate prisoners during interrogations in Iraq.

General Miller, who was the commander of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Iraq in August 2003 by senior Pentagon commanders to review the interrogation and detention system there and recommend ways to improve the collection of intelligence about the growing insurgency.

Within days of his visit, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, issued guidance that seemed to allow for the use of dogs in interrogations.

Since the disclosures in April 2004 of extensive abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, sometimes involving dogs, the question of who was responsible for interrogation procedures has remained a subject of debate.

General Miller, the highest ranking officer to testify at any trial involving misconduct at Abu Ghraib, shed little light on Wednesday into questions of command responsibility for the prison abuses.

He was called as a witness in the trial of Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, 32, who is charged with using his dog, a Belgian Malinois, to abuse prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

In March, military jurors sentenced another dog handler, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, was sentenced to nearly six months in prison for abuse that included taking part with Sergeant Cardona in a competition to see who could be first to terrify prisoners enough to get them to soil themselves.

In nearly an hour on the witness stand, General Miller offered new details of his trip to Iraq, which has been depicted as importing harsh interrogation techniques from Guantánamo. He said he recommended that military dogs could be used to help with "custody and control" of detainees at the prison.

Harvey J. Volzer, Sergeant Cardona's civilian defense lawyer, asked whether General Miller had recommended "military working dogs as part of the interrogation situation."

His response: "No."

General Miller said he believed that the dogs "were very effective in assisting detention staff in maintaining custody and control."

Mr. Volzer has said that the dog handlers were following orders from superior officers. But it remained unclear how General Miller's testimony could help Sergeant Cardona.

Mr. Volzer told the military jury of four officers and three enlisted soldiers in his opening statement on Tuesday that soldiers at Abu Ghraib were operating under confusing orders and that the testimony might be aimed at bolstering that argument.

After General Miller's visit, General Sanchez issued an order saying that Arab men had a fear of dogs and that the fear could be exploited in using the animals "while maintaining security during interrogations."

Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, testified in the earlier trial of Sergeant Smith that General Miller had recommended the use of dogs during interrogations. But on Wednesday in the current trial, he testified that General Miller did not make any such specific recommendations.

General Miller did not appear in the earlier trial, invoking his right not to give testimony that might incriminate him. But he changed his position after the Senate Armed Services Committee delayed his retirement until he was more forthcoming.

Transcript of Democracy Now: Expose' of CIA's History of Torture & Interrogation, From Cold War to War on Terror

Democracy Now! takes a look at what lies behind the shocking images of torture at Abu Ghraib prison by turning to the history of the CIA and torture techniques. The International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and other human rights groups say the recently released images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib show a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The U.S. made a pledge against torture when Congress ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1994 - but it was ratified with reservations that exempted the CIA’s psychological torture method.

Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror,” a startling expose of the CIA development of psychological torture from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib, and also “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.” CIA mercenaries attempted to assassinate McCoy more than 30 years ago.

[see video of broadcast-256k stream or 128k stream]

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: A new expose gives an account of the C.I.A.’s secret efforts to develop new forms of torture, spanning half a century. It reveals how the C.I.A. perfected its methods, distributing them across the world, from Vietnam to Iran to Central America, uncovering the roots of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture scandals. The book is called A Question of Torture: C.I.A. Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, and we're joined by its author, Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

ALFRED McCOY: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: And glad to have you with us, especially in light of your history. I first learned of you with your first book The Politics of Heroin: C.I.A. Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, for which you almost died. What happened then?

ALFRED McCOY: Oh, when I was researching that book in the mountains of Laos, hiking from village to village, interviewing Laotian farmers about their opium harvest, and they were telling me that they took it down to the local helicopter pad where Air America helicopters would land, Air America being a subsidiary of the C.I.A., and officers, tribal officers in the C.I.A.’s secret army would buy the opium and fly it off to the C.I.A.’s secret compound, where it would be transformed into heroin and ultimately wound up in South Vietnam. And while I was doing that research, hiking from village to village, interviewing farmers, we were ambushed by a group of C.I.A. mercenaries. Fortunately, I had five militiamen from the village with me, and we shot our way out of there, but they came quite close. Then later on, a C.I.A. operative threatened to murder my interpreter unless I stopped doing that research. And then when --

AMY GOODMAN: How did you know they were C.I.A.?

ALFRED McCOY: Oh, look, in the mountains of Laos, there aren’t that many white guys, okay? I mean, the mercenaries? First of all, the C.I.A. ran what was called the “Army Clandestine.” They had a secret army, and those soldiers that ambushed us were soldiers in the secret army. That, we knew.

AMY GOODMAN: The Laotian army?

ALFRED McCOY: The C.I.A.’s secret army.

AMY GOODMAN: The Laotian mercenaries?

ALFRED McCOY: Laotian mercenaries. That, everybody was clear about that. Nobody denied that. They said it was sort of an accident, but, no, it was very clear that it was intentional. And ultimately, when the book was in press, the head of covert operations for the C.I.A. called up my offices and my publisher in New York and suggested that the publisher suppress the book. They then got the right to prior review -- the publisher compromised.

AMY GOODMAN: C.I.A. prior review.

ALFRED McCOY: Prior review of the manuscript, and they issued a 14-page critique. The publisher’s legal department, HarperCollins’s legal department reviewed the critique, reviewed the manuscript, published the book unchanged, not a word changed.

AMY GOODMAN: And the contention of that book was that the C.I.A. was complicit in the global drug trade?

ALFRED McCOY: Right. In the context of conducting covert operations around the globe, particularly in the Asian opium zone, which stretched from the Golden Triangle of Vietnam and Laos all the way to Afghanistan, that in those mountains far away from home, when the C.I.A. had to mobilize tribal armies, the only allies were warlords, and when the C.I.A. formed an alliance with them, the warlords used this alliance to become drug lords, and the C.I.A. didn't stop them from their involvement in the traffic.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, you have not stopped looking at the C.I.A., and now you've written this new book. It's called A Question of Torture: C.I.A. Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Give us a history lesson.

ALFRED McCOY: Well, if you look at the most famous of photographs from Abu Ghraib, of the Iraqi standing on the box, arms extended with a hood over his head and the fake electrical wires from his arms, okay? In that photograph you can see the entire 50-year history of C.I.A. torture. It's very simple. He's hooded for sensory disorientation, and his arms are extended for self-inflicted pain. And those are the two very simple fundamental C.I.A. techniques, developed at enormous cost.

From 1950 to 1962, the C.I.A. ran a massive research project, a veritable Manhattan Project of the mind, spending over $1 billion a year to crack the code of human consciousness, from both mass persuasion and the use of coercion in individual interrogation. And what they discovered -- they tried LSD, they tried mescaline, they tried all kinds of drugs, they tried electroshock, truth serum, sodium pentathol. None of it worked. What worked was very simple behavioral findings, outsourced to our leading universities -- Harvard, Princeton, Yale and McGill -- and the first breakthrough came at McGill. And it's in the book. And here, you can see the -- this is the -- if you want show it, you can. That graphic really shows -- that's the seminal C.I.A. experiment done in Canada and McGill University --

AMY GOODMAN: Describe it.

ALFRED McCOY: Oh, it's very simple. Dr. Donald O. Hebb of McGill University, a brilliant psychologist, had a contract from the Canadian Defense Research Board, which was a partner with the C.I.A. in this research, and he found that he could induce a state of psychosis in an individual within 48 hours. It didn't take electroshock, truth serum, beating or pain. All he did was had student volunteers sit in a cubicle with goggles, gloves and headphones, earmuffs, so that they were cut off from their senses, and within 48 hours, denied sensory stimulation, they would suffer, first hallucinations, then ultimately breakdown.

And if you look at many of those photographs, what do they show? They show people with bags over their head. If you look at the photographs of the Guantanamo detainees even today, they look exactly like those student volunteers in Dr. Hebb’s original cubicle.

Now, then the second major breakthrough that the C.I.A. had came here in New York City at Cornell University Medical Center, where two eminent neurologists under contract from the C.I.A. studied Soviet K.G.B. torture techniques, and they found that the most effective K.G.B. technique was self-inflicted pain. You simply make somebody stand for a day or two. And as they stand -- okay, you're not beating them, they have no resentment -- you tell them, “You're doing this to yourself. Cooperate with us, and you can sit down.” And so, as they stand, what happens is the fluids flow down to the legs, the legs swell, lesions form, they erupt, they suppurate, hallucinations start, the kidneys shut down.

Now, if you look at the other aspect of those photos, you’ll see that they're short-shackled -- okay? -- that they're long-shackled, that they're made -- several of those photos you just showed, one of them with a man with a bag on his arm, his arms are straight in front of him, people are standing with their arms extended, that's self-inflicted pain. And the combination of those two techniques -- sensory disorientation and self-inflicted pain -- is the basis of the C.I.A.'s technique.

AMY GOODMAN: Who has pioneered this at the C.I.A.?

ALFRED McCOY: This was done by Technical Services Division. Most of the in-house research involved drugs and all of the LSD experiments that we heard about for years, but ultimately they were a negative result. When you have any large massive research project, you get -- you hit dead ends, you hit brick walls, you get negative results. All the drugs didn’t work. What did work was this.

AMY GOODMAN: But when you talk about the ‘everyone knows the LSD experiments,’ I don't think everyone knows. In fact, I would conjecture that more than 90% of Americans don't know that the C.I.A. was involved with LSD experiments on unwitting Americans. Can you explain what they did?

ALFRED McCOY: Oh, sure. As a part of this comprehensive survey of human consciousness, the C.I.A. tried every possible techniques. And one of the things that they -- at the time that this research started in the 1940s, a Swiss pharmaceutical company developed LSD.

AMY GOODMAN: Which one?

ALFRED McCOY: I forget now. One of the major Swiss pharmaceutical companies. And Dr. Hoffman there was the man who developed it. The C.I.A. bought substantial doses, and they conducted experiments. One of the most notorious experiments was that Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, inside the agency, spiked the drinks of his co-workers, and one of those co-workers suffered a breakdown, Dr. Frank Olson, and he either was -- I don't know whether he was pushed or jumped from a hotel here in New York City --

AMY GOODMAN: His son has never stopped pursuing this case?

ALFRED McCOY: Right, his son Eric Olson insists that his father was murdered by the C.I.A. Eric Olson believes that his father did a tour of Europe, and he visited the ultimate Anglo-American test site, black site near Frankfurt, where they were doing lethal experiments, fatal experiments, on double agents and suspected double agents, and that his father returned enormously upset by the discovery that this research was actually killing people, and that, therefore, Eric Olson argues his father was killed by the C.I.A., that he was pushed.

AMY GOODMAN: And didn't they do experiments in brothels in the San Francisco area?

ALFRED McCOY: They had two kind of party houses. They had one in the San Francisco Bay Area, another in New York City. And what they did in San Francisco was they had prostitutes who go out to the streets, get individuals, bring them back, give them a drink, and there would be a two-way mirror, and the C.I.A. would photograph these people.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the C.I.A. were running the brothel.

ALFRED McCOY: They were running the brothel. They were running all of these experiments, okay? They did that on Army soldiers through the Army Chemical Warfare Division.

AMY GOODMAN: What did they do there?

ALFRED McCOY: Again, they gave them LSD and other drugs to see what effect they would have.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did the soldiers think they were getting?

ALFRED McCOY: They were just told they were participating in an experiment for national defense.

AMY GOODMAN: Prisoners?

ALFRED McCOY: No, these were --

AMY GOODMAN: Right, but also on prisoners, were there experiments?

ALFRED McCOY: There were some in prisons in the United States and also the Drug Treatment Center in Lexington, Kentucky. The Federal Drug Treatment Center in Lexington, Kentucky, had this. All of this research, all this very elaborate research --

AMY GOODMAN: On unwitting Americans?

ALFRED McCOY: Unwitting Americans, produced nothing, okay? What they found time and time again is that electroshock didn't work, and sodium pentathol didn't work, LSD certainly didn't work. You scramble the brain. You got unreliable information. But what did work was the combination of these two rather boring, rather mundane behavioral techniques: sensory disorientation and self-inflicted pain.

And in 1963, the C.I.A. codified these results in the so-called KUBARK Counterintelligence Manual. If you just type the word “KUBARK” into Google, you will get the manual, an actual copy of it, on your computer screen, and you can read the techniques [Read the report. But if you do, read the footnotes, because that's where the behavioral research is. Now, this produced a distinctively American form of torture, the first real revolution in the cruel science of pain in centuries, psychological torture, and it's the one that's with us today, and it's proved to be a very resilient, quite adaptable, and an enormously destructive paradigm.

Let’s make one thing clear. Americans refer to this often times in common parlance as “torture light.” Psychological to torture, people who are involved in treatment tell us it’s far more destructive, does far more lasting damage to the human psyche than does physical torture. As Senator McCain said, himself, last year when he was debating his torture prohibition, faced with a choice between being beaten and psychologically tortured, I'd rather be beaten. Okay? It does far more lasting damage. It is far crueler than physical torture. This is something that we don't realize in this country.

Now, another thing we see is those photographs is the psychological techniques, but the initial research basically developed techniques for attacking universal human sensory receptors: sight, sound, heat, cold, sense of time. That's why all of the detainees describe being put in dark rooms, being subjected to strobe lights, loud music, okay? That’s sensory deprivation or sensory assault. Okay, that was sort of the phase one of the C.I.A. research. But the paradigm has proved to be quite adaptable.

Now, one of the things that Donald Rumsfeld did, right at the start of the war of terror, in late 2002, he appointed General Geoffrey Miller to be chief at Guantanamo, alright, because the previous commanders at Guantanamo were too soft on the detainees, and General Miller turned Guantanamo into a de facto behavioral research laboratory, a kind of torture research laboratory. And under General Miller at Guantanamo, they perfected the C.I.A. torture paradigm. They added two key techniques. They went beyond the universal sensory receptors of the original research. They added to it an attack on cultural sensitivity, particularly Arab male sensitivity to issues of gender and sexual identity.

And then they went further still. Under General Miller, they created these things called “Biscuit” teams, behavioral science consultation teams, and they actually had qualified military psychologists participating in the ongoing interrogation, and these psychologists would identify individual phobias, like fear of dark or attachment to mother, and by the time we're done, by 2003, under General Miller, Guantanamo had perfected the C.I.A. paradigm, and it had a three-fold total assault on the human psyche: sensory receptors, self-inflicted pain, cultural sensitivity, and individual fears and phobia.

AMY GOODMAN: And then they sent General Miller to, quote, "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib. Professor McCoy, we’re going to break for a minute, and then we'll come back. Professor Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His latest book is called A Question of Torture: C.I.A. Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We are talking to Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, author of a number of books. The Politics of Heroin: C.I.A. Complicity in the Global Drug Trade almost had him killed. Afterwards, the C.I.A. tried to have the book squelched, but ultimately it was published. Then A Question of Torture: C.I.A. Interrogation from the Cold War to the War On Terror is his latest book, and we're talking about the history of torture. Continue with what you were saying, talking about the Biscuit teams, the use of psychologists in Guantanamo, and then Geoffrey Miller, going from Guantanamo to, quote, “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib.

ALFRED McCOY: In mid-2003, when the Iraqi resistance erupted, the United States found it had no intelligence assets; it had no way to contain the insurgency, and they -- the U.S. military was in a state of panic. And at that moment, they began sweeping across Iraq, rounding up thousands of Iraqi suspects, putting many of them in Abu Ghraib prison. At that point, in late August 2003, General Miller was sent from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, and he brought his techniques with him. He brought a CD, and he brought a manual of his techniques. He gave them to the M.P. officers, the Military Intelligence officers and to General Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. Commander in Iraq.

In September of 2003, General Sanchez issued orders, detailed orders, for expanded interrogation techniques beyond those allowed in the U.S. Army Field Manual 3452, and if you look at those techniques, what he's ordering, in essence, is a combination of self-inflicted pain, stress positions and sensory disorientation, and if you look at the 1963 C.I.A. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual, you look at the 1983 C.I.A. Interrogation Training Manual that they used in Honduras for training Honduran officers in torture and interrogation, and then twenty years later, you look at General Sanchez's 2003 orders, there's a striking continuity across this forty-year span, in both the general principles, this total assault on the existential platforms of human identity and existence, okay? And the specific techniques, the way of achieving that, through the attack on these sensory receptors.

AMY GOODMAN: And Rumsfeld's comment, when asked if it was torture, when people were forced to stand hours on end, that he stands at his desk?

ALFRED McCOY: Right, he wrote that in one of his memos. When he was asked to review the Guantanamo techniques in late 2003 or early 2004, he scribbled that marginal note and said, you know, “I stand at my desk eight hours a day.” He has a designer standing desk. “How come we're limiting these techniques of the stress position to just four hours?” So, in other words, that was a clear signal from the Defense Secretary. Now, one of the problems beyond the details of these orders is torture is an extraordinarily dangerous thing. There's an absolute ban on torture for a very good reason. Torture taps into the deepest recesses, unexplored recesses of human consciousness, where creation and destruction coexist, where the infinite human capacity for kindness and infinite human capacity for cruelty coexist, and it has a powerful perverse appeal, and once it starts, both the perpetrators and the powerful who order them, let it spread, and it spreads out of control.

So, I think when the Bush administration gave those orders for, basically, techniques tantamount to torture at the start of the war on terror, I think it was probably their intention that these be limited to top al-Qaeda suspects, but within months, we were torturing hundreds of Afghanis at Bagram near Kabul, and a few months later in 2003, through these techniques, we were torturing literally thousands of Iraqis. And you can see in those photos, beyond the details of the techniques that we've described, you can see how that once it starts, it becomes this Dantesque hell, this kind of play palace of the darkest recesses of human consciousness. That’s why it’s necessary to maintain an absolute prohibition on torture. There is no such thing as a little bit of torture. The whole myth of scientific surgical torture, that torture advocates, academic advocates in this country came up with, that's impossible. That cannot operate. It will inevitably spread.

AMY GOODMAN: So when, Professor McCoy, you started seeing these images, the first photos that came out at Abu Ghraib, the pictures we showed of the, you know, hooded man, electrodes coming out of his fingers, standing on the box, your response?

ALFRED McCOY: Oh, I mean, the reason I wrote this book is when that photo came out in April 2004 on CBS news, at the Times, William Safire, for example, writing in the New York Times said this was the work of creeps. Later on, Defense Secretary Schlesinger said that this was just abuse by a few people on the night shift. There was another phrase: “Recycled hillbillies from Cumberland, Maryland.” In other words, this was the bad apple thesis. We could blame these bad apples. I looked at those photos, I didn't see individual abuse. What I saw was two textbook trademark C.I.A. psychological interrogation techniques: self-inflicted pain and sensory disorientation.

AMY GOODMAN: We read our first headline today. It was about Maher Arar and the case – the judge has thrown out against him, the Canadian-Syrian man who was sent back to Syria -- the U.S. government calls it “extraordinary rendition,” and he was kept in an underground “grave-like” cell, he described, very small. He was held for almost a year. As you showed, and I looked at the book, the pictures of the places where prisoners are kept, and in speaking to Maher, he’s described this level of sensory deprivation. What about the shape and the size and the coffin-like nature of these rooms?

ALFRED McCOY: The details are often left to the individual interrogators, but the manuals basically describe how you control the process, you control the environment right from the start when you pick somebody up. So, for example, often times we see in Iraq of people when they're arrested, their arms are behind their back. They're made to kneel in very uncomfortable positions, and they're hooded right away. That's one of the things they always specify is the time and conditions of arrest. You begin to break them down. You create this artificial environment of control, and then the techniques always vary. It can be extreme darkness or it can be extreme light; it can be absence of sound or a bombardment of sound.

AMY GOODMAN: And that bombardment of sound is often joked about. ‘Oh, we played Britney Spears really loud,’ or whatever it is. I don't know if it was her. But that's become a joke when soldiers play loud music.

ALFRED McCOY: Well, though, actually, that's one of the problems of talking about this topic in the United States, is that we regard all of this panoply of psychological techniques as “torture light,” as somehow not really torture. Okay? And we're the only country in the world that does that. The U.N. convention bars – defines torture as the infliction of severe psychological or physical pain. The U.N. convention which bans torture in 1984 gives equal weight to psychological and physical techniques. We alone as a society somehow exempt all of these psychological techniques. That dates back, of course, to the way we ratified the convention in the first place.

Back in the early 1990s, when the United States was emerging from the Cold War, and we began this process of, if you will, disarming ourselves and getting beyond all of these techniques, trying to sort of bring ourselves in line with rest of the international community, when we sent that -- when President Clinton sent the U.N. Anti-Torture Convention to the U.S. Congress for ratification in 1994, he included four detailed paragraphs of reservation that had, in fact, been drafted by the Reagan administration, and he adopted them without so much as changing a semicolon. And when you read those detailed paragraphs of reservation, what you realize is this, is that the United States Congress ratified the treaty, but basically we outlawed only physical torture. Those photographs of reservation are carefully written to avoid one word in the 26 printed pages of the U.N. convention. That word is "mental." Basically, we exempted psychological torture.

Now, another problem for the United States, as well, was when the U.S. Army re-wrote the Army Field Manual in 1992, the same period, while, although let’s say the civil authorities were sort of skirting the law by exempting psychological techniques, the U.S. Army re-wrote their field manual with the intention of strictly observing the letter and the spirit of the U.N. Anti-Torture Convention and other similar treaties. So what happened is that when the Defense Department gave orders for extreme techniques, when General Sanchez gave orders for his techniques beyond the Army Field Manual, what that meant is when the soldiers were actually investigated, they had committed crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They would be prosecuted, and they’re all being sent to jail.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor McCoy, you wrote a piece, “Why the McCain Torture Ban Won't Work: The Bush Legacy of Legalized Torture.”

ALFRED McCOY: Right. Most Americans think that it's over, that in last year, December 2005, the U.S. Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act 2005, which in the language of Senator McCain, who was the original author of that amendment to the defense appropriation, the author of that act, it bars all inhumane or cruel treatment, and most people think that’s it, that it’s over, okay? Actually, what has happened is the Bush administration fought that amendment tooth and nail; they fought it with loopholes. Vice President Cheney went to Senator McCain and asked for a specific exemption for the C.I.A. McCain refused. The National Security Advisor went to McCain and asked for certain kinds of exemptions for the C.I.A. He refused.

So then they started amending it. Basically what happened is, through the process, they introduced loopholes. Look, at the start of the war on terror, the Bush administration ordered torture. President Bush said right on September 11, 2001, when he addressed the nation, “I don't care what the international lawyers say. We’re going to kick some ass.” Those were his words, and then it was up to his legal advisors in the White House and the Justice Department to translate his otherwise unlawful orders into legal directives, and they did it by crafting three very controversial legal principles. One, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, could override laws and treaties. Two, that there was a possible defense for C.I.A. interrogators who engage in torture, and the defenses were of two kinds. First of all, they played around with the word "severe," that torture is the infliction of severe pain. That's when Jay Bybee, who was Assistant Attorney General, wrote that memo in which he said, “’severe’ means equivalent to organ failure,” in other words, right up to the point of death. The other thing was that they came up with the idea of intentionality. If a C.I.A. interrogator tortured, but the aim was information, not pain, then he could say that he was not guilty. The third principle, which was crafted by John Yoo, was Guantanamo is not part of the United States; it is exempt from the writ of U.S. courts. Now, in the process of ratifying – sorry, passing the McCain torture – the torture prohibition, McCain’s ban on inhumane treatment, the White House has cleverly twisted the legislation to re-establish these three key principles. In his signing statement on December 30, President Bush said --

AMY GOODMAN: This was the statement that he signed as he signed the McCain so-called ban on torture?

ALFRED McCOY: Right, he emailed it at 8:00 at night from his ranch in Crawford on December 30th, that he was signing this legislation into law. He said, “I reserve the right, as Commander-in-Chief and as head of the unitary executive, to do what I need to do to defend America.” Okay, that was the first thing. The next thing that happened is that McCain, as a compromise, inserted into the legislation a provision that if a C.I.A. operative engages in inhumane treatment or torture but believes that he or she was following a lawful order, then that's a defense. So they got the second principle, defense for C.I.A. torturers. The third principle was – is that the White House had Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina amend McCain’s amendment by inserting language into it, saying that for the purposes of this act, the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay is not on U.S. territory, and last month --

AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds.

ALFRED McCOY: So, and then in the last month, the Bush administration has gone to federal courts and said, “Drop all of your habeas corpus suits from Guantanamo.” There are 160 of them. They've gone to the Supreme Court and said, “Drop your Guantanamo case.” They have, in fact, used that law to quash legal oversight of their actions.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. I want to thank you very much, Professor Al McCoy, for speaking with us, professor of history at University of Wisconsin, Madison, his book A Question of Torture: C.I.A. Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War On Terror.

General Is Said To Have Urged Use Of Dogs At Abu Ghraib

The Washington Post reports:
A U.S. Army general dispatched by senior Pentagon officials to bolster the collection of intelligence from prisoners in Iraq last fall inspired and promoted the use of guard dogs there to frighten the Iraqis, according to sworn testimony by the top U.S. intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison.

According to the officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, the idea came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who at the time commanded the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was implemented under a policy approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. military official in Iraq.

"It was a technique I had personally discussed with General Miller, when he was here" visiting the prison, testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the officer placed in charge of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison where abuses occurred in the wake of Miller's visit to Baghdad between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003.

"He said that they used military working dogs at Gitmo [the nickname for Guantanamo Bay], and that they were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information" from the prisoners, Pappas told the Army investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, according to a transcript provided to The Washington Post.

Pappas, who was under pressure from Taguba to justify the legality and appropriateness of using guard dogs to frighten detainees, said at two separate points in the Feb. 9 interview that Miller gave him the idea. He also said Miller had indicated the use of the dogs "with or without a muzzle" was "okay" in booths where prisoners were taken for interrogation.

But Miller, whom the Bush administration appointed as the new head of Abu Ghraib this month, denied through a spokesman that the conversation took place.

"Miller never had a conversation with Colonel Pappas regarding the use of military dogs for interrogation purposes in Iraq. Further, military dogs were never used in interrogations at Guantanamo," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Pappas's statements nonetheless provide the fullest public account to date of how he viewed the interrogation mission at Abu Ghraib and Miller's impact on operations there. Pappas said, among other things, that interrogation plans involving the use of dogs, shackling, "making detainees strip down," or similar aggressive measures followed Sanchez's policy, but were often approved by Sanchez's deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, or by Pappas himself.

The claims and counterclaims between Pappas and Miller concern one of the most notorious aspects of U.S. actions at Abu Ghraib, as revealed by Taguba's March 9 report and by pictures taken by military personnel that became public late last month. The pictures show unmuzzled dogs being used to intimidate Abu Ghraib detainees, sometimes while the prisoners are cowering, naked, against a wall.

Taguba, in a rare classified passage within his generally unclassified report, listed "using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees" as one of 13 examples of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib.

Experts on the laws of war have charged that using dogs to coerce prisoners into providing information, as was done at Abu Ghraib, constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions that protect civilians under the control of an occupying power, such as the Iraqi detainees.

"Threatening a prisoner with a ferocious guard dog is no different as a matter of law from pointing a gun at a prisoner's head and ordering him to talk," said James Ross, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. "That's a violation of the Geneva Conventions."

Article 31 of the Fourth Geneva Convention bars use of coercion against protected persons, and Common Article Three bars any "humiliating and degrading treatment," Ross said. Experts do not consider the presence in a prison of threatening dogs, by itself, to constitute torture, but a 1999 United Nations-approved manual lists the "arranging of conditions for attacks by animals such as dogs" as a "torture method."

But Pappas, who was charged with overseeing interrogations at Abu Ghraib involving those suspected of posing or knowing about threats to U.S. forces in Iraq, told Taguba that "I did not personally look at that [use of dogs] with regard to the Geneva Convention," according to the transcript.

Pappas also said he did not have "a program" to inform his civilian employees, including a translator and an interrogator, of what the Geneva Conventions stated, and said he was unaware if anyone else did. He said he did not believe using force to coerce, intimidate or cause fear violated the conventions.

Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, who commanded the prison guards at Abu Ghraib's cellblocks 1A and 1B until Nov. 19, when Pappas assumed control, said in an interview that Navy, Army and Air Force dog teams were used there for security purposes. But she said military intelligence officers "were responsible for assigning those dogs and where they would go."

Using dogs to intimidate or attack detainees was very much against regulations, Karpinski said. "You cannot use the dogs in that fashion, to attack or be aggressive with a detainee. . . . Why were there guys so willing to take these orders? And who was giving the orders? The military intelligence people were in charge of them."

Taguba never interviewed Miller or any officer above Karpinski's rank for his report. Nor did he conduct a detailed probe of the actions of military intelligence officials. But he said he suspected that Pappas and several of his colleagues were "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib."

In a Feb. 11 written statement accompanying the transcript, Pappas shifted the responsibility elsewhere. He said "policies and procedures established by the [Abu Ghraib] Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center relative to detainee operations were enacted as a specific result of a visit" by Miller, who in turn has acknowledged being dispatched to Baghdad by Undersecretary of Defense Stephen A. Cambone, after a conversation with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Cambone told lawmakers recently that he wanted Miller to go because he had done a good job organizing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and wanted Miller to help improve intelligence-gathering in Iraq.

Some senators, however, have noted that the Bush administration considers Guantanamo detainees exempt from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, and wondered if Miller brought the same aggressive interrogation ideas with him to Iraq, where the conventions apply.

When asked at a May 19 Senate hearing if he and his colleagues had "briefed" military officers in Iraq about specific Guantanamo interrogation techniques that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions, Miller said no.

He said he brought "our SOPs [standard operating procedures] that we had developed for humane detention, interrogation, and intelligence fusion" to Iraq for use as a "starting point." He added that it was up to the officers in Iraq to decide which were applicable and what modifications to make.

But Pappas said the result of Miller's visit was that "the interrogators and analysts developed a set of rules to guide interrogations" and assigned specific military police soldiers to help interrogators -- an approach Miller had honed in Guantanamo.

After calling the use of dogs Miller's idea, Pappas explained that "in the execution of interrogation, and the interrogation business in general, we are trying to get info from these people. We have to act in an environment not to permanently damage them, or psychologically abuse them, but we have to assert control and get detainees into a position where they're willing to talk to us."

Pappas added that it "would never be my intent that the dog be allowed to bite or in any way touch a detainee or anybody else." He said he recalled speaking to one dog handler and telling him "they could be used in interrogations" anytime according to terms spelled out in a Sept. 14, 2003, memo signed by Sanchez.

That memo included the use of dogs among techniques that did not require special approval. The policy was changed on Oct. 12 to require Sanchez's approval on a case-by-case basis for certain techniques, including having "military working dogs" present during interrogations.

That memo also demanded -- in what Taguba referred to during the interview as its "fine print" -- that detainees be treated humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

But Pappas told Taguba that "there would be no way for us to actually monitor whether that happened. We had no formal system in place to do that -- no formal procedure" to check how interrogations were conducted. Moreover, he expressed frustration with a rule that the dogs be muzzled. "It's not very intimidating if they are muzzled," Pappas said. He added that he requested an exemption from the rule at one point, and was turned down.

In the interview transcript, Taguba's disdain for using dogs is clear. He asked Pappas if he knew that after a prison riot on Nov. 24, 2003, five dogs were "called in to either intimidate or cause fear or stress" on a detainee. Pappas said no, and acknowledged under questioning that such an action was inappropriate.

Taguba also asked if he believed the use of dogs is consistent with the Army's field manual. Pappas replied that he could not recall, but reiterated that Miller instigated the idea. The Army field manual bars the "exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind."

At least four photographs obtained by The Washington Post -- each apparently taken in late October or November -- show fearful prisoners near unmuzzled dogs.

One MP charged with abuses, Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, recalled for Army investigators an episode "when two dogs were brought into [cellblock] 1A to scare an inmate. He was naked against the wall, when they let the dogs corner him. They pulled them back enough, and the prisoner ran . . . straight across the floor. . . . The prisoner was cornered and the dog bit his leg. A couple seconds later, he started to move again, and the dog bit his other leg."

New Questions For Abu Ghraib Prison Commander

Miller meets with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a tour of Abu Ghraib prison on May 13

Newsweek reports:
Things may be heating up in the prison abuse scandal for Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former Guantanamo Bay commander who is now in charge of detainees in Iraq. In a harshly worded letter, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence committee questioned the "candor and accuracy" of Miller’s responses in a classified briefing to the committee last week.

The May 21 letter to Miller from Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking minority member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, chastises the general for "gaps and discrepancies in your presentation" and for selectively withholding information. "If information is only provided in response to a question that is phrased in precisely the right way, it is virtually impossible for Congress to fulfill its constitutional oversight responsibility," Harman writes.

In her letter, Harman refers to new details about interrogation policies at the Gitmo detention facility that became public less than 24 hours after Miller’s May 20 testimony. "I am dismayed that information emerging immediately after your briefing raises questions about the candor and accuracy of your statements," she says. A copy of the letter was obtained by NEWSWEEK.

Harman cites a recent Pentagon briefing and press reports, in The Washington Post and elsewhere, that documented deep misgivings by military lawyers and other legal experts over the interrogation policies at Gitmo overseen by Miller. She also expresses her chagrin that the committee has not received a copy of an Oct. 12, 2003, interrogation policy at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that was reportedly issued by Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. That policy, Harman says, "seems to indicate a role for military police that goes well beyond the passive intelligence collection role that you have described."

NEWSWEEK also confirmed Monday an Associated Press report that Vice Adm. Albert Church III, the Navy inspector general, has recommended a more in-depth look at the interrogation practices initiated by Miller at Gitmo. Church inspected Gitmo during a brief visit in early May. Lt. Chris Servello, a Navy IG spokesman, said Church’s recommendation has been passed up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office.

Miller’s performance at Gitmo and in Iraq has come under increasing scrutiny as the scandal has widened. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade that once ran Abu Ghraib, has accused Miller of exporting interrogation practices directed at alleged al Qaeda and Taliban suspects at Gitmo--which a Pentagon spokesman called "more rigorous"--to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, possibly in violation of Geneva Convention protections. The Gitmo prisoners were deemed to be "unlawful combatants" not subject to the Geneva Conventions, though the admininstration maintained a policy of treatment loosely consistent with the Conventions.

Miller has denied that any systemic abuse occurred at Gitmo. And he has insisted that he only intended for members of the military police (MPs) at Abu Ghraib to play a "passive" role by passing on information about prisoners to interrogators with Military Intelligence (MI).

But a number of MPs at Abu Ghraib have said that MI interrogators encouraged them to soften up prisoners with physically and psychologically abusive practices. Even though the Iraq war was nominally fought in observance of the Geneva conventions, which forbid torture or inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees, Miller brought with him to Iraq a "matrix" of such practices modeled on Gitmo’s interrogation techniques. These included the use of harsh heat or cold, withholding food or altering a prisoner's diet, isolation, threatening prisoners with dogs, and limited use of "stress positions" to cause discomfort or pain.

Congressional leaders, including some Republicans in both houses, have grown increasingly infuriated over what Harman calls "a breakdown in congressional oversight in addition to the breakdown of the chain of command" in the prison abuse scandal. Harman says she was not aware that interrogation practices were being questioned even though she visited both Iraq and Gitmo--the latter three times--and spoke with Miller in December 2003.

A spokesman for Joint Task Force 7 in Iraq, Capt. Mark Doggett, said he was unaware of the letter and had no immediate response to it.

Who is Geoffrey Miller?

Peter Ogden at the Center for American Progress reports:

In a war that has both catapulted and sunk many careers, the appearance of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller walking across the front page of The New York Times this week brought yet another player to the international stage.

Miller is the Pentagon's choice to run the prison system in Iraq, and he is charged with the vital task of introducing law, order and decency to a prison system that lacks all three.

This would be a tough task at any time, and is doubly so in the wake of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Miller must not only clean up the prisons, but also win the trust of the Iraqi people by demonstrating in public, highly visible ways that reforms have been instituted and that Abu Ghraib is no longer a place of arbitrary imprisonment and systematic abuse.

Is he the right man for the job?

At a moment when our nation's credibility is at an all-time low, one would hope so. But Miller's record as commander of the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay (a.k.a., "Gitmo"), his perceived anti-Muslim bias, and his now infamous recommendation that guards in Iraq soften-up prisoners for interrogation, all strongly suggest that he is not that man.

Back on the map after spending the last sixteen months on the Cuban coast in charge of 600 detainees, Miller has already promised to "Gitmo-ize" the operation, according to the outgoing head of Iraq's prison, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski.

Miller went on to say, in a phrase bound to instill confidence in his cultural sensitivity, "We can do this the hard way or we can do it my way."

This is, in fact, Miller's second attempt to "Gitmo-ize" the Iraqi prisons. Last August, top Pentagon officials dispatched Miller with orders to find better ways of extracting intelligence from prisoners. According to the now-famous report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, Miller's team, using Guantánamo "procedures and interrogation authorities as baselines," advocated using detention operations as "an enabler for interrogation," and insisted that "the guard force be actively engaged in setting the condition for the successful exploitation of internees."

It should come as no surprise, then, that many of the documented cases of prisoner abuse occurred around the time that Miller released this report. It's hard to dismiss this as a mere coincidence.

Miller's record at Guantánamo is also cause for serious concern. Over the past two years, this detention facility has been condemned by the International Committee of the Red Cross and others – particularly in Muslim communities – as an opaque, illegitimate, discriminatory, and quite possibly abusive camp for detainees.

Though Miller cannot be held personally responsible for all of the problems associated with Guantánamo (it was not his decision, for instance, to declare all the inmates "enemy combatants" and deny them their legal rights), as commanding officer he must be held accountable for the culture of secrecy, the charges of anti-Arab discrimination, and the accusations of prisoner abuse.

The emphasis on secrecy and opacity at Guantánamo Bay was established as soon as the first prisoners from Afghanistan and Pakistan arrived. It was promptly decreed that not only the press but Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International would be denied access to the facilities.

Miller justifies this secrecy on the grounds that those being held are suspected terrorists and thus may harbor highly sensitive intelligence. And now the Iraqi and American people have been asked by the White House to place their trust in him. The problem is that Miller's penchant for secrecy went unchecked at Guantánamo, where American commanders can play Col. Kurtz on a rock pile with good views of the Caribbean.

This kind of approach will not work in Iraq, where the only way to win the support of the people is to operate the prisons in the most transparent manner possible. A simple "trust me" from Miller won't suffice. The Iraqis do need to trust, of course – but they need to be able to verify, too.

Earning this trust will be particularly hard in Miller's case, given the allegations of his anti-Muslim bias. One of the few stories to leak out of Guantánamo Bay in the past year involved Miller's persecution of a Muslim prison chaplain, Army Capt. James "Yousef" Yee. Miller accused Yee last year of participating in a spy ring and had him detained for 76 days – a large portion of which was spent in shackles and solitary confinement. When further investigation revealed no compelling evidence of Yee's guilt, the charges were first reduced to mishandling classified information and lying to investigators, and then were dropped altogether.

This startling development raised some very troubling questions about whether Miller was capable of understanding the difference between law abiding Muslims and terrorists. And the Arab community was further enraged when Miller – rather than apologizing for the false accusation and extended detainment – insisted on reprimanding Yee on incidental charges of adultery and possession of pornography. Though again these charges were overturned, a widespread belief that Miller was motivated by an anti-Muslim bias endures to this day.

Finally, Miller's tenure at Guantánamo is haunted by the charges of abuse and torture that have been leveled by several former inmates. They describe shocking forms of physical and psychological duress (beatings, solitary confinement, inadequate medical treatment), as well as sexual humiliation (forced viewing of naked female prostitutes) that would be difficult to believe were they not so uncannily similar to the types of abuse that have been captured on film at Abu Ghraib.

These factors ought to be enough to disqualify Miller from his new post. With so many talented people in the U.S. military, we could certainly find someone who would bring a less tarnished reputation to the job. As it is, we don't know if the Iraqi people will give us a second chance to demonstrate our commitment to preserving basic human rights. It's impossible to imagine getting a third.

New Abu Ghraib Commander Explains Detention and Interrogation Procedures

The Coalition Provisional Authority reports:
Physical contact, hooding, stress positioning, and questioning unclothed detainees are not authorized U.S. interrogation techniques in Iraq, the deputy commanding general of detention operations told reporters in Baghdad May 4.

Major General Geoffrey Miller, previously head of the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, was recently brought into the Iraq operations. He reports directly to Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commanding general in Iraq.

Miller said that although hooding had been used in the past as a tactical measure when transporting captured persons to a detention facility within a division environment, that is no longer the case. "They either put a pressure bandage around the detainee's eyes or they use ... dust goggles and they put a rag on the inside," he explained. "Because we have transitioned into an occupation role and as we're transitioning to [working with a sovereign] government, we've chosen to use a less intrusive method that will accomplish the same mission."

Miller said the military was aggressively addressing the problem of any interrogators who used unauthorized techniques. "I got here about 30 days ago and have done this assessment. I've seen an enormous [amount of] positive work and positive change," he said. "There's a commitment by thousands [in the U.S. forces in Iraq] to do the right thing. As you know, unfortunately, a very small number did not do the right thing, and that's being addressed."

He said, "We were all chagrined by the occurrences" and noted that he told the interrogators in Iraq that "at the end of the day, you've got to make sure that what we've done will make America proud."

Miller also said that civilian contract interrogators are held to the same standards as the military. "If they do not follow our standards, then we discharge them," he said. "If there are acts that are beyond the level of discharge, then we will take the appropriate action to hold them accountable."

Miller had visited the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during August and September of 2003 to assess detention and interrogation procedures. He said neither he nor his team saw any evidence of abuse during their two-week stay. His recommendation at that time was to streamline the chain of command by integrating the interrogation and detention functions, he said.

Following that recommendation, Abu Ghraib has been reorganized, Miller said, with a military and police brigade commander in charge of the detention mission and a military intelligence brigade commander in charge of interrogation, both reporting to his office.

Interrogations are handled by groups known as "Tiger Teams," Miller explained, and each team has one or two interrogators, an analyst, and a linguist. Every interrogation, he added, "must have an interrogation plan that lays out the techniques that will be used to garner information" and that plan is submitted to a supervisor for authorization. Teams may not use any techniques not authorized in the plan, he said.

According to Miller, the analyst watches the interrogation from a viewing area and team chiefs drop in to make assessments. "There will be times in interrogation where they'll stop -- the analysts will stop the interrogation and bring the interrogators out and say, 'This is not working; we've got five techniques authorized, let's try this one.' Or, 'Let's take a pause.' ... So it is a system of assessments that go on. And then they'll do an after-action review after every interrogation," he said.

"We lay out the standards for what we do on interrogation, and -- I can only speak with great certainty about the last 30 days -- we're following those standards. Interrogation teams are good people. We've laid out the edges of the roads, what the authorities are, and they are moving rapidly toward that," Miller said. "Remember, I'm biased. I'm proud of these people, for they have taken the responsibility for winning. And we're doing this correctly."

Operations at Abu Ghraib will continue, Miller said, although the number of detainees there will be reduced to no more than 2,000.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)