Pentagon documents released by rights groups on Thursday detailed the agency’s involvement in “war on terror” excesses, fueling debate over possible probes into the administration of former US president George W. Bush.
After more than four years of legal wrangling, the groups — Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice — obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act.
The US Department of Defense (DOD) papers reveal details of secret prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, and “affirm the DOD’s cooperation with the CIA’s ghost detention program,” the said in a statement.
“It is increasingly obvious that defense officials engaged in legal gymnastics to find ways to cooperate with the CIA’s activities,” said Margaret Satterthwaite, director of the NYU International Human Rights Clinic.
In one of the internal papers, from late May 2004, officials discuss how rights ensured by the Geneva Conventions were essentially waived for some detainees in Iraq. “Ghosting” of detainees occurred by prohibiting visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the groups said at a press conference on Thursday.
In another example, an internal DOD e-mail from Feb. 17, 2006, showed how a scheduled release of unnamed Guantanamo Bay detainees was postponed for public relations reasons.
The message recommends “hold[ing] off on return flights for 45 days or so until things die down. Otherwise we are likely to have hero’s welcomes awaiting the detainees when they arrive.”
Referring to this e-mail, Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said the documents were “part of an internal communications process to safely transfer detainees overseas and did not reflect a statement of DOD policy.”
In a separate Freedom of Information Act request released last week, the American Civil Liberties Union highlights a report by Vice Admiral Albert Church, who conducted a review of DOD interrogation practices, that detail how two detainees died from their treatment.
“Interrogations in both incidents involved the use of physical violence, including kicking, beating, and the use of ‘compliance blows,’ which involved striking the [prisoner’s] legs with the [interrogator’s] knees … In both cases, blunt force trauma to the legs was implicated in the deaths.”
Amnesty’s Policy Director for Counterterrorism, Terrorism and Human Rights Tom Parker said the documents represent “the tip of the iceberg.”
A majority of the hundreds of pages amount to news articles and press statements, but the groups maintain they will continue to investigate the practices.
“We want information about who knew what of the program, and when. Who authorized what and when. And we also want to know who has disappeared in this program,” Satterthwaite said.
The revelations, along with previous allegations surrounding CIA secret detention practices, come at a time when increasing numbers of Americans appear to favor investigating whether the Bush administration overstepped legal boundaries during its tenure.
CCR President Michael Ratner called for an investigation.
“If crimes have been committed, and there is ample evidence that they have, then the people who committed those crimes should be prosecuted,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Two leading Democrats, House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy have proposed commissions to investigate possible violations.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in