FBI Ordered to Shut Down GITMO “War Crimes” File

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(h/t to GreyHawk for pointing to this story. GH’s post at epluribus media.)

Yes, the FBI kept a “War Crimes” file about GTMO. So reports the NY Times in  Report Details Dissent on Guantánamo Tactics:

WASHINGTON – In 2002, as evidence of prisoner mistreatment at Guantánamo Bay began to mount, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at the base created a “war crimes file” to document accusations against American military personnel, but were eventually ordered to close down the file, a Justice Department report revealed Tuesday.

Ordered closed down by whom exactly?

Don’t worry about these FBI claims and concerns, though. There’s been an exhaustive report, and everything’s cool, per the DoJ Investigator General Glenn A. Fine:

In sum, we believe that while the FBI could have provided clearer guidance earlier, and while the FBI could have pressed harder for resolution of concerns about detainee treatment by other agencies, the FBI should be credited for its conduct and professionalism in detainee interrogations in the military zones in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq and in generally avoiding participation in detainee abuse.

From p. 413 of Report (warning! 437 page PDF)

There’s a lot to read in this report; I’ve only had the chance to skim through it, but it basically is another dossier from the files of the Kafka Bureau of Government Operations. A report so focused on detail and process, while completely ignoring the larger questions. Not that it was supposed to be anything else; it’s just another example of the hot-potato game of accountability. The report does detail that there was great pushback and concern over the “enhanced interrogation techniques.” As the NY Times says:

The report, an exhaustive, 437-page review prepared by the Justice Department inspector general, provides the fullest account to date of internal dissent and confusion within the Bush administration over the use of harsh interrogation tactics by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The report describes what one official called “trench warfare” between the F.B.I. and the military over the rough methods being used on detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report says that the F.B.I. agents took their concerns to higher-ups, but that their concerns often fell on deaf ears: officials at senior levels at the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council were all made aware of the F.B.I. agents’ complaints, but little appears to have been done as a result.

The report quotes passionate objections from F.B.I. officials who grew increasingly concerned about the reports of practices like intimidating inmates with snarling dogs, parading them in the nude before female soldiers, or “short-shackling” them to the floor for many hours in extreme heat or cold.

(My emphasis, of course.)

The report deals with this tension and “confusion” simply by explaining that FBI shouldn’t really worry, all of these techniques have been approved by DoD, so everything is just a question of role of FBI interrogators. Nothing is said to address the FBI concerns that these techniques themselves constitute torture or warcrimes:

On December 2, 2002, the Secretary of Defense approved additional techniques on detainees at GTMO, including stress positions for a maximum of 4 hours, isolation, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, hooding, 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, and exploiting a detainee’s individual phobias (such as fear of dogs).

From p. 19 of Report (warning! 437 page PDF)

Indeed, footnote 228 explicitly states:

We did not examine issues related to DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinions concerning the legality of several interrogations techniques the CIA sought to useon certain high value detainees. Wheile senior FBI and DOJ officials were aware of these opinions, an assessment of the validity of OLC legal opinions was beyond the scope of this review.

(My emphasis, of course.)

Well, goddamn it–whose scope is it in to review the legality of these techniques?! When will all of these war criminals be held to account?

Crucially, as the NY Times reports, FBI was concerned not only with the illegality, but also the counterproductive nature of using torture:

The report describes extensive debate inside the F.B.I. over the next six months over whether it should continue to observe or assist the C.I.A. with interrogations using harsh methods it believed were counterproductive.

F.B.I. officials, including Pasquale D’Amuro, then the bureau’s top counterterrorism officer, believed the physical pressure being used by the C.I.A. was less effective than traditional noncoercive methods, that it would “taint” any future effort at prosecution, and that it “was wrong and helped Al Qaeda in spreading negative views of the United States,” the report says.

(My emphasis)

This should be the key point in all discussions of torture as policy. Torture does not work for information extraction.

President Obama, will you hold these criminals to account? And will you shut down GTMO A.S.A.P?

Unfortunately, Secretary Gates seems to think we are “stuck with” GTMO:

The US is “stuck” with the Guantanamo Bay detention centre even though it wants to close it, Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.

Mr Gates said the US wanted to send up to 70 prisoners home but countries would either not take them or could not be trusted to.

Well, that’s it from me for now. Please take a look at the NYTimes article, and I’m also sure that the 437 report is sure to generate many future blog posts.


Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to call your congresscritters and demand:

  • End to Iraq Occupation.
  • Closure of GTMO
  • Investigations and indictments of war criminals: BushCo.

24 comments

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    • srkp23 on May 21, 2008 at 17:14
      Author

    Also posted at the orange electoral politics place.

    • geomoo on May 21, 2008 at 18:37

    in the military, in the FBI, in the CIA, in the NCIS.  Too often we stereotype any military person or any FBI agent as an enemy of civil rights.  It is important that we realize that there was a lot of resistance from within.  It is also important to be realistic about the possible consequences to a dissenter in the ranks:  loss of future influence in decision-making and thus inability to continue to serve one’s country or even the complete loss of a career.  With that in mind, many people displayed a courageous level of opposition.  Nonetheless, many of those who cooperated in the end may be guilty of war crimes along with the higher authorities who forced these illegal activities on them.  It is important for us to realize that many of those directly involved in torture policy will be our allies in the demand for accountability.  I also believe personally that one’s degree of resistance should be taken into account when bringing people to justice.  But that’s getting way ahead of where we are.

    Thanks for wading into this.  There’s a lot of work to be done.  When a whitewash looks this bad, we know there’s rot underneath.

  1. http://www.dailykos.com/storyo

    For participating in and pub’ing the ACLU’s new anti-torture blog


    In the effort to further shine a bright light on the stain of torture, the ACLU is launching its refurbished Blog of Rights with week-long Torture and America Symposium. The ACLU and Glenn Greenwald, who provided the inaugural post today, invited me (my post is here) Eunomia/American Conservative’s Daniel Larison (post here), Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake, Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars, Digby of Hullabaloo, author Paul Verhaeghen, and ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Chris Anders to participate.

    http://blog.aclu.org/

       

  2. Via TPM Muckraker:

    But as you dig down into the 370-page report (.pdf), it’s most revealing for what it shows the U.S. government was actually doing to detainees. Because of the limited jurisdiction of the DOJ inspector general, the report was focused on the FBI. But in establishing the environment in which the FBI was operating, the report paints a picture of ghastly treatment of detainees by the United States on a consistent long-term basis.

    In the course of his investigation, the IG interviewed 450 FBI agents who were detailed to Gitmo at one time or another. Nearly half reported witnessing or hearing about “rough or aggressive treatment of detainees, primarily by military investigators.”

    The report contains a chart of the conduct FBI agents reported at Gitmo and the manner in which the agents learned of the conduct.

  3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ame

    US ‘stuck’ with Guantanamo prison

    Guantanamo Bay.

    The prison in Cuba currently has about 270 detainees

    The US is “stuck” with the Guantanamo Bay detention centre even though it wants to close it, Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.

    Mr Gates said the US wanted to send up to 70 prisoners home but countries would either not take them or could not be trusted to.

    Human rights groups have long argued for its closure, saying it does not meet international legal standards.

    The prison in Cuba currently has about 270 detainees.

    ‘Astounding’

    Mr Gates told a US Senate hearing: “The brutally frank answer is that we’re stuck. We have a serious ‘not in my backyard’ problem.

    “Either their home government won’t accept them or we’re concerned that the home government will let them loose once we return them home,” he said.

    • WSComn on May 21, 2008 at 20:57

    And we all have it now?  The NYTimes?

    All it will take is one good federal prosecutor or judge to start the process.  Maybe we’ll have to wait until a Democrat is in the Whitehouse.  Probably not.  Even if McCain wins, a ‘more’ Democratic congress and senate can prevail over the Maverick in this issue.

    Bush’s house of cards may come tumbling down, now, and Americans will learn what the rest of the world already seems to know:  Fascism almost destroyed America in the early 21st Century.  And just so some cronys of the WH gang could make some money.  All over some $$.

    Makes me sick.

    • DWG on May 21, 2008 at 21:45

    To further document Bush administration war crimes.  Unfortunately, these files are observations of torture by the CIA, military, and contractor underlings.  

  4. Agent: FBI Can’t Protect United States From Terror

    Agent Youssef Says Empty Desks, Ignorance of Language Cripple Efforts

    • Valtin on May 22, 2008 at 05:35

    FBI agents kept a so-called “war crimes file” at Guantanamo, but it was closed down by a higher official within the FBI. The report doesn’t name who it was, but two main points are clear: one, while many in the ranks were appalled by what they saw, many (half!) were not. Two, the FBI tops tried to shut down the info they were getting. — The FBI is not your friend, and the agency as a whole is partly responsible now, it’s clear, for what took place. Also, by the way, did one FBI officer resign after the protests went nowhere and the “war crimes file” was shut down? Not that I’ve heard of.

    From the NY Times story, what you forgot to quote:

    Many of the abuses the report describes have previously been disclosed, but it was not known that F.B.I. agents had gone so far as to document accusations of abuse in a “war crimes file” at Guantánamo. The report does not say how many incidents were included in the file after it was started in 2002, but the “war crimes” label showed just how seriously F.B.I. agents took the accusations. Sometime in 2003, however, an F.B.I. official ordered the file closed because “investigating detainee allegations of abuse was not the F.B.I.’s mission,” the report said.

    Rep. Wexler was on top of this: See my story Wexler Questions FBI Chief — Is FBI Covering Up CIA Torture?

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