Human rights groups on Wednesday called for an independent investigation into abuse at Guantanamo where 550 detainees from nearly 40 countries are accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaida terror network.
"Although more transparency is always welcome, we're way past the point where internal inquiries can be considered sufficient," said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for London-based Amnesty International.
Documents published last month show that FBI agents sent to Guantanamo warned the government about abuse and mistreatment when the first prisoners arrived in 2002, more than a year before a scandal over mistreatment at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. One letter, written by a senior Justice Department official and obtained by a reporter, suggested the Pentagon failed to act on the FBI complaints.
Also last month, the American Civil Liberties Union released e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act in which the FBI accused military interrogators of posing as FBI agents and humiliating and abusing detainees. Techniques included inserting lit cigarettes in prisoners' ears and shackling them into a fetal positions for up to 24 hours, forcing them to soil themselves.
- In other news: U.S. Army doctors violated the Geneva Conventions by helping intelligence officers carry out abusive interrogations at military detention centers, perhaps participating in torture, according to a report in today's edition of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
Medical personnel helped tailor interrogations to the physical and mental conditions of individual detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the report claims. It says medical workers gave interrogators access to patient medical files and that psychiatrists and other physicians collaborated with interrogators and guards who, in turn deprived detainees of sleep, restricted them to diets of bread and water and exposed them to extremes of heat and cold.
"Clearly, the medical personnel who helped to develop and execute aggressive counter-resistance plans thereby breached the laws of war," says the four-page article, which is labeled "Perspective."
"The conclusion that doctors participated in torture is premature, but there is probable cause for suspecting it."
The U.S. Southern Command in Miami will begin the investigation this week and has assigned Army Brig. Gen. John T. Furlow to lead it, said Duany. A report on Furlow's findings and recommendations is expected to be submitted the first week of February to the command's top official, Army Gen. Bantz Craddock.
But Furlow has the option of requesting an extension for the investigation, Duany said. Once Craddock reviews the report, he will decide on the next steps to be taken, he said.
Furlow's investigation will focus on the FBI documents that came to light last month, but will not be limited to them if other allegations surface, Duany said. The general will interview military personnel and may speak to detainees as well, he said.
The ACLU released another batch of documents on Wednesday, including an internal FBI e-mail indicating that suspected prisoner abuses reported by nine FBI employees who had been stationed at Guantanamo Bay were being forwarded on to the Pentagon for investigation.
The e-mail said that 17 other employees witnessed what they considered to be mistreatment, but those incidents were determined by senior FBI officials to fall inside the Defense Department's "approved interrogation techniques." Most of the 478 FBI personnel who provided accounts of their Guantanamo Bay experiences reported no instances of prisoner abuse.
"These documents raise more questions than they answer," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU attorney. "Why did the FBI narrow its investigation? Did the FBI ever conduct follow-up interviews?"
An FBI spokesman said the cases were referred to the Pentagon for appropriate action.
Additional documents previously released by the ACLU and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights -- obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request -- show a special operations task force in Iraq sought to silence Defense Intelligence Agency personnel who may have observed abusive interrogations.
The military has acknowledged 10 cases of abuse since the detention mission began at Guantanamo, including a female interrogator climbing onto a detainee's lap and a detainee whose knees were bruised from being forced to kneel repeatedly.
Those cases are not among three incidents detailed in a July FBI letter to Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, the Army's chief law enforcement officer investigating abuses at the U.S.-run prisons.
The AP-obtained memo documents abuses that included a female interrogator grabbing a detainee's genitals and bending back his thumbs, a prisoner being gagged with duct tape and an attack dog being used to intimidate a detainee, who later showed "extreme" psychological trauma.
Additional investigations into abuse and mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay, as well as other aspects of the detention mission, are also pending, Pentagon officials say.
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Eds: AP writer Curt Anderson in Washington contributed to this report.