President Bush claimed in his memoirs that the use of waterboarding on three suspects helped prevent attacks on Heathrow airport, Canary Wharf and a number of US targets at home and abroad. He also insisted that the use of ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’ (EITs), were not torture, and that medical experts had assured the CIA they did no lasting harm. Furthermore, he claimed that waterboarding was ‘highly effective’ and that it provided ‘large amounts of information’.See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/09/bush-torture-waterboarding
These are interesting claims in light of the investigation carried out by the CIA Inspector General in 2004 into the use of waterboarding by CIA operatives, and leaked in 2009. The Inspector General for the CIA reached a number of conclusions that contradict Bush’s claims, and which should all give use pause for thought on the use of torture. See: http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/052708/052708_Special_Review.pdf
Waterboarding and the use of EITs went much further than was permissible
Firstly, the CIA Inspector General found that even though the Department of Justice had issued strict guidelines about how frequently waterboarding could be used, it was used far in excess of these guidelines against numerous detainees (pp.36-40 and 90-91). In addition, a number of improvised techniques were used against numerous detainees which gave the Inspector General cause for concern. These included enforced inhalation of tobacco smoke, threats with power drills and handguns, beatings, mock executions, and threats of sexual assault, rape, and death to detainees’ families (pp.41-44 and 70-73). Given that human rights experts have for decades argued that when permission is granted for the use of torture, it always extends far beyond the intended limits, and tend to spiral out of control, the use of these ‘improvised techniques’ should come as no surprise.
The CIA Inspector General acknowledged that waterboarding and EITs were tantamount to torture
Secondly, the CIA Inspector General was well aware that the EITs and waterboarding were tantamount to torture. He stated, ‘The EITs are inconsistent with the public policy positions that the US has taken regarding human rights’ (p.91), and he noted that frequently the US State Department calls other states on similar practices, which it describes as torture, such as threats to families and the use of stress positions, depriving them of sleep and hooding and stripping prisoners naked (pp.92-93). He also acknowledged that the counsel received from the Department of Justice never adequately addressed the question of whether the application of both standard and enhanced interrogation techniques was at odds with the undertaking, accepted conditionally by the US, regarding Article 16 of the Torture Convention to prevent cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (p.101). His findings, therefore, are rather different from Bush’s proclamation that these techniques did not constitute torture and would not have long-term consequences. Perhaps the CIA Inspector General’s report never crossed the Oval Office desk.
The CIA Inspector General questioned the effectiveness of waterboarding and EITs with regard to securing intelligence about imminent threats
Thirdly, the CIA Inspector General was far less adamant that Bush about the efficacy of these methods as a means to securing valuable intelligence. It is interesting that Bush stated that the use of these techniques led to the acquisition of ‘large amounts of information’. It is by no means clear that such information was useful or pertained to any immediate threat. The CIA Inspector General concludes that while ‘the detention of terrorists has prevented them from engaging in further terrorist activity, and their interrogation has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists, warned of terrorist plots planned for the US and around the world, and supported articles frequently used in the finished intelligence publications for senior policymakers and war fighters’, measuring the effectiveness of EITs is ‘not without some concern’(p.85). Firstly, he notes that ‘the Agency cannot determine with any certainty the totality of intelligence the detainee actually possesses’; secondly, ‘each detainee has different fears and tolerance of EITs’; thirdly, ‘the application of the same EITs by different interrogators may have different results’ (p.89). It is by no means clear, therefore, that Bush can afford to be so certain of the effectiveness of torture.
Waterboarding and EITs constitute torture and cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment and are therefore illegal. This was acknowledged by the CIA Inspector General. By his own admission, Bush stated that he gave the order for certain individuals to be subjected to waterboarding, and therefore torture. He is liable to prosecution for complicity in violations of both the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.
3 NOVEMBER 2010: RUTH’S GUARDIAN ON-LINE ARTICLE – THE BRITISH ARMED FORCES AND TORTURE
Since Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the US has been under scrutiny for its use of torture and the efforts of senior officials to legalise it. Yet there is a widespread assumption that the British are less prone to these murky practices. Last week's Guardian report on British military interrogation manuals refutes that. British armed forces explicitly encouraged techniques similar to those for which the US has been repeatedly condemned. Unless the British armed and security forces abandon torture, Britain cannot claim to defend universal human rights ... Read more
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