Report: Military used harsh methods on 9/11 terror suspect
Report: Military used harsh methods on 9-11 terror suspect
Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:29 PM PT
By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer
A new report by the Justice Department Inspector General details many of the harsh and intentionally humiliating techniques that the U.S. military used against Mohammed Al-Qahtani, a Saudi detainee at the Guantanamo Bay military prison who many US officials believe was meant to be the 20th hijacker on September 11, 2001.
The 438-page IG report focuses on the FBI's involvement in detainee interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it also provides a window into the methods used by the Defense Department and the CIA on uncooperative detainees such as Al-Qahtani.
Quoting military records and reports, the Justice Department Inspector General said that a "special projects team" of the U.S. military interrogated Al-Qahtani between November 2002 and January 2003.
Their methods included:
--tying a dog leash to Al-Qahtani's chain, "walking him around the room and leading him through a series of dog tricks."
--"repeatedly pouring water on his head"
--"stress positions"
--"20-hour interrogations"
--"forced shaving for hygienic and psychological purposes"
--"stripping him naked in the presence of a female"
--"holding him down while a female interrogator straddled the detainee"
--"women's underwear placed over his head and bra placed over his clothing"
--"female interrogator massaging his back and neck region over his clothing"
--"describing his mother and sister to him as whores"
--"showing him pictures of scantily clothed women"
--"discussing his repressed homosexual tendencies in his presence"
--"male interrogator dancing with him"
--"telling him that people would tell other detainees that he got aroused when male guards searched him"
--"forced physical training"
--"instructing him to pray to idol shrine"
--"adjusting the air conditioning to make him uncomfortable"
Hospitalization:
The IG report notes that in December 2002, during this period of intense interrogation, Al-Qahtani was hospitalized "as a result of the DOD interrogations" for hypothermia or "low blood pressure along with low body core temperature." The IG writes that while FBI agents were aware that Al-Qahtani was being subjected to intense questioning by the military, "we have no evidence that the FBI or DOJ were aware that the specific techniques described above were used on Al-Qahtani" at that time.
Qahtani has often been referred to as the 20th hijacker because of evidence that he tried to enter the United States a few days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and because he was in touch with the men who became the hijackers. Al-Qahtani flew to the Orlando airport from Europe in August 2001, but was barred from entry to the U.S. Investigators later determined that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had been waiting to pick him up at the airport. Qahtani was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001.
Just last week, the Pentagon official in charge of war crimes cases declined to permit a case against Al-Qahtani to proceed, dismissing charges against him. The official, Susan Crawford, whose title is Convening Authority, approved death penalty charges against five other detainees in the 2001 attacks, while declining to approve charges Al-Qahtani. Crawford provided no explanation.
Her decision said the charges against Mr. Qahtani were being dismissed “without prejudice.” Later, a spokesman for military prosecutors said the government could “reinitiate charges against him at any time.”
Qahtani's defense lawyers and officials familiar with the case have said it is unlikely that Qahtani will face new charges because he was subjected to such aggressive interrogation techniques. Many of the aggressive interrogation methods used on Al-Qahtani were previously disclosed in TIME, which obtained an 84-page secret interrogation log prepared by his U.S. military captors.
- simuvac's blog
- Login to post comments
Some of the comments...
In the source are so ignorant.
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?
Crushing Children's Testicles: Welcome to the New Freedom
In the below, I provide massive amounts of documentation wherein the U.S. government itself admits it is holding innocent people indefinitely without charges (including children and U.S. citizens), torturing them, raping them--including homosexually anally raping them--and murdering them, and that the orders to do so came from the highest levels of the U.S. government.
##########
Crushing Children's Testicles: Welcome to the New Freedom
John Choon Yoo ( http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/yooj/ , http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/facultyProfile.php?facID=235 ) is a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), one of the authors of the Patriot Act, and is one of the main White House legal advisers on the use of torture to President George Bush, Jr. Prof. John Yoo emigrated from South Korea with his parents when he was an infant, and is now married to Elsa Arnett, the daughter of reporter Peter Arnett.
Douglass Cassel ( http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/facultypages/cassel.html ) is the Lilly Endowment Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame Law School.
The below excerpt is from a debate between Prof. John Yoo and Prof. Doug Cassel on December 1, 2005 in Chicago:
""
Prof. Doug Cassel: If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?
Prof. John Yoo: No treaty.
Prof. Cassel: And also no law by Congress. That's what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Prof. Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
""
You can listen to the above exchange on the following audio clip: http://rwor.org/downloads/file_info/download1.php?file=yoo_on_torture.mp3 (317,712 bytes)
The following audio clip is a longer recording which includes the above exchange: http://rwor.org/audio/yoo%20excerpt.mp3
See also:
"John Yoo Argues Pres. George Bush Has Legal Power to Torture Children," Philip Watts, Revolution Newspaper (revcom.us) http://rwor.org/johnyoo/index.html
##########
Since Public Law 107-56 (October 26, 2001), i.e., the "USA Patriot Act" (H.R. 3162), was passed without the Congress or Senate even being allowed to read it before voting on it, the police can now secretly search your house and take whatever they want from it without having to tell you about it until they issue you a warrant up to six months later (see Sec. 213). Also, the legal definition of "domestic terrorism" was changed to include any "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State" (see Sec. 802)--which could quite literally be jaywalking.
Indeed, smoking a joint could quite literally be domestic terrorism as defined under this law, since the U.S. government considers such drug use to be dangerous to human life, and since it is illegal after all. But such an act is supposed to only qualify if it "appear[s] to be intended to influence the policy of a Government by intimidation or coercion." So smoking a joint would only be an act of "domestic terrorism" if the U.S. Government thinks a person is doing it as a protest against their drug laws--the clause for "intimidation" already applies, otherwise the U.S. government would have no law against it.
And since Public Law 107-40 (September 18, 2001) was enacted and Bush, Jr. signed the November 13, 2001 Presidential Military Order, *habeas corpus* has been done away with as U.S. citizens can now be held indefinitely and in secret on the mere suspicion that they are in some way involved in "terrorism" (which can now be virtually anything: see the above redefined definition of "domestic terrorism") without even being charged; they can be tried by a secret military tribunal where they will not have the right to cross-examine their accusers; and they can be executed in secret. Of which color-of-law precedents that totally eviscerate the legal rights of U.S. citizens have now been further strengthened by Public Law No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 2600 (October 17, 2006), i.e., the "Military Commissions Act of 2006" (H.R. 6054); this law also retroactively attempts to get the U.S. government out from under the Geneva Conventions. Indeed, U.S. citizens have already been held for years without any charges even having been filed against them (such as José Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi), and the U.S. government says that it can keep U.S. citizens that way indefinitely.
So it's not surprising to find that the U.S. government has been torturing innocent people, including U.S. citizens. This includes U.S. soldiers torturing people in U.S. custody to death.
"Pakistan: U.S. Citizens Tortured, Held Illegally--FBI Participated in Interrogations Despite Apparent Knowledge of Torture, Abduction," Human Rights Watch, May 24, 2005 http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/05/24/pakist11005.htm
"Exclusive: Secret Memo--Send to Be Tortured," Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, August 8, 2005 issue http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8769416/site/newsweek/
"Outsourcing Torture: The secret history of America's 'extraordinary rendition' program," Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, Issue of February 14, 2005, posted February 7, 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6
"CIA kidnapped terror suspects in the EU: lawmaker," Reuters, April 26, 2006 http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=11968389
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/CIA-kidnapped-terror-suspects-in-EU/200...
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/april2006/260406CIA.htm
"Bush admits the CIA runs secret prisons," Deb Riechmann, Associated Press (AP), September 6, 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060906/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Khalid El-Masri, an innocent German citizen, was abducted from Macedonia and held by the U.S. military without charges from January 23 to May 28, 2004, during which time he was anally sodomized and tortured by the U.S. military. He was taken by the U.S. military to Baghdad, Iraq and then to the "Salt Pit" clandestine CIA torture center located north of Kabul in Afghanistan.
"Khalid El-Masri," Wikipedia, June 25, 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khalid_El-Masri&oldid=60497313
"Lawsuit Against CIA Is Dismissed: Mistaken Identity Led to Detention," Jerry Markon, Washington Post, May 19, 2006; Page A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/18/AR200605...
An innocent Algerian man, Laid Saidi, was held without charges in one of the same clandestine CIA torture centers in Afghanistan that Khalid El-Masri was held, from May 2003 to August 2004, wherein the two saw each other. Mr. Saidi was abducted from Tanzania and held by the U.S. military, during which time he was anally sodomized and tortured by the U.S. military.
"Algerian Tells of Dark Term in U.S. Hands," Craig S. Smith and Souad Mekhennet, New York Times, July 7, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/world/africa/07algeria.html
"CIA sent me to be tortured in Afghan prison, says Algerian," Jerome Taylor, Independent (U.K.), July 8, 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1166575.ece
Below is the case of the innocent man, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was arrested in New York in September 26, 2002 by the U.S. government and taken to Syria to be tortured for ten months on behalf of the U.S. government:
"Canadian Was Falsely Accused, Panel Says--After Tip From Ally, U.S. Sent Muslim to Syria for Questioning," Doug Struck, Washington Post, September 19, 2006; A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR200609...
"Canadian police errors led to man's torture--probe," David Ljunggren, Reuters, September 18, 2006 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N18316511.htm
"Report: Canadian Terror Suspect Tortured--and Was Likely Innocent," Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, September 18, 2006 http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
In the Bagram, Afghanistan U.S. military base, U.S. government officials publicly admit that they're murdering Afghan inmates there by torturing them to death:
"Afghan prisoners beaten to death at US military interrogation base: 'Blunt force injuries' cited in murder ruling," Duncan Campbell, The Guardian (U.K.), March 7, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,909164,00.html
"Prisoners 'killed' at US base," BBC News, March 6, 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2825575.stm
"Army Details Scale of Abuse of Prisoners in an Afghan Jail," Douglas Jehl, New York Times, March 12, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/12/politics/12detain.html
Included in the U.S. government's use of torture against innocent people is the rape of women and male children:
"US military confirms existence of horrific pictures and video," Andrew Buncombe, Independent (U.K.), May 9, 2004 http://www.rense.com/general52/erh.htm
Among other tortures, U.S. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report details homosexual anal rape committed by U.S. soldiers. Also detailed in U.S. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report and by other U.S. military sources, Military Intelligence and the CIA ordered the torture at the Abu Ghaib prison.
"U.S. Army report on Iraqi prisoner abuse: Executive summary of Article 15-6 investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba," NBC News, May 4, 2004 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/
"Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade," Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, U.S. Army http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/taguba.pdf
"Green light for Iraqi prison abuse came right from the top: Classified documents show the former US military chief in Iraq personally sanctioned measures banned by the Geneva Conventions," Andrew Buncombe, Independent (U.K.), April 3, 2005 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0403-03.htm
"The General's Report: How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties," Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, June 25, 2007
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?printa...
Excerpt from the above article:
""
At that point, Taguba recalled, "I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, 'That's not abuse. That's torture.' There was quiet."
...
Taguba said that he saw "a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee." The video was not made public in any of the subsequent court proceedings, nor has there been any public government mention of it.
""
"Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture: Security or Legal Factors Could Trump Restrictions, Memo to Rumsfeld Argued," Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0607-01.htm
As Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said to reporters on May 7, 2004 concerning the pictures and videos of U.S. military torture of Iraqis that the U.S. government still refuses to release: "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges." See:
"Rumsfeld: Worst Still To Come--Pentagon Boss Apologizes To Iraqis; Says More Videos, Photos Exist," CBS News and Associated Press (AP), May 7, 2004 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/08/iraq/main616338.shtml
"Rueful Rumsfeld: 'Cruel' truth hurts: Rape and murder feared in Iraq abuse," Noelle Straub, Boston Herald, May 8, 2004 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.economics/msg/53904eefc5efc3fa
And as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on May 7, 2004 before the Senate Armed Services Committee (and he essentially said the same thing before the House Armed Services Committee on the same date) concerning the pictures and videos of U.S. military torture of Iraqis that the U.S. government still refuses to release:
""
First, beyond abuse of prisoners, there are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence toward prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.
Second, there are many more photographs, and indeed some videos. Congress and the American people and the rest of the world need to know this.
In addition, the photos give these incidents a vividness, indeed a horror, in the eyes of the world. ...
If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse. That's just a fact. I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe. And so beyond notice. That's just a fact.
""
See:
"Rumsfeld Testifies Before Senate Armed Services Committee," FDCH E-Media (Federal Document Clearing House), May 7, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8575-2004May7
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2502
"Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee: Transcript of Testimony by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, House Armed Services Committee," Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense, May 7, 2004 http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2004/sp20040507-secdef0401.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2004/sp20040507-secdef0421.html
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has128000.000/has128000_0.HTM
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2525
"In quotes: Rumsfeld faces Congress," BBC News, May 7, 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3694995.stm
##########
Yet almost all of the prisoners held by the U.S. military are completely innocent:
"Most 'Arrested by Mistake': Coalition intelligence put numbers at 70% to 90% of Iraq prisoners, says a February Red Cross report, which details further abuses," Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0511-04.htm
"U.S. war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000," Patrick Quinn, Associated Press, September 17, 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060917/ap_on_re_mi_ea/in_american_hands
From the above article:
""
Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.
""
"AP: Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold," Associated Press, May 31, 2005 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0531-10.htm
##########
The U.S. government has been training its troops and foreign NATO and U.N. military for a long time (i.e., well before the U.S. government-staged 9/11 attacks) in putting U.S. citizens in concentration camps and for total gun confiscation.
Watch Alex Jones's first two Police State video documentaries (both published well before the U.S. government-staged 9/11 attacks) where you can see U.S. troops training with U.N. troops in disarming American citizens and putting them into concentration camps, and anouncing over their loudspeakers: "Be calm: there is food, there is water in the camp. Violation of camp rules will not be tolerated!"
They had American role-players screaming back at the U.S. and foreign U.N. troops, "I'm an American! I'm an American! You can't do this to me! I have rights!"
On Alex Jones's first two Police State video documentaries you can see many more of these training exercizes conducted in other cities and towns. Below you can watch Alex Jones's first two Police State videos in full and for free:
Police State 2000 (published 1999) http://www.archive.org/details/PS2000
Police State II: The Takeover (published 2000) http://www.archive.org/details/PoliceStateII
There have literally been hundreds of these type of training exercizes going on in the U.S. since the early 1990s. For example, see:
Operation Urban Warrior, Oakland, California 1999 http://www.infowars.com/ouwmar9901.html
---
http://www.infowars.com/Images/newouw/foreign_troops.jpg
Australian, British and other foreign troops training with U.S. troops for total gun confiscation of U.S. citizens and in rounding up U.S. citizens into concentration camps at Operation Urban Warrior, Oakland, California 1999
---
For more on this subject, see below:
"U.S. Can Confine Citizens Without Charges, Court Rules," Jerry Markon, Washington Post, September 10, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR200509...
"The Last Roundup: Is the government compiling a secret list of citizens to detain under martial law?," Christopher Ketcham, Radar, May/June issue http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2008/05/government_surveill...
http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2008/05/government_surveill...
"Reagan Aides and the 'Secret' Government," Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987 http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/secret_white_house_plans.htm
http://www.noncombatant.org/trove/chardy-shadow-government.pdf
"Martial Law Concerns," Congressman Jim McDermott, House of Representatives, March 11, 2003 http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp030311.shtml
Below are some archives for mainstream major media news articles dealing with these gulag matters:
Primary Prison Planet Mainstream-Media News Archive on FEMA Concentration Camps http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives_concentration_camps.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives_concentration_camps_old.html
FEMA Camps/Martial Law Archive http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives_fema.html
The below archived news articles deal with how the U.S. government can indefinitely hold U.S. citizens who have not been charged with any crime (as the U.S. government has already been doing), and how U.S. citizens in general can be tried by a secret military tribunal where they will not have the right to cross-examine their accusers, and they can be executed in secret:
Habeas Corpus Archive http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives_habeas.html
The below news articles talk about how the U.S. government can quarantine whole cities and round U.S. citizens up to be put in concentration camps in the event of, e.g., a bio-weapons release:
Model States Emergency Health Powers Act [which has been passed on the Federal level] Archive http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives_modelstates.html
Below are some additional documentation resources to learn more about the FEMA concentration/extermination camps in the U.S.:
http://infowars.com/goodphotos.html
"Concentration Camps in Okanagon County?," Associated Press (via KXLY News), February 25, 2003 http://web.archive.org/web/20030408233829/http://www.kxly.com/common/get...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_022703_camps.html
Interview of Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz http://www.prisonplanet.com/schultz_02_27_03.mp3
And see also:
"Foundations are in place for martial law in the US," Ritt Goldstein, Sydney Morning Herald, July 27, 2002 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/1027497418339.html
"Secret FEMA Plan To Use Pastors as Pacifiers in Preparation For Martial Law: Nationwide initiative trains volunteers to teach congregations to 'obey the government' during seizure of guns, property, forced inoculations and forced relocation," Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, May 24, 2006 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2006/240506femaplan.htm
"Paramilitary Secret Police Kidnap, Detain, Torture Bilderberg Investigators: Interrogators threatened to 'cut off arms' during 6 hour marathon of hell," Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, June 29, 2006 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/060706manraided.htm
"Terror Canadian Style," Joe Burd, TruthMovement.CA (accessed June 28, 2006) http://www.fathers.ca/anyone_can_be_called_an_insurgent.htm
http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/terror_canadian_style.htm
"Man Raided By FBI, ATF, Canadian Law Enforcement After Handing Out 'Subversive' Alex Jones Material: Gun seller questioned on militia, ownership of George Washington speeches," Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Prison Planet.com, July 6, 2006 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/060706manraided.htm
____________
"Terrorism is the health of the State."--James Redford, author of "Jesus Is an Anarchist," June 1, 2006 http://praxeology.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf