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FBI Releases Documents Showing Detainee Abuse


The FBI has released new documents pursuant to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act request showing Guantanamo detainee abuse. They detail abuses witnessed (but not performed by) FBI personnel. (You can view the released documents here.)

FBI agents documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at the Guantanamo Bay military base, including one detainee whose head was wrapped in duct tape for chanting the Quran and another who pulled out his hair after hours in a sweltering room.

The reports describe a female guard who detainees said handled their genitals and wiped menstrual blood on their face. Another interrogator reportedly bragged to an FBI agent about dressing as a Catholic priest and "baptizing" a prisoner.

Some military officials and contractors told FBI agents that the interrogation techniques had been approved by the Defense Department, including directly by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The records were the result of an internal survey conducted by the FBI.

The agency asked 493 employees whether they witnessed aggressive treatment that was not consistent with the FBI's policies. The bureau received 26 positive responses, including some from agents who were troubled by what they saw.

"I did observe treatment that was not only aggressive but personally very upsetting," one agent wrote, describing seeing a man left in a 100-degree room with no ventilation overnight. "The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently literally been pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Then there's this one:

In one report, an agent said he saw a detainee draped in an Israeli flag in a room with loud music and strobe lights. A note on the report said the Israeli flag "may be over the top but not abusive." The words "may be" were then crossed out and replaced with "is."

And here's the kicker:

The FBI reports do not say whether any laws were broken. They said nothing employees observed rose to the level of abuse seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

You can search through the specific documents obtained to date from the ACLU on detainee abuse here.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Duct Taping Prisoners for Chanting the Quran (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by john horse on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 06:04:52 AM EST
    Can someone explain to me what the purpose is of abusing someone's religious belief (duct taping the prisoner for chanting the Quran).  It seems like something that will produce hatred for the US and is therefore, counterproductive.  Or is religous intollerance only wrong when it involves Christians?

    Just when you think it impossible that... (5.00 / 2) (#9)
    by Bill Arnett on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 12:59:08 PM EST
    ...this embarrassment of a government couldn't embarrass America any worse, idiotic cruelties that do nothing to further any understanding or prevention of terrorism surface yet again, although I remember reading similar complaints years ago.

    Even IF - and I don't believe this is the case - you believe that indeed these were the "worst of the worst" there cannot possibly be any more CURRENT info on al-Qaede and its operations and personnel to be gleaned from these people. Locations of cells change, personnel move on or are killed, communication methods and methods of attack are being revised in real time, and any cell with a member confined at Gitmo long ago changed to adapt to that certain knowledge.

    Torture is barbaric, but when it is done with no reasonable expectation of results it speaks clearly to even deeper-seated psychological defects in the people ordering and carrying out the torture.

    We are breeding a class of totally amoral and immoral interrogators that can never serve any purpose but ill, and, sadly, this is ACTIVELY SUPPORTED by the bush/cheney maladministration and his republican guard that even now are circling the wagons to prevent a thorough investigation by the incoming democratically controlled Congress.

    Where are the CHRISTIANS in this country and why are they failing to speak out and condemn these acts? Where are the statesmen of old who would never countenance such conduct by the government? Where is the heart and soul of the "common man" raised in freedom and taught to honor human rights and the dignity of person? Where are the "wise old men" of the republican party that forced Nixon to resign for the good of the country and WHY have they not forced wiser counsel upon bush?

    My heart bleeds for my country, land that I love, but no longer recognize, and my mind reels at the enormity of our mistakes in torturing people strictly for the sake of torturing them without expectation of gaining any information of current value.

    Torture 'r' U.S. (of America) and we are now, by government fiat, all complicit the commission of these horrors.

    Any comment from Mr. Goode? (4.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Kitt on Tue Jan 02, 2007 at 10:53:07 PM EST
    After all, he's shifting into overdrive now.


    He seems intent on (none / 0) (#6)
    by Edger on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 09:40:37 AM EST
    heading for the cliff.

    Parent
    The FBI (none / 0) (#11)
    by Che's Lounge on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 02:49:41 PM EST
    What a bunch of wimps, eh Jim?

    C'mon Bro.... (none / 0) (#12)
    by kdog on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 03:12:41 PM EST
    its common knowledge that a night in a stiffling hot-box is an everyday American fraternity prank.

    Parent