Fresh Details Emerge on Harsh Methods at Guantanamo

The New York Times > National > Fresh Details Emerge on Harsh Methods at Guantanamo:

There have been many reports about prisoner abuse/torture in American detention camps (see, for example, here, here, and here) in the last several months. There's no significant new information in this article, but that's not to say either that it does not add detailed understanding to the story of prisoner abuse/torture in American detention camps (a phrase I have difficulty even writing), and that it doesn't provide further evidence of the extent of official involvement with such abuse.

"Interviews with former intelligence officers and interrogators provided new details and confirmed earlier accounts of inmates being shackled for hours and left to soil themselves while exposed to blaring music or the insistent meowing of a cat-food commercial. In addition, some may have been forcibly given enemas as punishment."

"The clearest indication that senior commanders at Guantánamo were aware of and supported what was occurring may be in some F.B.I. memorandums. One, dated May 10, 2003, and written by an unidentified agent, describes a sharp exchange between bureau officials and General Miller and Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, who was in charge of the intelligence operations at Guantánamo then.

"Both sides agreed that the bureau has its way of doing things and the D.O.D. has their marching orders from SecDef," the memorandum said, using abbreviations for the Department of Defense and the secretary of defense. "Although the two techniques differed drastically, both generals believed they had a job to do."