Public Employee Press

Bush policies tarnish nation’s image

The abusive interrogation practices of the U.S. military and CIA in Iraq and the war against terrorism violate the fundamental democratic values of the United States and are tearing down the country’s image as a strong defender of human rights.

“Since 9/11, torture has been brought into the open, and the Bush administration claims that it is legitimate and necessary,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has challenged the administration’s curtailment of the legal rights of detainees.

On the day of the terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush told his counterterrorism staff, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say. We are going to kick some ass.”

In 2004, the photos of the torture of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison inflamed the debate about the use of torture already underway in the United States.

Before then, a remarkably public discussion occurred about “enhanced” interrogation techniques — a euphemism for torture — as Bush administration attorneys sought to justify the brutal treatment of detainees. Through legal maneuvering, the administration tried to circumvent the Geneva Conventions’ worldwide ban on torture.

“The administration gave the impression that this is a very complex legal subject and that its lawyers have ensured that the president has authorized interrogation techniques that do not violate international law and human rights standards,” said Scott Horton, chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Law. “But you need to look at the legal issues in the context of what has actually happened on the ground, which is clearly torture.”

Human Rights First attorney Priti Patel charged that the Bush administration performed “hoola hoops” with the legal definition of torture to protect CIA operatives from prosecution for human rights violations.

The New York City Bar Association is particularly alarmed about four of the practices that Bush claimed were not torture: stressful positions; sleep and sensory deprivation; prolonged exposure to heat and cold; and waterboarding, which involves submerging detainees in water to simulate drowning.

Torture is physical or mental brutality. It brings to mind barbaric practices like beating, pulling out fingernails, sexual humiliation, rape, mutilation and electric shocks.

“These methods are not effective,” said Dr. Allen S. Keller, director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture at Bellevue Hospital. Most health care professionals — and even FBI and police interrogators — believe torture isn’t a reliable way to extract accurate information from prisoners. “Torture is more about control than getting information,” Keller said.

For decades, the CIA’s favorite torture method has been subjecting detainees to sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain caused by physically stressful positions, according to Alfred W. McCoy, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror.”

The use of sensory deprivation and stressful positions by the United States includes making detainees wear goggles and locking them up in rooms where they are kept awake for days through beatings and loud music. Detainees have reportedly been forced to stand for hours, often on one foot, and kept naked for long periods in air-conditioned rooms.

Outdated, ineffective methods
“Physiological studies show that if people are forced to remain standing for three to four hours, fluid builds up in their legs and they can collapse,” Horton said. “Kidney failure can occur after 10 hours. Detainees deprived of sleep may become delusional after two days.”
In May, a study by the government’s Intelligence Science Board called these harsh interrogation methods unprofessional, outdated and ineffective.

Human rights groups say reports of torture have declined since the early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a result of domestic and international condemnation of Bush’s policy.

In 2005, the Detainee Treatment Act required the U.S. Army to prohibit torture. Earlier this year, the U.S. command in Iraq ordered military personnel to refrain from torturing prisoners.

But under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, President Bush basically has the power to determine what interrogation techniques are regarded as torture and abuse. The act allows the president to decide in secret what treatment is allowed in the CIA’s clandestine prisons. It also protects intelligence agents and their superiors from being punished for past violations.

Currently, an expected executive order about permissible interrogation techniques is under debate within the Bush administration. “We are certainly hopeful that the right side will win out and that the administration will conclude that torture shouldn’t occur,” said Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director for the United States at Human Rights Watch.

But meanwhile, the United States’ reputation as a guardian of democratic principles and human rights remains deeply scarred.

— Gregory N. Heires