A leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross interviewed 14 people who had been detained at CIA "black sites" and found harrowing stories of torture and abuse at the hands of the U.S. government:
Often using the detainee's own words, the report offers a harrowing view of conditions at the secret prisons, where prisoners were told they were being taken "to the verge of death and back," according to one excerpt. During interrogations, the captives were routinely beaten, doused with cold water and slammed head-first into walls. Between sessions, they were stripped of clothing, bombarded with loud music, exposed to cold temperatures, and deprived of sleep and solid food for days on end. Some detainees described being forced to stand for days, with their arms shackled above them, wearing only diapers.The Obama administration has ordered the black sites closed and bound the CIA to interrogation methods described in the Army Field Manual. But it has also blocked any and all attempts at civil litigation from the victims of these practices, invoking the state-secrets doctrine in two cases involving rendition, Mohamed v. Jeppsen, and Rasul v. Rumsfeld. It has similarly urged the dismissal of Jose Padilla's civil suit against John Yoo. Despite the fact that the details of the illegal torture and abuse of terror suspects is well known, and the Obama administration's moves to end such practices, it has at every turn protected the previous administration's policies from public scrutiny. We know that laws were broken, and we know who urged those laws to be broken, but the Obama administration has done its best to prevent those individuals from being held accountable."On a daily basis . . . a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room," the report quotes detainee Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Walid Muhammad bin Attash, as saying. Later, he said, he was wrapped in a plastic sheet while cold water was "poured onto my body with buckets." He added: "I would be wrapped inside the sheet with cold water for several minutes. Then I would be taken for interrogation."
This is behavior that is irreconcilable with a society that abides by the rule of law, and the more details come out about detainee abuse under the Bush administration, the more the Obama administration's efforts to avoid prosecuting those responsible appear to be an attempt to preserve the kind of executive power that Obama himself once criticized. The Obama administration did not do these things...but they are hiding them.
-- A. Serwer
