Dunleavy described the chaos he found when he arrived: a lack of security and control over detainees who would riot and throw food and turned items like spoons, magnets and welding rods into weapons. He said his interrogators were virtually inexperienced and that the military linguists “were worthless.”
He also wrote, “The mission was to get intelligence to prevent another 9/11.”
Dunleavy said physical torture would not produce intelligence, but instead they needed to build rapport and create a “dependency relationship” with prayer beads and the Koran. He said he treated detainees “as human beings, but not like soldiers” and denied there was any torture.
One interrogator had to be removed, Dunleavy said, after the interrogator “physically mishandled” a detainee, belting and handcuffing him to an eyebolt on the floor. An FBI agent was removed after “he went across the desk at a detainee” after the detainee threatened to kill his family, Dunleavy said.
Dunleavy said his “best interrogator” was prosecuted and that another officer was removed after it became apparent he was an alcoholic who secretly drank in his room every night.
Loud music and yelling were used to disrupt detainees’ thought process, Dunleavy said. Chaining a detainee in a fetal position was “not a normal procedure,” he said, but may have been used to secure a prisoner who leapt at an interrogator.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commanded Guantánamo from late 2002 to March 2004, said in another newly released document that he had rejected a proposal to use the harsh techniques employed by survival trainers to prepare American troops for combat. He said some of the techniques “went beyond what I felt comfortable with.”
Another set of memos, dated 2004, described how a detainee was knocked unconscious for several minutes by guards while he was being forcibly removed from his cell.
In another memo, a Marine officer recommended an investigation into a report by “one of the most, if not the most, cooperative and influential detainees” at Guantánamo, who alleged he was tortured at the facility between August and October 2003 by methods involving women, sleep deprivation and exposure to cold.
Most of the details of the detainee’s account were blacked out. But he said he once was forced to stay awake for 70 days, that interrogators put ice all over his body directly against his skin inside his clothes, and that there was a room that the detainees called the “freezer.” He said he made a false confession while being tortured.
Another document detailed “troubling” interrogation techniques used against the detainee during that period, including a threat that if he didn’t talk he would “soon disappear down a very dark hole” and that his “very existence would be erased.”
The documents and memos were turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. According to the ACLU:
“These documents provide still more evidence of the widespread and systemic abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other overseas locations. They further underscore the need for a congressional select committee to examine the roots of the torture program as well as an independent prosecutor to investigate issues of criminal responsibility.“Key details relating to the Defense Department’s use of illegal and abusive interrogation methods have, however, been redacted from these documents. In some documents, the Obama administration has even withheld details previously disclosed by the Bush administration. The withholding of this information makes a mockery of President Obama’s promise of transparency.”
Filed under: Canada, FBI, Guantanamo, Interrogation, Torture
