Washington — A U.S. congressional report indicates that abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has compromised the moral authority and credibility of the United States in thwarting global terrorism.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, which has congressional oversight of the Defense Department and the U.S. armed forces, released a report December 11 on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody following an 18-month investigation.

“The committee's report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody. These policies are wrong and must never be repeated,” said Senator John McCain of Arizona, the most senior Republican on the committee.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat of Michigan, said that the abuses cited in the report “at Abu Ghraib, GTMO [Guantánamo Bay] and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples.”

The senators said abuses of detainees by both the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military were the direct result of Bush administration detention policies. “The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees,” Levin said.

“Our investigation is an effort to set the record straight on this chapter in our history that has so damaged both America's standing and our security.”

CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

Congressional oversight used by the Armed Services Committee in its 18-month investigation refers to the review, monitoring and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities and policy implementation, says researcher Frederick Kaiser of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which is part of the Library of Congress.

“Congress exercises this power largely through its standing committee system,” he said in a 2001 CRS report on the work of Congress. The power of oversight is implied power that is derived from the U.S. Constitution and is part of what is commonly referred to as traditional checks and balances each of the three branches — executive, legislative and judicial — of the U.S. government have.

COMMITTEE REPORT'S FINDINGS

Levin set up an investigative unit from his committee staff that reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents and conducted extensive interviews of more than 70 individuals, including a number of senior civilian and military officials. Public hearings were held by the Armed Services Committee on June 17 and again on September 25, Levin said.

Several key elements influenced the eventual treatment of detainees in U.S. custody, the report said. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training — which is given to members of the military's special operations forces, pilots and other military personnel to prepare them to resist interrogation by enemies who torture and abuse prisoners — provided the basis for the treatment of detainees, the report concluded.

That action followed a conclusion by President Bush on February 7, 2002, that detainees were not subject to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded detainees minimum standards of humane treatment. The Geneva Conventions establish the laws of war and the treatment of prisoners of war and military conflict.

One of the report's conclusions is that “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct result of detainee abuse there.” And the report concluded that Rumsfeld's authorization for harsh techniques at Guantánamo became known to interrogators in Afghanistan. And a copy of Rumsfeld's memorandum of December 2, 2002, authorizing such treatment was sent from Guantánamo to Afghanistan, the report said.

The report also concluded that aggressive interrogation techniques that were developed for Guantanamo detainees were also implemented at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Armed Services Committee also concluded in its report, made public in Washington, that members of the president's Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. The report said the CIA used at least one of the SERE techniques in its interrogations of detainees.

The report also said that legal opinions from the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) interpreted legal obligations under U.S. anti-torture laws and determined the legality of CIA interrogation techniques. “Those OLC opinions distorted the meaning and intent of anti-torture laws, rationalized the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody and influenced Department of Defense determinations as to what interrogation techniques were legal for use during interrogations conducted by U.S. military personnel,” the report concluded.

The executive summary (PDF, 80KB) of the Senate Armed Services Committee report, Levin’s statement on part one of the committee’s inquiry and Levin’s statement on part two of the inquiry are available at the committee chairman’s Web site.