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Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin. | |
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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.