Articles/transcripts on U.S. torture, 2004-2008
Below is a timeline of articles and transcripts related to the U.S.'s use of torture. It is listed from 2004 to July 31, 2008; it is fascinating to notice, as one scrolls through the list, the progression of infromation and revelation about the use of torture. Many thanks to Emily Thrush, who spent a year with the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns through the Discipleship Year program, for her compilation of this list.
A timeline to Bush government torture, Salon, Mark Benjamin, reviews from July 2002 – April 2004 (written June 18, 2008)
Torture At Abu Ghraib: American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go? The New Yorker, Seymour M. Hersh, May 10, 2004
CIA Flying Suspects to Torture?, 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley, March 6, 2005. On practice of rendition – started during Clinton’s administration and enhanced by Bush’s.
Silence on suffering, International Justice Mission, Gary A. Haugen, October 17, 2005
The Torture Test, AlterNet, Ray McGovern, November 7, 2005
CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described, ABC News, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, November 18, 2005
Five Reasons Torture is Always Wrong, Christianity Today, David P. Gushee, February 1, 2006
Letter to Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Department of Social Development and World Peace, June 16, 2006
USA Military Commissions Act of 2006: Turning Bad Policy into Bad Laws, Amnesty International, September 29, 2006
Q & A: Military Commissions Act of 2006; Introduction Human Rights Watch, October 2006
8 Reasons to Close Guantánamo Now – In These Times, Karen J. Greenberg, February 12, 2007
Confessions of a Torturer: The story of Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis, Chicago Reader, John Conroy, March 2, 2007
Remarks by Col. Dan Smith, posted on FCNL website, June 2, 2007: “[W]e are here to have a conversation about torture and what can be done to stop its use under any pretext and regardless of any excuse, spin, or justification by security personnel – military, police, special police, border patrol, intelligence-gathering organizations, prison guards, and yes, by individuals acting on their own.”
Justice Scalia cites Jack Bauer as example in discussion over torture, Globe & Mail (Canada), Colin Freeze, June 20, 2007
Pushing the envelope on presidential power, Washington Post, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, June 25, 2007
Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the CIA, The White House, July 20, 2007
Law and executive disorder: President gives green light to secret detention program, Amnesty International statement on Executive Order, July 20, 2007
Conscience of a conservative, New York Times Sunday Magazine, Jeffrey Rosen, September 9, 2007
Rev. George Hunsinger's testimony in front of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, September 25, 2007: “Sadism is not born but made. That is why torture, once chosen, cannot readily be contained, and is soon preferred. Torture, once chosen, both proliferates and corrupts.”
President Bush’s Speech to General Assembly at UN, September 25, 2007. Invokes the Declaration of Human Rights as a guide to “our work in this world.”
Iran President Vows to Ignore UN Measures, New York Times, Warren Hoge, September 26, 2007: Quotes President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran: “‘Certain powers,’ he said in a thinly veiled reference to Washington, were ‘setting up secret prisons, abducting persons, trials and secret punishments without any regard to due process, extensive tapping of telephone conversations, intercepting private mail.’”
“Bush, at UN, Announces Stricter Burmese Sanctions: Cites Six Other ‘Brutal Regimes’ for Abuses” – New York Times, Steven Lee Myers, September 26, 2007. “Mr. Bush referred repeatedly to the declaration [of Human Rights], citing its first article, ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,’ as well as the 23rd, 25th and 26th articles, which call for access to employment, health care and education. … The declaration, a nonbinding resolution that was negotiated in 1948, calls on countries to protect a wide array of rights, including freedom of speech, assembly and religion, while prohibiting slavery, torture and arbitrary detention.”
Interview with Douglas Johnson, executive director of Center for Victims of Torture, Democracy Now!, September 28, 2007
Secret U.S. endorsement of severe interrogations, New York Times, Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen, October 4, 2007
Bush Defends Treatment of Terrorism Suspects, New York Times, David Johnston and Scott Shane, October 5, 2007: “’“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,’ [Sen. John] Rockefeller wrote.”
Tortured Logic: A Doctor's View on Torture, Newsweek, Dean Ornish, MD, October 18, 2007
Testifying Before Congress, Rendition Victim Maher Arar Gets Apology from Bipartisan Lawmakers but None from White House, Democracy Now!, October 24, 2007
Memo on nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General from former U.S. intelligence officers, Counterpunch, November 6, 2007
Interview with Naomi Klein on waterboarding, Democracy Now!, November 7, 2007
Torture victims find U.S. a source of hope and new fears, National Catholic Reporter, Mike Newall, November 9, 2007
Fact Check: Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Waterboarding, Human Rights Watch, February 1, 2008
Unforgivable Behavior, Inadmissible Evidence, New York Times, Morris Davis, February 18, 2008
Rigged Trials at Guantánamo: Interview with Ross Tuttle and Scott Horton, Democracy Now!, February 20, 2008
Rigged Trials at Gitmo, The Nation, Ross Tuttle, February 20, 2008
Religious leaders' letter to Bush, urging him to sign anti-torture provision into law, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, February 28, 2008
Department of Homeland Security report on Maher Arar to House Judiciary, March 2008. Report finds the procedure followed by INS “appropriate.”
Mini-Conference on Torture, March 7, 2008: On March 7, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) hosted an interfaith mini-conference on U.S.-sponsored torture at the Church of the Reformation, just blocks from the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. Rev. Richard Killmer, Executive Director of NRCAT, moderated the event. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), presented on the reality of U.S.-sponsored torture. Rev. Carol Wickersham, president of No2Torture, gave a Christian response; Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, board member of Rabbis for Human Rights, gave a Jewish response; and Mohamed Elsanousi, Director of Communications and Community Outreach for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), gave a Muslim response to the reality of torture. The panel had time to take some questions and comments, and the mini-conference ended with people browsing tables of resources and action opportunities that NRCAT provided.
Ray McGovern offered five reasons why torture is wrong, beginning with the least critical argument of the manifold options available:
5) Torture gives the United States a bad name
4) Torture endangers our own troops: not just physically but psychologically and emotionally
3) Torture brutalizes the brutalizers
2) Torture does not work – confirmed by some of the highest military officials
1) Torture is not wrong because laws are against it; laws prohibit torture because torture is fundamentally and philosophically wrong.
Bush vetoes anti-torture provision
On March 8, President Bush vetoed the Intelligence Authorization Bill that included an anti-torture provision that many human rights groups labeled as a positive first step in rebuilding the reputation of the U.S. to our global community.
Both houses of Congress passed the conference report, but after Bush vetoed the bill, the House tried in vain to overturn the veto. They could not garner enough support for a 2/3 majority.
Sen. John Rockefeller (WV) chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. In this press release after the Senate passed the bill (December 5, 2007), Rockefeller stated, “Interrogation can and should be carried out using techniques that have been used with success by military and law enforcement interrogators for decades. A separate program shrouded in secrecy, however well intentioned, plays into the hands of our enemies. Interrogation experts have told the Committee that enhanced techniques are not necessary to get critical and reliable intelligence, and in fact, they can result in bad information.”
Bush's radio address after vetoing Intelligence Authorization Bill, March 8, 2008:
The bill Congress sent me would deprive the CIA of the authority to use these safe and lawful techniques. Instead, it would restrict the CIA's range of acceptable interrogation methods to those provided in the Army Field Manual. The procedures in this manual were designed for use by soldiers questioning lawful combatants captured on the battlefield. They were not intended for intelligence professionals trained to question hardened terrorists.”
The best source of information about terrorist attacks is the terrorists themselves. If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the Field Manual, we could lose vital information from senior al Qaida terrorists, and that could cost American lives.”
The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied. Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists. This would end an effective program that Congress authorized just over a year ago. “
A Legacy of Torture, Washington Post, Dan Froomkin, March 10, 2008
House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Liberties & Civil Rights – From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules
Statement on habeas corpus case, Center for American Progress, June 12, 2008
Statement on habeas corpus case, Center for Constitutional Rights, June 12, 2008
Transcript of Supreme Court decision on Bournediene v. Bush, June 12, 2008
Interview with Vincent Warren, Center for Constitutional Rights, Democracy Now!, June 13, 2008
GITMO series from McClatchy Newspapers: An eight-month investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.
America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men, June 15, 2008
U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases, June 16, 2008
Militants found recruits among Guantanamo's wrongly detained, June 17, 2008
Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret, June 18, 2008
Taliban ambassador wielded power within Guantanamo, June 19, 2008
Testimony of Alberto J. Mora, former General Counsel of the Department of the Navy, June 17, 2008. Senate Armed Services Committee: Hearing on the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody: “The choice of the adjectives ‘harsh’ or ‘enhanced’ to describe these interrogation techniques is euphemistic and misleading. The more precise legal term is ‘cruel.’ Many of the ‘counter-resistance techniques’ authorized for use at Guantánamo in December 2002 constitute ‘cruel, inhuman, or degrading’ treatment that could, depending on their application, easily cross the threshold of torture.”
Testimony of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret), former chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, to House Judiciary Subcommittee, June 18, 2008: “I needed to balance, in my own mind, the overwhelming evidence that my own government had sanctioned abuse and torture which, at its worst, had led to the murder of 25 detainees in a total of at least a 100 detainee deaths. Death, Mr. Chairman, seems to me to be the ultimate torture, indisputable and final. We had murdered 25 or more people in detention; that was the clear low point of the evidence.”
Highlights and analysis of statements by David Addington and John Yoo in front of House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Democracy Now!, June 27, 2008
China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo New York Times, Scott Shane, July 2, 2008
Statement of Philippe Sands before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Liberties & Civil Rights: From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules - Part IV, July 15, 2008
Testimony by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, House Judiciary Subcommittee, July 17, 2008
Response of Attorney General Michael Mukasey in response to Boumediene v. Bush, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, July 21, 2008
In Detainee Trial, System is Tested, New York Times, William Glaberson, July 29, 2008
A Torture Paper Trail, Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, July 29, 2008