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Government

‘Torture’: New Human Rights Report Claims Broader Evidence of Bush-Era Waterboarding & Torture

Sep. 6, 2012 6:53am Billy Hallowell

CAIRO (AP) — Human Rights Watch said it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding in American interrogations of detainees than has been acknowledged by the United States, in a report Thursday that details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era U.S. program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.

The report also paints a more complete picture of Washington’s close cooperation with the regime of Libya’s former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin “diplomatic assurances” that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch Claims New Evidence of Waterboarding, Torture

FILE - In this Saturday, Aug. 27, 2011 file photo, Libyans search for documents inside Abu Salim prison, Libya's most notorious prison of Gadhafi's regime and the scene of a 1996 massacre of prisoners, in Tripoli, Libya. A new report by New York-based Human Rights Watch reveals details about abuse and torture of Libyan Islamist detainees by their own government and the US and cooperation between Libya led by dictator Moammar Gadhafi and other governments, including the US, Britain, China, Sudan and Morocco, in the rendition program. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

The 154-page report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were held in U.S.-led detention centers in Afghanistan – some as long as two years – or in U.S.-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them over to Libya.

“Not only did the U.S. deliver (Gadhafi) his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first, said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.

“The scope of the Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged,” she said.

The report comes days after the Justice Department announced it would not bring criminal charges against any CIA personnel over severe interrogation methods used in the detention and rendition program. Investigators said they could not prove any interrogators went beyond guidelines authorized by the Bush administration. Rights activists and some Obama administration officials say even the authorized techniques constituted torture, though the CIA and Bush administration argue they do not.

Any new instances of waterboarding, however, would go beyond the three that the CIA has said were authorized.

George W. Bush (Photo Credit: National Geographic Channel)

Former President George W. Bush, his Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA have said that the method was used on only three senior al-Qaida suspects at secret CIA black sites in Thailand and Poland – Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Aby Zubayda and Abd al-Rahman al-Nashiri, all currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The technique involves pouring water on a hooded detainee’s nose and mouth until he feels he is drowning.

The 14 Libyans interviewed by Human Rights Watch were swept up in the American hunt for Islamic militants and al-Qaida figures around the world after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They were mostly members of the anti-Gadhafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who fled in the 1980s and 1990s to Pakistan, Afghanistan and African countries. The group ran training camps in Afghanistan at the same time al-Qaida was based there but it largely shunned Osama bin Laden and his campaign against the United States, focusing instead on fighting Gadhafi.

Ironically, the U.S. turned around and helped the Libyan opposition overthrow Gadhafi in 2011. Now several of the 14 former detainees hold positions in the new Libyan government.

The accounts of new uses of simulated drowning came from two former detainees, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya and Khaled al-Sharif, who also described a gamut of abuses they went through. The two were seized in Pakistan in April 2003 and taken to U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, where al-Shoroeiya was held for 16 months and al-Sharif for two years before they were handed over to Libya.

In Afghanistan, they were shackled in cells for months in variety of positions, often naked in almost total darkness with music blaring continuously, left to defecate and urinate on themselves. For example, al-Sharif spent three weeks seated on the ground in his cell with his ankles and wrists chained to a ring in the wall, forcing him to keep his arms and legs elevated. He said he was taken out of his shackles once a day for a half-hour to eat.

For the first three months, they were not allowed to bathe. “We looked like monsters,” al-Shoroeiya said.

Al-Shoroeiya described being locked naked for a day and a half in a tall, narrow, half-meter-wide (1 1/2-foot-wide) chamber with his hands chained above his head, with no food as Western music blasted loudly from speakers next to his ears the entire time.

At another point, he was stuffed into a 1 meter by 1 meter (3 foot by 3 foot) box resembling a footlocker and kept there for more than an hour as interrogators prodded him with long, thin objects through holes in the side of the box.

Both he and Sharif said they were repeatedly taken to a room where they were slammed against a wooden wall and punched in the abdomen.

Al-Shoroeiya said one female American interrogator told him, “Now you are under the custody of the United States of America. In this place there will be no human rights. Since September 11, we have forgotten about something called human rights,” according to the report.

Al-Shoroeiya described being waterboarded, though he did not use the term. He said he was put in a hood and strapped upside down on a wooden board. Freezing water was poured over his nose and mouth until he felt he was suffocating. During several half-hour interrogation sessions, they would waterboard him multiple times, asking him questions in between while a doctor monitored his body temperature.

“They wouldn’t stop until they got some sort of answer from me,” he told HRW.

Al-Sharif described a similar technique. Instead of being strapped to a board, he was put on a plastic sheet with guards holding up the edges, while freezing water was poured over him, including onto his hooded face directly over his mouth and nose.

“I felt as if I were suffocating,” he told HRW. “I spent three months getting interrogated heavily … and they gave me a different kind of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not.”

Asked about the new accounts, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said the agency “has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases” of the use of waterboarding.

She said she could not comment on the specific allegations but noted the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute after it “exhaustively reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees in the post-9/11 period – including allegations involving unauthorized interrogation techniques.”

Barack Obama (Photo Credit: AP)

The Obama administration has ordered a halt to waterboarding and many of the severe techniques authorized by its predecessors.

Others of the 14 former detainees in the Human Rights Watch described similar conditions as al-Shoroeiya and al-Sharif, particularly three held in the same U.S.-led prisons in Afghanistan.

One of them, Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi, said he nearly went insane in isolation after months being shackled naked in dark, freezing cells with music blaring, pounding his head against the wall and screaming, “I want to die, why don’t you just kill me?”

Another, detained in Mauretania, said that during interrogations by a foreigner he believed was American, his wife was brought to the detention center; his captors showed him his wife through a peephole and threatened to rape her if he did not cooperate.

Human Rights Watch said the U.S. failed in its post-9/11 campaign to distinguish between Islamists targeting the United States and those who “may simply have been engaged in armed opposition against their own repressive regimes.

“This failure risked aligning the United States with brutal dictators,” the report said.

Eight of those interviewed were handed over to Libya in 2004 – the same year then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a public rapprochement with Gadhafi and Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell signed a major exploration deal off the Libyan coast, the HRW report noted. The remaining six were transferred to Libya over the two following years.

All were jailed by Gadhafi’s regime, most of them freed only after his fall. Most said they were not physically tortured – perhaps a result of Gadhafi’s attempts to mend fences with the West – but were kept in solitary confinement for long periods. Several, however, told HRW they were beaten and tortured, including being given electrical shocks.

The report also calls into question Libyan claims that one figure handed over by the Americans, Ibn el-Sheikh al-Libi, committed suicide in a Libyan prison. Al-Libi was held in U.S. secret prisons for years after 2001 and gave information under torture by the Egyptians that the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq but was later discredited. After his handover, Libyan authorities said he hanged himself in his cell. But HRW researchers said they were shown photos of his body that showed signs of torture.

Messages to Libya from the CIA and British intelligence among the Tripoli Documents published by HRW indicated the United States and Britain were eager to help Libya obtain several senior LIFG figures, including its co-founders, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi.

Belhaj and his then-pregnant wife were detained by Malaysia with the help of British intelligence and then handed over to the CIA in Thailand, where he told HRW he was stripped and beaten. They were then taken to Libya, where Belhaj was imprisoned.

After Belhaj arrived in Libya, a message believed to be from the then-head of counterterrorism at British intelligence congratulates the Libyan intelligence chief. Britain’s help “was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built,” he wrote.

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Comments (38)

Arshloch
Posted on September 7, 2012 at 1:25pm
To receive ‘human rights’ one first needs to be human, these animals DO NOT qualify. The only problem I have with waterboarding these animals is that, when all useful information was extracted, they should have been drowned in the toilet.

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sizzlinsexybeckster
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 10:02pm
This is the same inappropriate inhumane sadistic torturous actions Joseph Stalin and his men used before and during WWII. ………. hold on a minute…… is this information finally coming out now only for the Obama Administration to blame the Bush Era after WWIII begins? There are too many sneaky plans blowing in the mist. I highly apologize to any humans, foreign or domestic, who were or are currently being tortured by the American government and it’s employees. It’s rude. You do NOT stoop low to accomplish anything. Why didn’t these people learn to rise above conflict and terror to achieve goals? As if you didn’t know that now their whole country will hate us even more and retaliate? I sure as heck didn’t personally do anything, nor did most of the people in this country to hurt anyone. Yes, this information is finally slipping into the media to purposely blame the Bush Era for WWIII that will soon come so Obama can claim Martial Law. I’m tired of people not knowing the truth about how Bush and Clinton purposely paved the way for WWIII to come closer to their one world government and one world religion and have adopted Obama who they investigated years ago and knew he would be willingly to pull it off along with his foreign terrorist friends. They don’t care about anyone except themselves. These human animals are a disgrace and the herd has become their rioting puppets. Shame.

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The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 2:43pm
Who cares anymore?

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- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 3:04pm
  Certainly not people who believe in the rule of law or the superior moral standing of the United States.
  
  Report this comment
- Ramrod64
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:53pm
  hell with waterboarding wash them with soap and water now that real torture!
  
  Report this comment
needmoinfo
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 2:20pm
Military necessity. And they all do it. Most worse than us. Some may be mutilated but a lot more come home alive because of it. Who knows if the information recovered averted more 911s. This does not belong in the public forum.
Do you think if you ask them pretty please they will like you and tell their plans to blow up a stadium next week? This enemy with his secrets is more important in his cush cell with his soccer field and his art lessons than You and all your coworkers in a high rise right? Torture him or a mass burial. So hard to choose.

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- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 3:03pm
  Torutre is not anything anwhere close to a military necessity and should not be supported or practiced by any person who believes in the concept of ‘pro-life’.
  
  Most people on here are not in fact pro-life, they are simply anti-abortion.
  
  Report this comment
All Pro
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 2:15pm
I’m glad to see that all of the conservatives and TEA party people approve of the torture of suspected terrorists. According to the DHS and the NDAA YOU are terrorists. That means you are going to get the pleasure of experiencing all of this up close and personal.
It isn’t a question of whether or not waterboarding is effective. It is. We used it in Vietnam. Sure we killed a few people but unlike connecting the leads of a field transformer to a prisoner’s testicles it doesn’t leave any marks so good luck proving it. We learned it from the Japanese in WWII.
The question is whether or not it’s right to do it. We have become that which we claim to hate. We have met the enemy and he is us.

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- cantstandlibs
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 2:32pm
  It is usually pointless to engage the moronic left, America-hating “progressives.” Do you not think the greatest society ever imagined (and getting “more perfect” by the decade) is worthy of self preservation, even by possibly extreme and distasteful tactics? Of course you don’t. Ameh-wica bad, you know they had slavery once… as if the only place in the world with slavery was here. And don’t forget, half the states were strongly against slavery at the founding.
  
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hades3
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 1:46pm
Ahhhhh. Human Rights Watch has such credibility. It is made up of third world dictators, who have exterminated their own people. Now it is headed by the leader of Iran, who is supporting terrorism all over the Middle East, including Iraq, and last but not least Egypt, where thousands of civilians are being slaughtered, heaven forbid they be waterboarded, it’s better they be slaughteres outright according to some. Those being murdered are children. It’s sad they don’t value human life as America does. Oh, wait, the Democrats don’t value human life, they advocate thousands of life taking procedures year after year, known as a “womans right to choose”. So much for human rights.

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The Third Archon
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 1:26pm
For those of you who don’t think waterboarding is torture, following WWII we executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded our POWs for, guess what, torture.

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- cantstandlibs
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 1:52pm
  It may be torture, though certainly I would not compare it to bamboo under the fingernails. However, it IS a moot point regarding the rules of warfare because the terrorists are NOT covered under the Geneva conventions. I say if they attack us, we respond as necessary, extract information needed to protect our population and society, and they can thank us we have spared their miserable lives.
  
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- The Third Archon
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 1:55pm
  I don’t care about any of those points–my only point was the hypocrisy with regards to the legal treatment of the act and the definitional hypocrisy as well (“it’s torture if happens to US, but it’s not if we inflict it upon others”).
  
  Report this comment
- stelin1998
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 2:14pm
  Ah, but waterboarding was probably the most humane of their offenses. The one Japanese soldier used in most of these examples, Yukio Asano, was actually not executed but imprisoned for 15 years due to numerous vicious acts against prisoners.
  Please give the actual name of a Japanese soldier executed solely for waterboarding. Easy to verify these days so be careful. If you lie you may look like you’re a Progressive or something.
  
  Report this comment
floridareader
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 12:54pm
Here it comes: another distraction from Obama’s failure and the circus the DNC has become.

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two4america
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 11:13am
Maybe we could also get the U.N. Human Rights Council members China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia to weigh in on all our country’s human rights violations. Maybe they could help us set up a Chop Chop Square like in Saudi. They could help us impose their “human rights” here: impose the death penalty not only for murder, but also rape, armed robbery, repeated drug use, apostasy, adultery, witchcraft and sorcery, by beheading with a sword, firing squad, and stoning. In Saudi, there were 345 executions between 2007 and 2010 by public beheading, an execution for sorcery in 2012, and between 1981 and 1992 four executions by stoning. Sometimes there is even crucifixion of the beheaded body, like in 2009. Saudi Arabia has a criminal justice system based on Sharia law due to Islam being the official state religion.

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two4america
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 11:11am
Human Rights Watch, headquartered in New York City, primarily funded by The George Soros Open Society Foundation ($100 Million, paid out over ten years in $10 Million annual installments) has “uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding…further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era U.S. program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.”

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watashbuddyfriend
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 10:26am
Did they get results? Yes! Good!

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riseandshine
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 10:05am
Psyops

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loveoursoldiers
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:54am
Do the human rights people talk about the torture and killing of babies via abortion? just curious
also… Obama doesn’t waterboard he just bombs via drones and assassinates them.. hmmmm human rights silent on that?
btw.. Obama boasting about OBL murder would not have happened without intel from certain techniques
human rights silent on ‘honor killings”.. rape and murder of women in the middle east??

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RIGS
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:54am
HEY!!!!! Do you need donations to pay the water bill. GOOD JOB!!!!!!!!!!

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Detroit paperboy
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:38am
And they found some things out about Franklin Roosevelt and world war two also………ooooohhhh….and by the way, the more torture of terror suspects THE BETTER………

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- objectivetruth
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 10:02am
  Yeah the nazis and their ME connections have been in this country and commiting barbarious crimes for over half a centuary.Where is the outrage and prosecution of them?Oh thats right that will come when one of their own is foot strapped sexually tortured beaten exc by the barbarians.Not one damn minute before either.
  
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- Wango
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 11:24am
  DETROIT . .. You believe we should torture “suspects” . . . Good. I suspect you are a terrorist. Sorry, but we have to get to the bottom of this. Here’s your hood. Enjoy.
  
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EqualJustice
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:35am
Human Rights report and JUST in time for the election! How convenient 6 years later……

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NCalGrammi
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:01am
Hurray! Keep it coming! I thought they were just a bunch of wimps, but evidently not! They need to get tougher and keep “torturing,’ not become friends of the enemy by meeting and talking with them.

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Hookmon
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:40am
My only comment is…”what’s so bad about torturing Muslims?”

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chalkdust
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:25am
So if I condone this I risk my very soul and my countries soul. If I don’t condone this I risk my countries survival and safety.

What good is safety if we lose the very essence that makes us different from the rest of the world.

I think we have already made this trade, albeit implicitly. Barbarism in the name of security means we will never have security.

I don’t condone this nor will I argue over what constitutes torture. ‘It’s just a little torture’ and ‘they’re alive aren’t they’, all moral relativism.

But who am I kidding? This will probably continue in my name and yours and my silly moral outrage will not save me or you.

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- toiletclogga
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:35am
  And that is why we have people in the CIA who are willing to do what most are not willing to do. There are those in this world who would like to see you, me, and many other Americans dead. These covert operations ensure that we minimalize the effectiveness of these people. Sometimes ensuring the protection of the USA entails extraordinary measures. It amazes me how people believe certain rules should only apply to one side.
  
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toiletclogga
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:14am
And we are to believe these people because? Islamists know the weakness of America lies at the heart of Democrat leadership! Watch how this “new” information is used by the Dems!

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rambosharley
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:14am
I’ve been ‘tortured’ living under this repressive communist regime that obama is in charge of!

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TEXASGRANNY73
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:11am
Odd how this report came out at this time. Could it be a UN thing affiliated with Hillary’s human rights Us both connected to the UN? Hey, who just spoke for Obama and who is connected to the UN Hillary and Bill Clinton with his Global whatever. I don’t know the truth but it sure sounds fishy. Maybe there is a liberal or more on their roll call?. Check it out. Timing is everything, right?

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- TEXASGRANNY73
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:19am
  correction. US not Us.
  
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soybomb315_II
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 7:06am
This article should be for all those around here who believe in Romney because he is a ‘good guy’ even though he is not a Constitutionalist.

This article shows you what happens when powerful people are not guided by the Constitution. Fool you once – shame on them; fool you twice…..

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- 13th Imam
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 8:07am
  DEMOCRAT Shill
  
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- geomann
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 10:40am
  The Constitution does not, and should not, apply to terrorists, enemies of the state, or those illegally in the country. It was written specifically for United States CITIZENS.
  
  torture=results=saved lives.
  
  Report this comment
- geomann
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 10:44am
  The Constitution does not, and should not apply to terrorists, enemies of our country, and those in the country illegally. It was written specifically for CITIZENS.
  
  torture=results=saved lives
  
  Report this comment
- Nepenthe
  Posted on September 6, 2012 at 2:57pm
  Well it is a good thing that the Supreme Court, and the text of the Constitution itself, disagrees with you.
  
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