Defense Secretary Asks Congress to Close Gitmo

Staff / Truthdig Mar 30, 2007 Robert Gates urged Congress on Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, acknowledging that the international community was likely to doubt the credibility of tribunals held there: "My own view is that because of things that happened earlier at Guantanamo there is a taint about it." Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Padilla Trial to Go Forward

Staff / Truthdig Mar 1, 2007 Jose Padilla has been ruled competent to stand trial, a rebuke to his lawyers. The defense had sought to have him treated for PTSD before the trial began. Padilla has been held in isolation for three and a half years, during which time he was subjected to varying kinds of interrogation and, very likely, torture. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

A Former Interrogator Speaks

Staff / Truthdig Feb 9, 2007 The U.S. military insists that Abu Ghraib was an isolated abuse, but at least one soldier suggests a wider system of torture is at work: "I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking." Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

CIA Wants to Keep Interrogation Methods Secret

Staff / Truthdig Nov 4, 2006 The CIA has argued that allowing detainees to publicly describe interrogation techniques used against them would endanger national security. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Red Cross Condemns Torture Bill

Staff / Truthdig Oct 20, 2006 The International Committee of the Red Cross will contact the White House to address concerns over U.S. torture policy's compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Administration Seeks to Protect ?Interrogation? Methods

Staff / Truthdig Sep 8, 2006 Legislation put forward by the Bush administration this week would legalize the same torture techniques recently banned by the Army. By selectively interpreting the Geneva Conventions, the legislation would allow CIA operatives and even the Army, should it decide to revert to previous rules, to conduct interrogations using unsavory methods. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Army Finally Bans Torture

Staff / Truthdig Sep 6, 2006 Yielding to pressure from humanitarian groups, Congress and the Supreme Court, the U.S. Army will release a new field manual that affords all detainees protection from torture under the Geneva Convention. The new document will ban several ?interrogation? methods that have drawn criticism, including simulated drowning and the use of dogs to terrorize detainees. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Behind the Scenes at Gitmo

Staff / Truthdig Jun 30, 2006 ABC News gets an extremely rare (maybe unprecedented) look at the inside of Guantanamo Bay. Watch it. The head interrogator denies all use of torture, and even refers to his interrogations as "custodial interviews." The room pictured above--which has a plush lazy chair--is supposedly one of the interrogation rooms. This sugar-coated look at Gitmo feels sort of like the tours of North Korea that Westerners sometimes get. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Court Ruling May Cancel Bush’s ‘Blank Check’ for Terror War

Staff / Truthdig Jun 29, 2006 Specifically, today's Supreme Court ruling held that the president overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees. But more important, Think Progress interprets the ruling to mean that "the Authorization for the Use of Military Force -- issued by Congress in the days after 9/11 -- is not a blank check for the administration." Also, SCOTUSblog says the ruling means that the Geneva Convention does apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda, and consequently "this almost certainly means that the CIA's interrogation tactics of waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act." Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Gitmo and Afghanistan Interrogation Tactics Exposed

Staff / Truthdig Jun 19, 2006 In a new book, a medical ethicist has compiled a list of interrogation techniques documented at US detention centers in Guantanamo and Afghanistan They include: external electric shocks; beating; punching with fists; use of truncheons; stretching or suspension (to tear ligaments or muscles to cause asphyxia) UPDATE: An L Times reporter writes that the barring of U reporters from Gitmo "make[s] us all the more determined to question, probe and illuminate the actions of our government being waged in the country's name" . Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Grim Details Emerge in New Detainee Abuse Scandal

Staff / Truthdig Mar 19, 2006 The New York Times uncovers the story of a top-secret detention center in Baghdad where American jailers "used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball." Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )