The Alyona Show Interviews The Dissenter's Jeff Kaye on DoD Water Torture

Also posted at FDL/The Dissenter

I was pleased to be asked to appear on the successful RT news program The Alyona Show earlier today. The interview was offered as a follow-up to an investigatory article published at Truthout last week, which showed that all protestations by Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. government authorities aside, the U.S. military did engage in torture remarkably similar to waterboarding, if not waterboarding itself. An accompanying article was also posted here at The Dissenter.

Alyona Minkovski is one of a handful of broadcasters who have been following the torture scandal and the ongoing US wars abroad, bringing on experts with a point of view seldom or never heard on other mainstream news programs. Keith Olbermann also did a segment on August 4 for Current TV, with commentary by Jeremy Scahill, on my investigation into DoD water torture, remarking that  "our understanding of our history of torture by this country has just been advanced by this story."

My investigation, based on multiple detainee accounts, news reports, doctor review of selected Guantanamo medical records, testimony before a Congressional committee, and Department of Justice and Department of Defense investigations, revealed that a number of detainees at different DoD sites, including Guantanamo, were held down and had streams of water from a hose directed for minutes at a time between their mouth and nose. Other detainees had their heads stuffed into toilets or buckets of water. The Truthout article also detailed instances in which military officials -- and in one case, former Vice President Dick Cheney himself -- requested or directed that waterboarding take place.

More Rumsfeld Lies About Whether He "Approved" Waterboarding or Not

Donald Rumsfeld claims that he rejected the use of waterboarding when it was suggested to him in a memo in late 2002, writing in his recent memoir, "When military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay sent up their chain of command a request to use waterboarding in late 2002, I rejected it."

But the truth is DoD's legal counsel, William Haynes, recommended in a memo in November 2002 a number of coercive interrogation techniques, noting that waterboarding "may be legally available", though he advised against its use, as well as a few other highly coercive torture techniques "at this time." Rumsfeld signed off on the memo. He did not reject Haynes' characterization that waterboarding "may be legally available." Yet Rumsfeld must have been aware that numerous legal experts within DoD itself and its various service branches had serious doubts about its legality.

Given that the US public has been told to accept the narrative that waterboarding was restricted to the CIA, and to only (!) three victims of CIA torture, I've decided to continue with this investigation with the aim of correcting this faulty narrative. As I wrote in my Dissenter piece, "the use of water torture and waterboarding or quasi-waterboarding can only represent a pattern of such kinds of torture, which has been kept out of the public eye through a combination of secrecy, and artfully framing the issue around a definition of waterboarding that is meant to exclude examination of the full use of such water-drowning torture."

Meanwhile, since I wrote the original Truthout story, I've found at least four more cases of DoD "water treatment" or "water torture," which involved the submersion of DoD prisoners into water, or the forced choking of detainees with application of water. I'll be posting more on this in an upcoming article. But I should note that even formal, CIA-style waterboarding may have also taken place.

In an interview with The Talking Dog in May 2007, one of the attorneys for the Guantanamo detainees, Brent Mickum, who also represents Abu Zubaydah, explained what he heard about waterboarding at Guantanamo:

After my recent C-Span appearance, someone called me and spoke to me at length, telling me (without giving his name) that he was a guard at the GTMO camps. He told me that he and other guards were instructed to brutalize prisoners. He confirmed that water-boarding, which he called “drown-proofing” took place. This individual knew extensive details of the camp layout and the names of military personnel. Eventually, the full story will be released and people will be shocked at the extent of the depravity.

In the video accompanying this post, I explain to Alyona why the US government has played around with the semantics of what is waterboarding, why this issue has not been investigated officially, and why it is Congress has refused to act on this information, even when it was formally presented before them. -- I should add that it was a pleasure to be interviewed by someone as well-informed and also passionate about the issue as Alyona clearly was.

Benjamin Wittes Responds: "Happy to be a government proxy"

In an an arrogant riposte to an earlier posting of mine [at FDL's The Dissenter], Lawfare blogger and member of the Hoover Institute Task Force on National Security and the Law, Benjamin Wittes, proclaimed he is "Happy to be a government proxy."

Wittes' tongue may seem somewhat in cheek, but he really means it. "Government proxy" how? In my earlier article criticizing both Wittes and Adweek columnist Alex Koppelman for their poorly resourced and vituperative articles attacking Scott Horton's investigation of the 2006 deaths of three Guantanamo detainees, published by Harper's Magazine in January 2010. Department of Defense investigations had labeled all three deaths suicides.

Moreover, when both Koppelman and Wittes were cited in a footnote to a Department of Justice brief (PDF) defending numerous government officials against a lawsuit brought by parents of the dead detainees -- Koppelman and Wittes' stories were cited as examples of “numerous articles addressing serious flaws with the HARPER’S MAGAZINE story"-- I noted that the two authors "wittingly or not" had become "government proxies in the matter of the Guantanamo suicides controversy."

Wittes replied, sarcastically, "Wow, I'm Verklempt." He continued:

Turns out that DOJ, in a footnote in a brief before the D.C. Circuit, cited this post of mine from some time back – in which I expressed dismay that Scott Horton and Harpers had received a National Magazine award for a feature article devoted to the spurious suggestion that U.S. service personnel had tortured three Guantanamo detainees to death. The passing citation in the brief prompted this howl of rage from a new blogger over at Firedoglake named Jeff Kaye, who had earlier written a defense of the Harpers article....

Happy to be a government proxy on this one. Robert Loeb and Barbara Herwig, who filed the brief, hereby have my blessing to use any Lawfare post their hearts may desire in defending this suit. I’ll live with myself quite happily, thank you.

Wittes, who saved his strongest complaint for a typo of his name in the post, repeats the lie that Horton's article claimed the three Guantanamo detainees -- Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani -- were "tortured to death" by "U.S. service personnel." In fact, Horton never makes any such claim in the article. It is true that the Al-Zahrani's father is quoted in the article as asserting his son was tortured and killed, but that is very different than Horton coming to such a conclusion. Instead, Horton built a case, based upon contradictions in the government's investigations, eye-witness testimony, independent autopsy, and revelations concerning a CIA (or JSOC?) black site at Guantanamo, that the deaths were "possible homicides."

By claiming Horton implicated "service personnel" in torture or possible homicide, Wittes means to tar Horton with irresponsible attacks against rank-and-file U.S. servicemen and women who have sacrificed much to serve their country. If suspicion falls on anyone, it is on interrogators or agents for the CIA or JSOC. Since writing the story, Horton has been calling, as have the parents, for an independent investigation.

Wittes' portrayal of the DoJ citation of his work is strangely spurious as well. He says that the citation in the brief filed with the D.C. Circuit came from a "post of mine some time back." In fact, the post was dated May 23, 2011, the same day as Koppelman's Adweek screed. The brief, signed by government attorneys in DoJ's Civil Appellate Division, Robert Loeb and Barbara Herwig, as well as by Assistant Attorney General Tony West, was filed on July 13, a mere seven weeks after the Koppelman/Wittes articles. Perhaps we should allow for the subjectivity of time sense and grant Wittes his belief that his article had appeared "some time back" in relation to the government brief. My subjective sense of the affair is that it was quite contemporaneous.

I have very little patience for academic apologists for torture like Wittes. I suppose some, including Wittes himself, might take umbrage at such labels, but an apologist is what he is, no matter how even-handed and reasonable -- a man who supposedly takes no extreme positions -- he presents himself. Take, for instance, his defense of his friend William Haynes' approval of torture techniques at Guantanamo. In an article for The New Republic last year, Wittes defended Bush administration attorneys like Haynes, Jack Goldsmith, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, castigating “the vilification of government lawyers involved in the war on terror.”

Admittedly, Wittes said, Haynes was a friend of his "about whom I do not pretend to be neutral." But rather than forgo comment because of his personal connection (Jack Goldsmith, too, is a personal friend and a professional collaborator, having written articles with Wittes; Goldsmith also is one of two other major contributors, with Wittes, to the blog Lawfare), he defends Haynes's actions, and apologizes for torture.

Wittes in TNR:

Haynes’s long tenure at the Defense Department was a complicated affair. He made mistakes, mistakes I probably would have made too had I been in his shoes. He also behaved very admirably at important junctures.

The memo for which he has been pilloried is also the reason that the military, unlike the CIA, never waterboarded anybody. [Djamel Ameziane might disagree with that assertion.] Haynes recommended approval of certain modestly coercive techniques—the use of which later spun out of control—but he drew the line at several highly-coercive techniques, waterboarding included. Though they might be legal, he wrote, the military was trained in a tradition of restraint and shouldn’t use them. In other words, he behaved exactly the way the Left often criticizes the CIA for not behaving; even in a crisis setting, he refused to let the criminal law define military interrogation policy. Why is that fact not even part of the conversation about him?

And what were the "certain modestly coercive techniques" Haynes approved? In a November 27, 2002 memo from Haynes to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Haynes approved all "Category I and II" "counter-resistance techniques" that had been requested by Major General Mike Dunleavy, Commander of Task Force 170, Guantanamo. He also approved one of the "Category III" techniques. But as Wittes notes, he did not approve some others, including a version of waterboarding, and the making of death threats.

The actual techniques, derived from SERE torture training conducted by DoD, were described by Dunleavy's staff intelligence director, Lieutenant Commander Jerald Phifer, in a memo that accompanied Dunleavy's request, and which Haynes approved, in large part.

What techniques did Haynes approve? From the Phifer memo, they included all these "Category II" techniques:

(1) The use of stress positions (like standing), for a maximum of four hours.

(2) The use of falsified documents or reports

(3) Use of the isolation facility for up to 30 days. Request must be made to through the OIC [Officer in Charge], Interrogation Section, to the Director, Joint Interrogation Group (JIG). Extensions beyond the initial 30 days must be approved by the Commanding General. For selected detainees, the OIC, Interrogation Section, will approve all contacts with the detainee, to include medical visits of a non-emergent nature.

(4) Interrogating the detainee in an environment other than the standard interrogation booth.

(5) Deprivation of light and auditory stimuli

(6) The detainee may also have a hood placed over his head during transportation and questioning. The hood should not restrict breathing in any way and the detainee should be under direct observation when hooded.

(7) The use of 20 hour interrogations.

(8) Removal of all comfort items (including religious items).

(9) Switching the detainee from hot rations to MREs.

(10) Removal of clothing.

(11) Forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc...)

(12) Using detainees individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress.

According to Benjamin Wittes, these techniques are "modestly coercive." I wonder if Wittes himself were to be subjected to these, under conditions of indefinite detention, no less, he might not find himself truly "verklempt," or something far worse.

Famously, Donald Rumsfeld scribbled on the bottom of the Haynes memo, "However I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?" In Wittes' world, I suppose Haynes is to be congratulated for holding stress positions to only four hours maximum at a time.

But then, I suppose for the Wittes, the intrepid scholar, this post of mine is just another "howl of rage from a new blogger over at Firedoglake." Referencing my notice of Wittes' peculiar sense of time above, I should note I've been writing at Firedoglake since April 2009, a year longer than "Lawfare" has been in business.

One last thing: Mr. Wittes, you cited favorably at your original post on Horton a May 17 blog post by Cully Stimson, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs at the time of the prisoners’ deaths. In Stimson's post, which you extensively quoted, Stimson claimed, "According to published reports, previously classified documents released by Wikileaks show that the suicides were indeed suicides, and were deliberate acts by the detainees." Could you or Mr. Stimson refer us to these "published reports" or "previously classified documents"? In the name of publishing the truth, and furthering your critique of the Horton article, I can't see why you'd ever refuse.

Cross-posted from The Dissenter/FDL

Despite Yoo/Bybee Denials, PTSD "Service Connected" to SERE Torture Techniques

Originally posted at FDL/The Seminal

In the August 2, 2002 memo to John Rizzo at the CIA, "Interrogation of an Al Qaeda Operative," written primarily by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee (PDF), a number of statements are made as regards the relative safety of the SERE training program for use on U.S. soldiers. As most readers must know by now, SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, and the program of the same name is used to teach pilots, Special Operations personnel, "code of conduct" behaviors and strategies should they ever be captured by an enemy force. The Resistance component provides an exposure experience, where trainees are subjected to mock torture with the idea that familiarity with possible torture techniques will harden them should they ever be presented with the real thing.
 
It was this mock torture component, as taught in SERE classes SV-83 and SV-91 (the latter class aimed specifically at teaching clandestine "Special Mission Units"), that was reverse-engineered by military psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, and further fine-tuned by CIA officials, and constituted the torture that was used at CIA (and possibly JSOC) black site prisons under the rubric of "enhanced interrogation techniques." Subsequently, physicians and psychologists at the CIA's Office of Medical Services were used to provide "opinions to the agency and [OLC] lawyers whether the techniques used would be expected to cause severe pain or suffering and thus constitute torture."

In a series of recent articles, I've pointed out Yoo, Bybee, and later Office of Legal Counsel attorney Stephen Bradbury, disregarded internal SERE documents related to the safety of waterboarding. Now we can add the suppression of complaints by SERE trainees of having contracted PTSD from participation in SERE training. This directly contradicts the Yoo/Bybee contention in the Aug. 2, 2002 memo to Rizzo, where they wrote, "Through your [i.e., CIA] consultation with various individuals responsible for such training, you have learned that these techniques have been used as elements of a course of conduct without any reported incident of prolonged mental harm."

Yet it shouldn't have taken too long to know, and certainly JPRA officials should have been aware of complaints made by various enlisted personnel such that they had incurred PTSD as a result of their "service connection" to SERE training. One such complaint, made as far back as 1999, received approval of disability status for PTSD by the Veterans Administration in July 2003. The decision regarded an appeal of a 2000 decision against a veteran claiming PTSD. The serviceman, who had retired in 1996, was represented by the American Legion.

After review of the appeal, it was found that "The veteran has a current diagnosis of PTSD associated with experiences he suffered as part of his in-service SERE training."

The veteran's December 1999 claim relates that he attended SERE training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1992. During the training, he was subject to interrogations, stripping down, mockery, assault, and exposure to extreme weather conditions. The veteran's February 2000 statement, as well as the January 2003 testimony at the Travel Board hearing, further describes physical assault and interrogations with emotional abuse he experienced during the SERE course. The Board finds the veteran's hearing testimony to be credible and probative.

The decision has even more power when one considers that there was other evidence indicating that there were other sources of possible traumatic experience, e.g., childhood abuse. But the judge at the Board of Veteran's Appeals found that the PTSD from SERE training was the actionable occurrence. Also, note that the veteran's experience at SERE did not include the waterboard, as only the Navy SERE schools used the waterboard in their training, even as far back as 1992.

The military has a scandalous history of denying PTSD claims. In a 2007 article by Joshua Kors at The Nation, doctors admitted to feeling pressured to not diagnose PTSD, and instead, soldiers with PTSD were receiving diagnoses of personality disorders, or otherwise denied PTSD claims. Last month, the Obama administration loosened VA rules on determination of PTSD, which will not now rely so heavily on proving a specific event caused the condition.

Yoo himself apparently believed that PTSD constituted "prolonged mental harm" of the sort that is labeled torture. He said as much in his March 2003 OLC memo to William Haynes at the Department of Defense on the interrogation methods at DoD (PDF).

"...the development of a mental disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, which can last months or even years, or even chronic depression, which also can last for a considerable period of time if untreated, might satisfy the prolonged harm requirement.”

Yoo's 2003 memo closely followed the reasoning of his earlier memos, though later, then-OLC head Jack Goldsmith told Haynes to disregard the Yoo memo in December 2003. It is not clear what DoD relied on for legal advice as regards their interrogation program after that point (for more, see this article by Marcy Wheeler).

Despite the SASC report into "detainee" abuse, released last year, much of the involvement by DoD actors and entities in the torture program remains highly obscure. Jason Leopold and I are working on a major investigative story to be published in the weeks ahead regarding the Bush torture program, and Department of Defense research and experimentation into interrogations and torture.

Two Important Notices

National Lawyers Guild Files Complaint With California State Bar Against William Haynes

(H/T David Swanson at AfterDowningStreet.org)

Former Department of Defense General Counsel Recommended Torture, Harsh Interrogation Techniques

San Francisco - The National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF) is filing a complaint with the California State Bar today against former Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes. The complaint against Haynes, who now works for the Chevron Corporation in San Ramon, states that he "breached his duty as a lawyer and advocated for harsh tactics amounting to torture in violation of U.S. and international law .... advocacy that directly lead to detainee abuses at the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grahib facilities."

A copy of the complaint is available upon request or can be accessed at:

http://www.nlgsf.org/committees/againsttorture.php.

The complaint will be mailed to the State Bar Los Angeles office and hand-delivered to the State Bar Office in San Francisco, where there will be a 12:30 press conference.

Press Conference
State Bar Office
180 Howard Street
Monday, March 16, 12:30 PM

"We believe Mr. Haynes must be held accountable, just as any other lawyer would be," said Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director of the NLGSF. "But we are filing this complaint today not out of motivation to harm Mr. Haynes, but to ensure that torture is again relegated to the status it had before the Bush Administration's tenure, and that the harmful, sometimes deadly, and completely ineffective policy of torture is truly deterred."

While working for the Department of Defense, Haynes ignored the serious concerns coming from all branches of the military and recommended in a memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, approval of certain harsh interrogation techniques, including removal of clothing, stress positions, and the use of dogs against detainees. The Senate Armed Services Committee has described the memo as “grossly deficient.”

"Powerful leaders can and do engage in illegal acts and inhumane treatment of others. These leaders often rely on lawyers and the legal system to give the appearance of legitimacy to an illegal agenda. Sadly, there always seems to be lawyers willing to do the bidding of powerful rulers," said Sharon Adams, attorney member of the NLGSF. "The State Bar must uphold ethics and the rule of law, and repudiate Mr. Haynes’ actions."

Haynes worked with other lawyers in the Bush administration who have yet to face consequences for their advocacy of torture and other wrongdoing, including former Justice Department lawyer and current UC Berkeley School of Law Professor John Yoo. "We are in a position where even members of the new administration are suggesting criminal charges against Bush officials for torture and other crimes are off the table since many of these officials relied on legal advice," said Jim Lafferty, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild Office in Los Angeles. "If the lawyers are not held accountable for their misdeeds, then essentially high crimes with serious consequences have been committed but nobody is to blame."

As a Registered in House Counsel for the Chevron Corporation, Haynes was not required to take the California Bar Exam but is also not able to appear in court or practice law beyond giving advice to Chevron. He is, however, required to "abide by all of the laws and rules that govern members of the State Bar of California," according to California Rules of Court.

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Received via e-mail from Center for Constitutional Rights. For more on CCR campaigns against torture and indefinite detention and for prosecutions of Bush officials for war crimes, visit their website. Get involved! Contribute!

As the atrocities of the Bush administration continue to be exposed, it is critical now more than ever to keep up the pressure and demand accountability from the high-ranking officials responsible for torture and war crimes.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a pan-American body dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights, is conducting a hearing at the request of CCR and the World Organization for Human Rights USA. On Friday, March 20, 2009 CCR President Michael Ratner will argue that U.S. officials must be held accountable for human rights violations, on live webcast on Friday, March 20, from 3:15 PM to 4:15 PM at http://www.oas.org/OASpage/Live, the website of the Organization of American States. It will be archived thereafter at the IACHR website, http://www.iachr.org.

CCR and HRUSA will argue that the Commission should:

• Issue official recommendations to the United States to engage in criminal investigations and prosecutions for torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;
• Reform laws that prevent the victims of U.S. policies from learning the truth about these abuses; and
• Make reparations to victims of human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government.

By the way, kudos to Michael Ratner of CCR, who spoke out against the proposed Senate hearings or "Truth Commission" proposed by Senator Leahy as a "whitewash."

Speaking to Raw Story, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a human rights attorney, says he is opposing Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy’s proposed 'Truth Commission' because it doesn’t go far enough.

"We’re talking about a whitewash with Leahy. Are we some Latin American country where we don’t have a democracy robust enough to try people?" Ratner said. “[Leahy’s] essentially diffusing the issue so there’s not as much pressure on prosecution. It’s not really going to go far. [The commission is] going to divert us for a few years and we’re never going to see something come out of it.”

Ratner said he and the Center for Constitutional Rights want to see criminal prosecutions of officials at the highest level of the Bush administration, the so-called “principals” who were the architects of controversial polices and signed off on them.

“Cheney has openly said that he approved the water boarding memo and that he would do it again,” Ratner said, adding, “My view is you absolutely have to have prosecutions to have deterrents [for future executive power abuses].”

My own take on Leahy's whitewash hearings, including a detailed breakdown of the witnesses the House Judiciary Committee called on March 5 to examine the proposal, appears in my article, "Birth of a Whitewash: Who Testified at Leahy Commission Torture Hearings?" (which was picked up by both The Public Record and the Chicago Sun Times).

Liberal "Hero" Jon Stewart Cozies Up to War Criminal Myers

As even a commenter at The Daily Show's website put it, Jon Stewart's interview tonight with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George W. Bush, General Richard Myers, was "one of the most fawning, sycophantic interviews I have ever seen Jon Stewart do."

There is no transcript or link to the interview yet. It's too fresh. From my memory, the interview began with Stewart lauding the sacrifice of U.S. troops, and it also ended the same way. A few days after electrifying much of the blogosphere with a critical interview with MSNBC CNBC financial host Jim Cramer, Stewart showed how he can cower when faced with someone with real power, and not a small-time media crony like Cramer.

General Myers was promoted to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs only two weeks before 9/11, after having served as vice chair under President Clinton. As a loyal military man under the evil Bush/Cheney regime, he helped organize the "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq that produced hundreds of thousands of deaths and a million or more refugees, all under the guise of a bogus search for supposed weapons of mass destruction.

But that's not all. As Mark Benjamin reported in Salon.com last summer, General Myers was singled out by witnesses for Senator Levin's Senate Armed Services Committee investigation of how torture occurred under Department of Defense sponsorship. Prior to this investigation, faced with Abu Ghraib and other torture scandals, Myers pleaded being out of touch, claiming he had failed to read the military report on the investigation into Abu Ghraib. Later, Myers hoodwinked author Phillipe Sands, who in his book Torture Team, told Myers' tale how he had been hoodwinked by a cabal within the Bush administration, who fooled him into thinking the torture by DoD was actually the application of techniques allowed by the Army Field Manual, and therefore consistent with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. (See this April 2008 article in the UK Guardian.)

But Myers' narrative broke down under the documentary evidence unearthed by the SASC and the testimony of key witnesses at a 2008 hearing of Levin's Armed Services committee. The "plans" under consideration in the quoted selection below concerns a set of "Counter-Resistance Strategy techniques", which were initially discussed at a meeting of military psychologists, high-level Guantanamo officials, and representatives of the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency in October 2002, the minutes for which I reproduced at this site some weeks ago. The "techniques" included clear abusive and torture techniques, including hooding, nudity, light/auditory deprivation, "wet towel treatments" (waterboarding), isolation, stress positions, 20 hour interrogations, and other horrifying ways to break down an individual.

From Mark Benjamin's fascinating account at Salon.com (emphases added):

According to written correspondence that came to light during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17, various military leaders balked at the plans in a series of memos produced during the first week of November 2002. In addition to the criticisms raised by the Army, the Air Force leadership cited "serious concerns regarding the legality" of the list of proposed techniques. The Navy also called for further legal review, and the Marine Corps stated that the techniques "arguably violate federal law."

Because of these concerns, Myers' legal counsel, Rear Adm. Jane Dalton, began a fresh evaluation of the legality of the interrogation tactics. "My recollection is that all four of the [military services] suggested that there needed to be further legal and policy review," Dalton testified. The legal review, she told the committee, would have included further input from the military services and provided for a full airing of their concerns.

But such an analysis threatened to undermine Rumsfeld's agenda -- and that's when Myers stepped in. Dalton testified that Myers ordered her to stop that review because of a request from Pentagon general counsel William Haynes. Haynes was spearheading Rumsfeld's efforts to set up a harsh-interrogation program at the Pentagon. "The best of my recollection as to how this occurred is that the chairman called me aside and indicated to me that Mr. Haynes did not want this broad-based review to take place," Dalton testified. "When I learned that Mr. Haynes did not want that broad-based legal and policy review to take place, then I stood down from the plans."

Dalton said Myers was aware that the military services believed the interrogation techniques might be against the law. "It is my recollection that he was aware of these concerns and that I made him aware of those concerns," she said.

This is war crimes material, and along with Myer's command of the atrocity that was the invasion of Iraq, he shall have to stand in the dock of justice someday, if there is to be accountability for these crimes. Benjamin noted this in his article:

"He is rarely referenced as one of the usual suspects," noted Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School who is following the continuing Senate investigation. "He did play a much more central role" than previously known, Turley said. "The minute the military lawyers expressed concern, they were shut down."

And what did these concerns look like?

On October 28, 2002, Mark Fallon, Deputy Commander at Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) sent a memo to a colleague. He was uneasy about what he had read in the Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting Minutes. He told his colleague the comments of Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver and others at the meeting "looks like the kinds of stuff Congressional hearings are made of." The techniques "seem to stretch beyond the bounds of legal propriety."

Quotes from LTC Beaver regarding things that are not being reported give the appearance of impropriety.... Talk of "wet towel treatments" which results in the lymphatic gland reacting as if you are suffocating, would in my opinion; shock the conscience of any legal body looking at using the results of the interrogations or possibly even the interrogators. Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this.

To return for a moment from the serious to the somewhat mundane, maybe Jon Stewart, who wants to portray himself as some kind of conscience for America, will want to think about history will look back at his shameless performance of fawning obsequiance before a genuine war criminal.

Perhaps Stewart didn't know this history. If not, he should have. That's what he has a staff for. Instead, he promoted Myers book, asking shyly at one point if anyone had spoken up in any administration meetings pre-war with Iraq and said it was "a bad idea." Myers' assertion that the war in Iraq was turning out positive passed without comment by the supposedly assertive and combative, if respectful, Stewart.

I never liked listening to the accolades given Jon Stewart, whose comedy I enjoy, over the Cramer episode, because I had seen him too often cave in before the most reactionary figures. And sure enough, he couldn't wait but a few days before proving me right.

Shame on you, Jon Stewart. And shame on America, which allows war criminals to go on fancy book tours while the people whose lives they destroyed remain in exile, crippled, or for those whose torture Myers cavalierly overlooked, in dark prison cells awaiting some kind of justice.

At Last! Senate Hearings Tackle SERE-Inspired Torture Program

The Senate Armed Services Committee will be holding hearings into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Tomorrow is part one, as Senator Levin's committee looks into the origins of U.S. aggressive interrogation techniques. A new article by AP makes clear that these techniques were approved at the highest levels, and that the resulting torture revelations were not due to the actions of a few "bad apples."

Also, on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing entitled "From the Department of Justice to Guantanamo Bay", which is the second part of its inquiry into administration lawyers, like John Yoo, and their role in writing and approving torture and guidelines for abusive interrogation.

Meanwhile, Human Rights First has a petition up, demanding that Congress ask William Haynes, former General Counsel to the Department of Defense - who "once advised the Bush Administration that waterboarding and death threats were 'legally available' options" - tough questions, bearing upon his culpability for implementing a U.S. torture program.

Before going into the nitty-gritty details of what's going to be revealed at the hearings, I want to ask the indulgence of my readers. The news as presented even by the supposed best of our newspapers and other news sources often lack the context with which we can understand the often mind-boggling revelations that rain down upon us in 21st century America. It is with that thought that I turn momentarily aside to review an important U.S. military interrogation program from the Vietnam War. Considering this history will give perspective for the revelations to come.

The Phoenix Program: Blueprint for Bush's "War on Terror"



In Jane Meyer's August 2007 article, The Black Sites: A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program, she wrote of the scramble by the military and intelligence agencies after 9/11 to cohere an intelligence program in Afghanistan. Ultimately, the U.S. would arrest tens of thousands of supposed "terrorists", many of them turned in by greedy bounty hunters; establish a network of CIA-run secret prisons; expand a rendition program, which outsourced the interrogation of torture and prisoners to third-party nations; and establish the practice of torture against so-called enemy combatants, holding them incommunicado, without hope of appeal or release (until recently, that is).

In seeking to establish their military preeminence thousands of miles from the "homeland," the U.S. government turned to history - U.S. history - for inspiration. What they re-discovered was one of the darkest episodes in that history, one which is barely known or understood in this country, and whose consequences -- not least that the perpetrators of mass torture and assassination remain at large and in positions of power -- hang like the sword of Damocles over the head of uninformed citizenry. What they "discovered" was the Phoenix Program, a counterinsurgency operation by the U.S. government and its South Vietnamese allies that specialized in torture, terror, and assassination of individuals and families suspected of giving support to the Viet Cong. In the end, tens of thousands were murdered, often in their beds or homes, their ears cut off to prove that "kill teams" had made their quota for the night.

As Mayer wrote:

On September 17, 2001, President Bush signed a secret Presidential finding authorizing the C.I.A. to create paramilitary teams to hunt, capture, detain, or kill designated terrorists almost anywhere in the world. Yet the C.I.A. had virtually no trained interrogators. A former C.I.A. officer involved in fighting terrorism said that, at first, the agency was crippled by its lack of expertise. “It began right away, in Afghanistan, on the fly,” he recalled. “They invented the program of interrogation with people who had no understanding of Al Qaeda or the Arab world.” The former officer said that the pressure from the White House, in particular from Vice-President Dick Cheney, was intense: “They were pushing us: ‘Get information! Do not let us get hit again!’” In the scramble, he said, he searched the C.I.A.’s archives, to see what interrogation techniques had worked in the past. He was particularly impressed with the Phoenix Program, from the Vietnam War. Critics, including military historians, have described it as a program of state-sanctioned torture and murder. A Pentagon-contract study found that, between 1970 and 1971, ninety-seven per cent of the Vietcong targeted by the Phoenix Program were of negligible importance. But, after September 11th, some C.I.A. officials viewed the program as a useful model.

The brief documentary, embedded above as a YouTube video, represents an excellent introduction to the history of the Phoenix Program. Warning: some of the images are quite graphic.

Those interested in pursuing the subject in more depth should turn to Douglas Valentine's epic work, The Phoenix Program, or to Michael Otterman's excellent summary, linking Phoenix to the later torture policies of the current administration as part of its misnamed "war on terror", American Torture.

Military Psychologists Braintrust Pentagon Torture Program

The historical context offered by the documentary frames the current situation, where the Senate Armed Services Committee is holding hearings on detainee interrogation abuse and torture. Tomorrow, former Pentagon general counsel, William “Jim” Haynes, is due to testify. According to a new article by AP:

The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee also has confirmed that senior administration officials, including the Pentagon's then-general counsel William “Jim” Haynes, sought the help of military psychologists early on to devise the more aggressive methods – which included the use of dogs, making a detainee stand for long periods of time and forced nudity, according to officials familiar with the findings....

Rumsfeld's December 2002 approval of the aggressive interrogation techniques and later objections by military lawyers have been widely reported. But the November protests by service lawyers had not, and the interest by Pentagon civilians in military psychologists has surfaced only piecemeal....

According to the Senate committee's findings, Haynes became interested in using harsher interrogation methods as early as July 2002 when he sent a memo inquiring about a military program that trained Army soldiers how to survive enemy interrogations and deny foes valuable intelligence.

Officials who taught the methods – known as “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape,” or SERE techniques – were well schooled in the art of abusive interrogations....

According to the AP article, Haynes went to Guantanamo with Alberto Gonzales (then with the Office of Legal Counsel) and David Addington, Vice President Cheney's own chief counsel. Ultimately, Donald Rumsfeld approved a number of abusive interrogation techniques, over protests by the services's own military attorneys. (The abuse continued even after Rumsfeld's torture program was officially discontinued, as unredacted portions of Admiral Church's investigation into detainee abuse revealed a few months ago.)

The use of SERE techniques may have leaked out "piecemeal", but there have been plenty of stories about the misuse of this military program, from Katherine Eban's expose article in Vanity Fair last summer, to the Pentagon Office of the Inspector report released late last year, to a recent ACLU release of documents describing the "first on-the-ground reports of torture in Gardez, Afghanistan" by Special Operations forces utilizing SERE techniques.

If anything, the Congressional hearings are the proverbial hour late and a mile short. The revelations about abuse of U.S. torture in Afghanistan and Iraq go back to the initial arrest of John Walker Lindh in 2001. As the Phoenix Program documentary makes clear, even earlier and if anything more egregious examples of U.S. war crimes were known and vetted and then ignored, the perpetrators allowed to filter successfully through the sinews of government until the current day, and the phenomena of a Phoenix reborn, metamorphosed into a "war on terror", a campaign to save the "homeland" masking a policy of aggressive invasion, war, occupation, and torture by the leaders of this country.

While late, I welcome whatever exposure will come from these Congressional hearings. I support Human Rights First's petition drive. Only when we bring these crimes into the light of day and educate all Americans about what has been done in their name will we have half a chance of ending the barbarous policy of war, torture, and oppression, and winning over that part of the world that has, in desperation, turned to their own demagogues who preach despair and (occasional) terror in the name of a desperate hope. Such a campaign will mean we have to confront the anti-democratic elements in our own society. This fight will be hard and long, maybe as long as Bush sees his own "war on terror". This will be a war on exploitation, violence, and the manipulation of human beings. Its banner will be freedom from fear, from want, from exploitation.