Prisoner
Abuse: US Backs Down
Over Immunity For Soldiers
By Rupert Cornwell
24 June 2004
The Independent
The US has bowed to international outrage
over prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan by abandoning its bid to
secure a United Nations exemption for its soldiers from prosecution
by the new International Criminal Court (ICC).
The about-turn at
the UN came less than 24 hours after the White House released secret
internal documents on the treatment of enemy prisoners - again in an
attempt to dispel suggestions that it condoned the abuse at Abu Ghraib
and elsewhere.
The decision not
to seek a new resolution exempting US personnel from overseas prosecution
is an astonishing climbdown for an administration that had vowed to
have no truck with the ICC, and had previously threatened to veto all
UN peacekeeping missions to get its way.
But opposition on
the 15-member Security Council was overwhelming, especially after Kofi
Annan, the UN secretary general, declared last week that a resolution
sent "an unfortunate signal at any time - but particularly at this
time".
The two moves underline
how, despite the punishment being meted out to the Abu Ghraib guards
involved in the abuse, the scandal continues to damage the Bush administration.
Documents released
in Washington set out harsh interrogation techniques for terrorist and
enemy prisoners but - the White House claims - make clear that outright
torture has never been permitted.The documents contain elaborate lists
of permissible, relatively innocuous sounding, methods of interrogation.
But they also reveal that harsher techniques, including stripping prisoners,
placing them in hoods and using dogs to terrify them, were approved
for several months, before apparently being revoked in April 2003.
In a memo five months
after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, Mr Bush declared
that "new thinking into the law of war" was needed, and that
the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qa'ida prisoners in Afghanistan
and elsewhere.
But Mr Bush instructed
that prisoners be treated "humanely," and in accordance with
the conventions "to the extent appropriate and consistent with
military neccessity". Bush/Cheney campaign managers hope that the
unprecedented release of secret material will draw a line under the
controversy.
But last night Democrats
signalled they had no intention of dropping the issue. Nor do the disclosures
answer the underlying question of whether the administration tacitly
condoned tougher techniques that amounted to torture.
The insouciant mood
at the Pentagon is captured in a November 2002 "action memo"
in which Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, approved the stripping
of prisoners and intimidation by dogs. Authorising detainees to be kept
in "stress positions" including standing, for periods of up
to four hours, Mr Rumsfeld scribbed at the bottom of the page, "I
stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours? DR."
The release of the
documents failed to allay the concerns of Democrats on Capitol Hill.
The White House had provided only a "a small subset" of the
relevant documents, Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, declared, saying: "Much more remains held
back and hidden away from public view".
The documents, for
instance, shed no light on the question that has haunted the administration
since the establishment in autumn 2001 of the prison camp at Guantanamo
Bay in Cuba - whether the administration gave a tacit green light to
torture to extract information.
Early last year,
the commander at Guantanamo Bay was sent to Baghdad with the mission
of making interrogations of suspected Iraqi insurgents at Abu Ghraib
more "productive". Moreover some prominent US lawyers, as
well as government officials, have argued that in cases where the information
obtained could avert a planned attack, torture was justifiable. Others
contend that this "anything goes" approach contributed to
what happened at Abu Ghraib. Nor does the new material make clear whether
the official policy, as it evolved, applied to the CIA.
As the Abu Ghraib
scandal erupted in May, it emerged that senior al- Qa'ida figures have
been threatened with shooting or drowning under secret rules approved
by the agency and the Justice Department.
Some of the methods
used are so harsh, counter-terrorism officials told The New York Times
last month, that the FBI has instructed its agents to steer clear.
Whether or not the
latest disclosures put an end to the controversy, the damage to Mr Bush
may be lasting. A president who has touted his moral values now risks
seeing these values discredited.
* British soldiers
accused of mistreating Iraqi civilians could face public courts martial
in Iraq, Ministry of Defence officials said yesterday.
Martin Howard, the
director general of operational policy at the MoD, said: "The courts
martial would ideally be done near the scene of the crime."
METHODS SANCTIONED
BY PENTAGON
Hooding
Forcing detainees
to adopt 'stress positions' for up to four hours
Removal of clothing
Inducing stress
by using dogs
Forced shaving of
detainees
20-hour interrogations
Isolation for up
to 30 days
© 2004 Independent
Digital (UK) Ltd