Bagram torture and prisoner abuse

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In 2005, a 2,000-page U.S. Army report was obtained by the New York Times concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. armed forces in 2002 at the Bagram Collection Point. The prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were chained to the ceiling and beaten, which caused their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners' deaths were homicide. Autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged.

A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell.

[edit] Location

The torture and homicides took place at the military detention center known as the Bagram Collection Point (B.C.P.), which had been built by the Soviets as an aircraft machine shop during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1980-1989). B.C.P. is a concrete-and-sheet-metal facility that was retrofitted with wire pens and wooden isolation cells.

The B.C.P. is part of the Bagram Air Base at the antique city of Bagram near Charikar in Parvan, Afghanistan.

[edit] Habibullah

Mr. Habibullah died on December 4, 2002 at the hands of several U.S. soldiers. They hit the chained man with so-called "peroneal strikes," or severe blows to the side of the leg above the knee (incapacitates the leg by hitting the common peroneal nerve). According to the New York Times:

By Dec. 3, Mr. Habibullah's reputation for defiance seemed to make him an open target. [He had taken at least 9 peroneal strikes from two M.P.'s for being "noncompliant and combative."]

... When Sgt. James P. Boland saw Mr. Habibullah on Dec. 3, he was in one of the isolation cells, tethered to the ceiling by two sets of handcuffs and a chain around his waist. His body was slumped forward, held up by the chains. Sergeant Boland ... had entered the cell with [Specialists Anthony M. Morden and Brian E. Cammack]. ...

kneeing the prisoner sharply in the thigh, "maybe a couple" of times. Mr. Habibullah's limp body swayed back and forth in the chains.^[1]

When medics arrived, they found Mr. Habibullah dead.

[edit] Dilawar

Dilawar, who died on December 10, 2002, was a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver and farmer who weighed 122 pounds and was described by his interpreters as neither violent nor aggressive.

When beaten, he repeatedly cried "Allah!" The outcry appears to have amused U.S. military personnel, as the act of striking him in order to provoke a scream of "Allah!" eventually "became a kind of running joke," according to one of the MP's. "People kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."

The Times reported that:

On the day of his death, Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

"A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying. Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen.

It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.^[2]

[edit] Mohammed Sulaymon Barre

A Somalian refugee, named Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, who worked for a funds transfer company, described his Bagram interrogation as "torture".^[3] Barre said he was picked up and thrown around the interrogation room when he wouldn't confess to a false allegation. He was then put into an isolation chamber that was maintained at a piercingly cold temperature for several weeks. He said he was deprived of sufficient rations during his time in isolation. He said, as a result of this treatment his hands and feet swelled, causing him such excruciating pain he couldn't stand up.

[edit] Investigation

In October 2004, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (USACIDC) concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case. Seven soldiers have been charged so far.

[edit] Ongoing investigations and prosecutions

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According to an article published in the October 15, 2004 New York Times 28 soldiers were under investigation. ^[4] Some of the soldiers were reservists in the 377th Military Police Company. The 377th was under the command of Captain Christopher M. Beiring. The rest were in the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. They were under the command of Captain Carolyn A. Wood.

As of November 15, 2005 charges had been laid against 15 soldiers. ^[5]

[edit] Involved but uncharged

Some interrogators involved in this incident were sent to Iraq and were assigned to the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

PFC Corsetti was fined and demoted for not having premission to conduct an interrogation at Abu Ghraib.

[edit] A widespread pattern of abuse

An editorial of the New York Times noted a parallel with the later abuse and torture of prisoners in Iraq:

(W)hat happened at Abu Ghraib was no aberration, but part of a widespread pattern. It showed the tragic impact of the initial decision by Mr. Bush and his top advisers that they were not going to follow the Geneva Conventions, or indeed American law, for prisoners taken in antiterrorist operations.

The investigative file on Bagram, obtained by The Times, showed that the mistreatment of prisoners was routine: shackling them to the ceilings of their cells, depriving them of sleep, kicking and hitting them, sexually humiliating them and threatening them with guard dogs -- the very same behavior later repeated in Iraq.^[7]

In November 2001, SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, was sent to Afghanistan, where he spent four months at Bagram. In early 2003, Banks issued guidance for the "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy although he has emphatically denied that he had advocated the use of SERE counter-resistance techniques to break down detainees.

[edit] Denial of widespread pattern of abuse by U.S. Government

Main article: Periodic Report of the United States of America to the United Nations Committee Against Torture

The United States government, through the State Department makes periodic reports to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. In October 2005, the report focused on pretrial detention of suspects in the War on Terrorism, including those held in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. This particular Periodic Report is significant as the first official response of the U.S. government to allegations that there is widespread abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan The report denies the allegations.

[edit] McCain Amendment

Main article: McCain Detainee Amendment

The McCain Detainee Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Senate Department of Defense Authorization bill, commonly referred to as the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977 and also known as the McCain Amendment 1977. The amendment would prohibit inhumane treatment of prisoners. The Amendment was introduced by Senator John McCain, a candidate for the 2000 presidential Republican primary, who is viewed as a likely candidate for 2008. On October 5, 2005, the United States Senate voted 90-9 to support the amendment.^[8]

Critics of the bill note with much evidence of a back-room deal between McCain and the White House that the exemption for the CIA makes the entire bill mere public relations. It is CIA activities that are at the forefront of the issue and thus the very purpose of having such a bill in the first place. To exempt the very source of the problem is to give licence to the main source of the problem.

[edit] See also

• Carolyn Wood
• Dilawar
• Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
• Command responsibility
• Criticisms of the War on Terrorism
• Guantánamo Bay Qur'an desecration allegations
• War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
• Uses of torture in recent times
• Human Rights Record of the United States
• the salt pit
• Iraq prison abuse scandal
• Abaidullah
• Thank You Joe Darby – A site for expressions of support for Joe Darby, the soldier that exposed the graphic photos and video and brought the Abu Ghraib prison scandal to light.

[edit] References

1. ^  Golden, Tim. "In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths", New York Times, May 20, 2005. (About war crimes in Bagram.)
2. ^  Golden, Tim. "Army Faltered in Investigating Detainee Abuse", New York Times, May 22, 2005. (More about war crimes in Bagram.)
3. ^  Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mohammed Sulaymon Barre's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 30-37
4. ^  Shanker, Thom. "28 soldiers tied to 2 Afghan deaths" (reprint New York Times), October 15, 2004.
5. ^  "A look at the soldiers accused in Afghanistan abuse investigation", Akron Beacon Journal, December 5, 2005.
6. ^  "UN Condemns Torture of Afghans", CRI Online, May 22, 2005.
7. ^  "Patterns of Abuse", Editorial, New York Times, May 23, 2005.
8. ^  McCain Amendment roll call.

[edit] External links

• America: Incommunicado detention / Fear of ill-treatment, Adil al-Jazeeri, Amnesty International, July 16, 2003 - "Detainees undergoing interrogation by agents of the CIA in the Bagram Air Base have allegedly been subjected to "stress and duress" techniques, including prolonged standing or kneeling, hooding, blindfolding with spray-painted goggles, being kept in painful or awkward positions, sleep deprivation, and 24-hour lighting. Two detainees died at Bagram Air Base in December 2002 in circumstances suggesting that they may have been beaten. The military investigation into the deaths was still ongoing in late June, according to the Pentagon"
• From Bagram to Abu Ghraib, Mother Jones, March 1, 2005
• U.S. 'Thumbs Its Nose' at Rights, Amnesty Says by Alan Cowell, New York Times, May 26, 2005
• Years After 2 Afghans Died, Abuse Case Falters, New York Times, February 13, 2006
• Failures of Imagination, Columbia Journalism Review, 2005, issue 5