Taxi to the Dark Side Page #8

including stress positions, forced standing, and sleep deprivation.

[Tim Golden, New York Times Journalist] One of the memoranda shows that in early December, 2002,

the interrogators at Bagram just looked on the Internet... they are in touch with the guys at Guantanamo..

and they learned that these guys at Guantanamo had gotten new techniques from the Secretary of Defense,

and they just started using them. Even though the techniques had clearly been approved exclusively for use at Guantanamo.

[Professor Alfred McCoy, Author of "A Question of Torture"] When General Miller himself traveled from Guantanamo to Iraq in August, 2003,

he brought with him a CD and a manual on the "advanced" techniques they had developed at Guantanamo.

And he gave them to General Sanchez's command.

So there are these multiple paths that you can trace

whereby these interrogators' techniques go through this global migration,

through Afgan, to Iraq, from Guantanamo directly to Iraq. And the net result is Abu Ghraib.

Well before the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public,

government officials had been quietly raising concerns about harsh techniques in use at Guantanamo.

[Senator Carl Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee] There were emails back to the Department of Justice from FBI personnel down at Guantanamo saying,

"You won't believe what's going on down here.

We've got to disassociate ourselves as FBI people from what is going on here in Guantanamo."

This email says "The DOD has their marching orders from the Secretary of Defense"

..."Marching orders from the Secretary of Defense!"...

to engage in practices which the FBI finds to be deeply offensive and dangerous."

But the emails are what is called "redacted",

which means that there's big holes in these emails.

Now some of these emails are totally redacted, so we don't know what they say at all.

That's an example of a lot of the documents that we got here.

You know, you can't see anything on these documents.

There's one after another where there's nothing.

[Alberto Mora, General Counsel to the Navy, 2001-2006] In early December, 2002,

I had heard that there was detainee abuse going on.

I called the Army General Counsel and asked him whether he had any information.

I said, "I'm receiving reports that some of the detainees are being abused at Guantanamo.

Do you know anything about this?"

And his response back was, "I know a lot about it. Come on down to my office."

They pushed a stack of documents across the desk.

The top document was Memorandum from the General Counsel, Department of Defense to Secretary Rumsfeld.

And it was that cover memo that requested authorization of the application of certain interrogation techniques.

And the top memo gave Secretary Rumsfeld's approval for the application of some of those techniques.

It's the memo with Secretary Rumsfeld's handwritten notations on the bottom saying that he stands 8-10 hours a day...

"How come these detainees are only required to stand up to four hours a day?"

I was astounded! But my first reaction was that this was a mistake!

Somebody just didn't read the documents carefully enough.

[Tim Golden, New York Times Journalist] I think people in the Pentagon thought of Alberto Mora as a loyal, Republican, political appointee.

He would never have been considered a rabble-rouser or a liberal.

He said he expected that he would raise these issues, and people in positions of authority would say,

"Oh! Thanks for letting us know." And that would be the end of it.

[Reporter] I want to ask you about a memo that was written by Alberto Mora.

Do you recall on this memo that you wrote a little notation on the bottom about standing more than four hours,

- because you stand at your desk ...- [Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] [Cuts him off] I do! I do!

[Reporter] This attorney argued that that could be interpreted by some as a wink-and-a-nod

that it would be okay to go beyond the techniques that were prescribed in the memo.

[Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] Oh, no, no, no, no, no. There's no wink-and-a-nod about anything.

There was one provision in there that they would have people stand for several hours,

and it was a semi-humorous remark that a person in his seventies stands all day long.

I just mused that in...and maybe it shouldn't have gone out, but it did...and I wrote it. And life goes on.

[Reporter] But his point was that you should have gotten much better advice from your legal staff...

[Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] [Interrupts Reporter again] I heard your question the first time!

[Alberto Mora, General Counsel to the Navy, 2001-2006] What was of concern to me was the techniques,

how their individual and in combination could rise to the level of torture.

Okay, you're permitting certain interrogation techniques. But certainly there must be

some limit which is set on the severity of the techniques.

Light deprivation could mean placing the detainee in a dark room for 15 minutes,

or it could mean a month. Or two months. Or three months until he goes blind.

"Detainee's specific phobia techniques": the snakes, the bats, the rats,

lock somebody up in a coffin...you're limited only by your imagination.

Any one of these techniques individually could yield the results of torture.

Certainly, in combination, you could reach that fairly quickly.

[Dr. Donald O. Hebb] See, if you put a person into this procedure,

and keep them there for more than the six or eight days

that I would think might be the maximum tolerability, then the price is pretty high.

The price is someone's sanity?

[Dr. Donald O. Hebb] Presumably, it could be.

[Alberto Mora, General Counsel to the Navy, 2001-2006] The medical literature had a phenomenon called "force drift," that made it almost inevitable

That the interrogators would continue applying greater and greater increments of force to achieve their desired results.

[Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell] For example, take Secretary Rumsfeld's memo.

And to say that, "Well, look, he said that dogs have to be muzzled."

Well, that's a man who doesn't understand the Military on the ground.

Because when that E-6 is sitting there with that muzzled dog, and there is absolutely no impact on that person being interrogated,

He's going to take that muzzle off. That's reality. That's human nature.

Alberto Mora threatened to go on record with his concerns unless the techniques were rescinded.

[Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] When, after the facts, it turns out that there is concern about it that concerns me,

then I'm happy to rescind it and take another fresh look at it.

And talk to more people about it. And see what ought to be done.

[Alberto Mora, General Counsel to the Navy, 2001-2006] To his credit, Secretary Rumsfeld did rescind the interrogation techniques.

And then, for over a year and a half, I heard no reports from any quarter about detainee abuse anywhere.

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