Human Dignity and Detainee 063

Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063

This week's issue of Time campaigns for the closing of Gitmo.

It screams, "EXCLUSIVE: To get the "20th hijacker" to talk, the U.S. used a wide range of tactics. A secret log reveals the first documented view of how gitmo really works."


GUARDING GITMO: A military policeman and his guard dog keep watch at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo

Given the violence and death that resulted when Newsweek printed an unsubstantiated report about the toilet desecration of the Koran, wouldn't you assume the editors of Time would think twice before printing something inflammatory that might put innocent civilians and our military personnel in greater danger?

They brag about getting their hands on this secret log.

"According to an 84-page secret interrogation log obtained by TIME"---

The interrogation log of Detainee 063 provides the first internal look at the highly classified realm of Gitmo interrogations since the detention camp opened four years ago. Chief Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita tells TIME that the log was compiled by various uniformed interrogators and observers on the Pentagon's Joint Task Force at Gitmo as the interrogation proceeded. It is stamped SECRET ORCON, a military acronym for a document that is supposed to remain with the organization that created it. A Pentagon official who has seen the log describes it as the "kind of document that was never meant to leave Gitmo."

...The case of Detainee 063 is sure to add fire to the superheated debate about the use of American power in the age of terrorism. The U.S. has been criticized for mistreating Gitmo prisoners and denying their rights at a facility Amnesty International has controversially called the "gulag of our time." Along with lawmakers and human-rights groups, former President Jimmy Carter has called on Washington officials to shut the camp down. Even President George W. Bush told Fox News last week that his Administration was exploring alternatives to the detention center.

There it is in a nutshell. Time intends to stoke the flames of anti-Americanism by publishing portions of the log.

More:

The interrogation sessions lengthen. The quizzing now starts at midnight, and when Detainee 063 dozes off, interrogators rouse him by dripping water on his head or playing Christina Aguilera music. According to the log, his handlers at one point perform a puppet show "satirizing the detainee's involvement with al-Qaeda." He is taken to a new interrogation booth, which is decorated with pictures of 9/11 victims, American flags and red lights. He has to stand for the playing of the U.S. national anthem. His head and beard are shaved. He is returned to his original interrogation booth. A picture of a 9/11 victim is taped to his trousers. Al-Qahtani repeats that he will "not talk until he is interrogated the proper way." At 7 a.m. on Dec. 4, after a 12-hour, all-night session, he is put to bed for a four-hour nap.

Over the next few days, al-Qahtani is subjected to a drill known as Invasion of Space by a Female, and he becomes especially agitated by the close physical presence of a woman. Then, around 2 p.m. on Dec. 6, comes another small breakthrough. He asks his handlers for some paper. "I will tell the truth," he says. "I am doing this to get out of here." He finally explains how he got to Afghanistan in the first place and how he met with bin Laden. In return, the interrogators honor requests from him to have a blanket and to turn off the air conditioner. Soon enough, the pressure ratchets up again. Various strategies of intimidation are employed anew. The log reveals that a dog is present, but no details are given beyond a hazy reference to a disagreement between the military police and the dog handler. Agitated, al-Qahtani takes back the story he told the day before about meeting bin Laden.

Later, after al-Qahtani continues to refuse to cooperate:

Over the next month, the interrogators experiment with other tactics. They strip-search him and briefly make him stand nude. They tell him to bark like a dog and growl at pictures of terrorists. They hang pictures of scantily clad women around his neck. A female interrogator so annoys al-Qahtani that he tells his captors he wants to commit suicide and asks for a crayon to write a will. At one stage, an Arabic-speaking serviceman, posing as a fellow detainee, is brought to Camp X-Ray for a short stay in an effort to gain al-Qahtani's confidence. The log reports that al-Qahtani makes several comments to interrogators that imply he has a big story to tell, but interrogators report that he seems either too scared or simply unwilling, to tell it. On Jan. 10, 2003, al-Qahtani says he knows nothing of terrorists but volunteers to return to the gulf states and act as a double agent for the U.S. in exchange for his freedom. Five days later, Rumsfeld's harsher measures are revoked after military lawyers in Washington raised questions about their use and efficacy.

...Senior Pentagon officials told TIME that some of his most valuable confessions came not during the period covered in the log or as a result of any particular technique but when al-Qahtani was presented with evidence coughed up by others in detention, especially Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. The intelligence take was more cumulative than anything else, says a Pentagon official. Once al-Qahtani realized KSM was talking, the official speculates, al-Qahtani may have felt he had the green light to follow suit.

Time concludes its expose with these thoughts:

President Bush has said the U.S. would apply principals consistent with the Geneva Conventions to "unlawful combatants," subject to military necessity, at Guantanamo and elsewhere. The Pentagon argues that al-Qahtani's treatment was always "humane." But the Geneva Conventions forbid any "outrage on personal dignity." Eric Freedman, a constitutional-law expert and consultant in some of the growing number of federal lawsuits challenging U.S. treatment of these detainees, says, "If the techniques described in this interrogation log are not outrages to personal dignity, then words have no meaning." Then again, in the war on terrorism, the personal dignity of a fanatic trained for mass murder may be an inevitable casualty.

My thoughts:

To be sure, some of these interrogation methods are highly disturbing. It is not a pleasant business.

The issue seems to be the definition of "personal dignity."

Were detainees beheaded at Gitmo?
Were detainees raped?
Were fingers or hands or feet amputated?
Were tongues cut out?
Were detainees murdered with poisonous gas?
Are mass graves being filled with the uncooperative?

Are detainees being given food and water?
Are they allowed to worship?
Are steps being taken to treat them and their holy book with dignity?

I guess personal dignity is a relative thing.

What are interrogators supposed to do? Ask a question and if the detainee refuses to respond, just say "Nevermind" and hand him a Koran?

This is what I don't understand. If a detainee is innocent of any al Qaeda activities or ties, that individual should cooperate with interrogators. Cooperation would be rewarded. The person's innocence would be clear. There would be no discomfort or humiliation.

On the other hand, when a detainee resists and obviously has reason to stay quiet, that's a clue the individual does not have good intentions and is an enemy of the U.S.

Torture is not an option. Although some of the practices of U.S. interrogators are admittedly tough, they do not compare with the torture methods of al Qaeda. Guantanamo is no gulag.

Maybe Jimmy Carter and Amnesty International flunkies could be in charge of interrogation of suspected al Qaeda members. Would you feel safer under that scenario?

I'm concerned about upholding human dignity and protecting life at all stages, whether it's an embryo, a brain-damaged woman, or a detainee. It disgusts me that the anti-Bush crowd is foaming at the mouth over what's happening at Gitmo; yet they cheered the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo.

What constitutes human dignity is ambiguous, allowing it to be frequently and disgracefully manipulated for political purposes.