Guantanamo chief cleared over prisoner abuse

A US military investigation has decided that no rules were broken when a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp was dressed up in women's underwear, tied on a lead and forced to perform "dog tricks".

The inquiry found that a pair of thong underpants was placed over the prisoner's head, he was subjected to unnecessary strip searches and made to dance with a male guard. He was told that he was a homosexual and his mother and sisters were prostitutes. In addition, he was kept in solitary confinement for 160 days and was interrogated for up to 20 hours a day.
However, while "abusive and degrading", the humiliation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi national dubbed the "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attack, did not amount to torture, according to the report put before a committee of the Senate which cleared the camp's commanding officer of any failure in his duty.
Mr al-Qahtani is one of a series of prisoners at the controversial camp in Cuba whose treatment was reviewed by a panel investigating concerns passed to the Pentagon by FBI agents about the treatment of inmates.
Investigators found three cases where 'mid-ranking' interrogators had exceeded their authority according to an abbreviated, unclassified version of the report which has been made public today.
These included a Navy lieutenant commander who threatened to have a detainee’s family killed, the treatment of two prisoners who were shackled to the floor in a foetal position and reports that duct tape was used to bind the mouth of a detainee chanting verses of the Koran.
But in many cases, the investigating panel found that the tactics had been authorised and, although questionable, did not qualify as torture.

These included complaints that a female guard rubbed herself against a prisoner's back and another detainee was smeared with a substance which he was told was menstrual blood.
In a conclusion which supports previous statements from the White House, but which has inflamed the anger of human rights campaigners, the panel led by Lieutenant General Randall Schmidt found that there had been no cases of inhumane treatment or torture.
Mr Schmidt, presenting the report, explained: "Mr al-Qahtani admitted to being the 20th hijacker and he expected to fly on United Airlines flight 93 [which crashed in Pennsylvania]. He proved to have intimate knowledge of future plans.
"As the bottom line, though, we found no torture. Detention and interrogation operations were safe, secure and humane," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The military investigators' report recommended punishment for the commanding officer of the Guantanamo Bay jail at the time, Army Major General Geoffrey Miller, but that suggestion was overturned by General Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command. Major General Miller was later put in charge of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, after the widely-reported abuse incidents there.

"My reason for disapproving that recommendation is that the interrogation of [Qahtani] did not result in any violation of a U.S. law or policy," General Craddock testified.
"And the degree of supervision provided by Major General Miller does not warrant admonishment under the circumstances."
The Geneva Conventions prohibit sexually degrading tactics but the Bush administration has said the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Guantanamo detainees, saying that they are suspected terrorists rather than prisoners of war.
Republican senator John McCain, who was taken prisoner and abused during the Vietnam war, responded: "They may be al-Qaeda, they may be Taliban, they may be the worst people in the world, and I'm sure some of them are. But there are certain rules and international agreements the United States has agreed to, and that we will observe.



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