Coming soon from the Washington Post:
At least two dozen former and current detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere say they were given drugs against their will or witnessed other inmates being drugged, based on interviews and court documents.
Of course, the Bush administration denies this, but ...
Yet the allegations have resurfaced because of the release this month of a 2003 Justice Department memo that explicitly condoned the use of drugs on detainees.
Story should be online soon at http://www.washingtonpost.com
Written to provide legal justification for interrogation practices, the memo by then-Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo rejected a decades-old U.S. ban on the use of "mind-altering substances" on prisoners. Instead, he argued that drugs could be used as long as they did not inflict permanent or "profound" psychological damage. U.S. law "does not preclude any and all use of drugs," Yoo wrote in the memo. He declined to comment for this article.
Yup, it's John Yoo again. Where did they find this guy?
But the Bush administration is sticking to its story:
Former U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged using sedatives to subdue some terrorism suspects as they were being transported from one facility to another, but likewise insist that drugs were never used as interrogation tools. "Any suggestion that the agency's enhanced interrogation techniques included the administration of drugs is simply wrong," said a senior intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing secrecy concerns.
We'll see if that story holds.
Several former military and intelligence officials familiar with the detention program said they were unaware of any systematic use of drugs to manipulate behavior. Alberto J. Mora, a former Navy general counsel who opposed the Bush administration's decision to use aggressive interrogation tactics, said he recalled no discussions about the use of drugs.
But Mora said he understood why some detainees are concerned. "They knew they were being injected with something, and it is clear from all accounts that some suffered severe psychological damage," Mora said.