Back on May 9, I wrote about the part of the torture debate that has been lost in the politics of Cheney and his effectiveness campaign, and the narrowing of the debate to waterboarding and whether it's really torture: approximately 100 detainnes have died during U.S. interrogations. Some we know were tortured to death.
Today a number of bloggers are focusing again on these deaths, in anticipation of the long-delayed CIA Inspector General's report that will be released tomorrow, and as a part of the ACLU Accountability Project.
Daily Kos diarist drational looks at one case, the autopsy of an Afghani Mullah named Habibullah:
The Autopsy listed the cause of death as "Pulmonary embolism due to blunt force injuries", and the manner of death as homicide. Whereas I concur this was a homicide, and Habibullah was clearly beaten severely, I strongly doubt that blunt force injuries were the sole cause of the pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary embolism is most often caused by immobility, which lets blood clots form in the deep veins (usually of the legs). When trauma is a cause of pulmonary embolism, it is almost always associated with immobility. For example, head injuries leading to coma and leg fractures both result in immobility and high risk of pulmonary embolism. In the hospital, such patients would get preventative treatment, such as with a blood thinner to prevent blood clots from forming in the veins of the immobile extremities. But in Afghanistan in December 2002, immobility was exactly what was in store for a detainee.
Habibullah was being interrogated by the military. Upon autopsy he was clothed only in an adult diaper. Because he was taken from his cell to the Bagram medical facility "dead on arrival" it is likely he was wearing a diaper when he was found "unresponsive, restrained in his cell" (hanging shackled from the ceiling). This is consistent with the nudity and use of diapering during "sleep deprivation" approved by Rumsfeld and described as part of the protocols for CIA interrogation during one technique: sleep deprivation- in which the detainee is shackled standing or sitting for up to 7 1/2 days straight. We have learned from the 2005 Bradbury memos that sleep deprivation causes venous stasis in the legs and has led to severe leg edema. We know that Habibullah was shackled to the ceiling of his cell for sleep deprivation, where he was ultimately found dead. This scenario is reinforced by a citation of a DOD criminal investigation report in the recently released Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Detainee Treatment (PDF). This citation noted that "the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation combined with other mistreatment at the hands of Bagram personnel, caused or were direct contributing factors in the two homicides [Habibullah and Dilawar]."
Marcy Wheeler writes about detainee 04-309, "'well-developed, well-nourished' man, 6 foot and 190 pounds" when captured on April 26, 2004:
But 04-309's Final Autopsy Report--completed on November 22, 2004, long after Abu Ghraib broke and the CIA's Inspector General concluded the CIA's interrogation program was cruel and inhumane (though not all that long after a criminal investigation of homicides committed in 2002 concluded, on October 8, 2004, that the deaths were partly caused by sleep deprivation and stress positions)--doesn't conclude how he died. It does, however, describe these "circumstances of death:"
During his confinement, he was hooded, sleep deprived, and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and hood.
....
Now I'm no doctor--and I definitely can't make sense of the cardiac findings. But it sounds like "stress positions," "sleep deprivation," "walling," and "water dousing" are all leading candidates to have caused the death of 04-309. Or, to use the terms used for techniques approved for use by one Special Forces group in Iraq until May 18, 2004, about a month after 04-309's death, "safety positions," "sleep adjustment/sleep management," "change of environment/ environmental manipulation," and "mild physical contact." It doesn't really matter what you call the techniques, though, because they amount to torture that--in the case of an apparently healthy 27 year old man--appear to have killed him in three days time.
Glenn has more:
Autopsy A 03-51 -- 52 y/o male civilian -- Nasiriyah:: "...died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation. . . . abrasions encircling the left writs are consistent with the use of retraints.... The manner of death in my opinion is homicide.
Glenn also notes a Human Rights First report describing teh lack of accountability for even those homicides that the military acknowledges.
Since August 2002, nearly 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global "war on terror." According to the U.S. military’s own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. . . .
Despite these numbers, four years since the first known death in U.S. custody, only 12 detainee deaths have resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official. Of the 34 homicide cases so far identified by the military, investigators recommended criminal charges in fewer than two thirds, and charges were actually brought (based on decisions made by command) in less than half. While the CIA has been implicated in several deaths, not one CIA agent has faced a criminal charge. Crucially, among the worst cases in this list – those of detainees tortured to death – only half have resulted in punishment; the steepest sentence for anyone involved in a torture-related death: five months in jail.
Torture wasn't limited to waterboarding. It was the combination of sleep deprivation, stress positions, "walling," exposure to extreme heat and cold. It was used indiscriminately and in combinations that were not only approved but were "virtually choreographed" by the highest levels of government: Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet and John Ashcroft. And, as we're likely to find confirmed in the CIA report to be released tomorrow--unless it is redacted into utter irrelevance--that the CIA knew it wasn't an effective tool for gathering intelligence.
Don't forget, the intelligence that it was employed to gather very early in the war in Afghanistan was the false intelligence to take us into Iraq.
There hasn't been adequte accountability in the military, and thus far there hasn't been accountability in our government. Back in May, I wrote:
The official sanction of torture, in fact, not just the sanction of torture but the before-the-fact decision to use torture as a policy tool had this inevitable consequence: homicide. Torturing people to death wasn't official policy, but once unleashed it was inevitable that abuse would spread and intensify and result in murder. And that should demand a criminal investigation, not just of those directly responsible for the deaths, but of those who authorized them. As Sifton concludes, "many detainee homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan were the direct result of approval and orders from the highest levels of government, and ... officials in the government are accomplices. Any meaningful investigation of those homicides would reveal the initial authorizations and their link to the homicides.... One cannot speak glibly of 'policy differences' and 'looking forward' and 'distraction' when corpses are involved."
Our collective hands are stained. Sunlight, in the form of accountability is our only hope of cleansing that stain.
Update: More links:
Daphne Eviatar
Christy Hardin Smith
digby
Valtin
ACLU's Jameel Jeffer
Rev. Scotty McClennan
Arielle Gingold
Hussein Rashid