Months ago, I suggested that one method of sleep deprivation was the use of stress positions. The Los Angeles Times confirmed, reporting that sleep deprivation was more controversial than the public was led to believe because it is accomplished by shackled stress positions. More importantly, "it could be brought back."
Sleep deprivation is one of the torture methods that the CIA fought hard to keep. Now, "a task force is reviewing its use along with other interrogation methods the agency might employ in the future." Some believe that the "perception" that sleep deprivation is "less objectionable than waterboarding, head-slamming or forced nudity" and its claimed effectiveness may pave the way for its continued use. When considering the injuries, death, or psychological harm from torture, the individual and cumulative impacts must be evaluated as sleep deprivation by stress positions is used in combination with waterboarding, walling and dietary restrictions.
It is not clear how stress positions became the preferred method of sleep deprivation torture, but it happened sometime between 2002 and 2005. In the August 1, 2002 torture memo, Bybee authorized sleep deprivation without discussing how the prisoner would be deprived of sleep. However, when the OLC reevaluated the torture program 3 years later, Bradbury’s 2005 memo revealed how sleep deprivation was based on the physical method of shackling the prisoners. While many consider sleep deprivation to not constitute torture, medical personnel were needed to ensure the prisoners were not injured. They did not succeed. A 2007 Red Cross report stated that prisoners’ wrists and ankles were scarred from the shackles.
Sleep Deprivation Torture Methods
Sleep deprivation takes different forms. In standing sleep deprivation, as described by torture lawyer Bradbury, the prisoner is handcuffed while standing and the "handcuffs are attached by a length of chain to the ceiling" while his feet are shackled to a bolt in the floor. The prisoners were naked except for diapers with feces running down their legs. A prisoner starting to doze "would tit over and be caught by his chains."
There is also "horizontal sleep deprivation." A prisoner who could no longer stand would be reconfigured to lay on the floor, with hands manacled together, and arms placed in an outstretched position either above the head or extended to either side of the body and arms anchored on the floor in "such a manner that the arms cannot be bent or used for balance or comfort." Bradbury wrote that this floor position enabled the "lower limbs to recover from the effects of standing sleep deprivation."
This torture was allowed to continue for 11 days until it was reduced to "just over a week." The 2005 Bradbury memo provided a maximum sleep deprivation of 180 hours or 7 and ½ days and then the prisoner should be allowed to sleep without interruption for at least 8 hours. However, the sleep deprivation torture would be used on an intermittent basis for 3 months.
Then there is the chair sleep deprivation. Abu Zubaydah, according to the Red Cross Report, was chained to a chair with hands and feet shackled. If he started to fall asleep, guards sprayed water in his face. This continued for 2-3 weeks.
Then there are the sleep disruption programs known as Operation Sandman or "frequent flyer" where the prisoner is frequently rousted and moved between cells. A FBI agent who had been at Guantanamo and briefed on the program claimed that prisoners were moved every 4 hours for only a week or two.
These "guidelines" were not followed: A teenager was moved from cell to cell 112 times during a 14-day period while another prisoner was subjected to 50 days of Operation Sandman.
Falsified Evidence To Support Torture
A 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report was more critical of sleep deprivation than any other method of torture except waterboarding. Despite this, the following year Bradbury’s 2005 memo claimed that "even very extended sleep deprivation does not cause physical pain," citing a number of leading university sleep scientists. However, the scientists say their research was "horribly misused" to justify torture.
The researchers were not consulted by the US and thus were shocked when the memos were released. One researcher stated that sleep deprivation causes mental and physical harm as the body’s defense mechanisms are exhausted, opening the door for illnesses.
The scientists stated that psychological stress caused by sleep deprivation can be more dangerous than the physical impact and can cause psychosis. Moreover, the Senate Armed Services Committee report linked sleep deprivation and stress positions as contributing factors in two homicides of prisoners at Bagram in December 2002.
The sleep scientists said it was dangerous for the CIA to extrapolate from the private research for use in its torture program because the factual circumstances were so different. The private research used volunteers who were "free to eat, rest, watch television or leave the research facility at any time. By contrast, CIA prisoners were subjected to major additional stresses that risk physical and mental collapse."
Moreover, the CIA torture program started "the sleep deprivation process at nearly double the maximum ... set for ethical reasons" by the private researchers.
Stress Position Torture Methods
One stress position is for a prisoner to stand for hours at a time. While some may deem harmless, a 1956 CIA commissioned medical study of Soviet torture found that standing for extended time periods, such as 18-24 hours, causes "excruciating pain as ankles double in size, skin becomes 'tense and intensely painful,' blisters erupt oozing 'watery serum,' heart rates soar, kidneys shut down, and delusions deepen." The US used shackled standing stress torture for more than 40 hours.
The bow stress position was used for Omar Khadr, who was captured when 14 years old.
Upon their return, the MPs uncuffed Omar's arms, pulled them behind his back and recuffed them to his legs, straining them badly at their sockets. At the junction of his arms and legs he was again bolted to the floor and left alone. The degree of pain a human body experiences in this particular "stress position" can quickly lead to delirium, and ultimately to unconsciousness. Before that happened, the MPs returned, forced Omar onto his knees, and cuffed his wrists and ankles together behind his back. This made his body into a kind of bow, his torso convex and rigid, right at the limit of its flexibility. The force of his cuffed wrists straining upward against his cuffed ankles drove his kneecaps into the concrete floor. The guards left.
The bow torture technique is believed to be fatal, or, the survivor may face amputation because "a limb or limbs deprived of oxygen and blood circulation for long periods of time don't reliably recover and become gangrenous."
Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Jamell, 47, a former Iraqi army officer, was tortured to death with stress positions (pdf file) when his hands were tied to the top of his cell door while gagged after being "lifted by his feet by a baton held to his throat." He died within 5 minutes due to blunt force injuries and asphyxia or lack of oxygen. The autopsy found "[t]he severe blunt force injuries, the hanging position, and the obstruction of the oral cavity with a gag contributed to [his] death."
Manadel al-Jamadi was tortured to death by beatings and two stress positions (pdf file). In the "Palestinian hanging" stress position, he was shackled to a window about 5 feet from the floor and his arms handcuffed behind his back in a manner which made it "impossible for him to kneel or sit without hanging from his arms in pain." Less than an hour later, he was dead, blood gushing from his mouth and his "arms were almost coming out of their sockets." This was death by asphyxia caused by the stress position rather than the beatings.
"Palestinian hanging" is a form of the strappado torture that "places intense pressure on the shoulders," causing extreme pain and often long-term injury. It also causes difficulty breathing, and if the prisoner "cannot support themselves" due to sleep deprivation, it can cause "death by asphyxiation in much the same way as crucifixion."
Even Karl Rove called "stress positions" torture when the Vietnamese did it to John McCain, who was tortured in the stress position of "tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him." Today, McCain "can’t raise his arms over his head" because the "torture so badly busted up his shoulders."
An interview study of 279 survivors of torture from Bosnia found that forced stress positions and other deprivation tortures caused the same degree of mental suffering as direct physical torture:
The authors concluded that aggressive interrogation techniques or detention procedures involving deprivation of basic needs, exposure to adverse environmental conditions, forced stress positions, hooding or blindfolding, isolation, restriction of movement, forced nudity, threats, humiliating treatment and other psychological manipulations do not appear to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the extent of mental suffering they cause, the underlying mechanisms of traumatic stress and their long-term traumatic effects.
Waiting For The Guards is a film by Amnesty International. A performance artist was subjected to the "agony of Stress Positions, for real, over a six hour period. The resulting film accurately shows the extreme pain and anguish that this technique creates." Fair warning before clicking.
