Pentagon: Gitmo interrogation techniques lawful
From Jamie McIntyre
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In response to criticism from its own military attorneys, the Pentagon insisted Thursday that interrogation techniques used on al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are "fully consistent with international law."
The Pentagon refused to disclose what techniques are employed. But it insisted they were "in accordance with the Geneva Conventions," even though the Bush administration argues those protections do no apply to terrorist groups or individuals.
Two top Pentagon lawyers -- one civilian and one military -- who spoke on condition of anonymity described how a range of acceptable interrogation practices was drawn up between January and April of 2003, resulting in guidance issued by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last year.
Under that guidance, certain aggressive techniques could only be used with the direct approval of the Secretary of Defense, the officials said.
The officials would not disclose any of the tactics, nor say if they were the same ones that had been available in Iraq, until they were rescinded May 13.
Those included sensory deprivation; sleep adjustment, use of military dogs, and stress positions.
Last May, eight high-ranking military lawyers took the unusual step of complaining to the New York State Bar Association that new interrogation policies could lead to prisoner abuses.
According to USA Today, Scott Horton, former head of the New York Bar's committee on international law, said Army and Navy lawyers told him the new interrogation rules were "frightening" and might "reverse 50 years of a proud tradition of compliance with the Geneva Conventions."
Horton said the lawyers came to him because they had been locked out of policy debates while the secret rules were being drafted, according to the newspaper.
The issue of methods of interrogations has garnered great attention since photographs of U.S. troops mistreating naked, hooded prisoners at Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad, surfaced in April.
The Army has been investigating the abuses since January. Seven soldiers -- all members of an Army reserve military police company -- have been charged in the case, and six officers have received career-ending reprimands.
One soldier, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, pleaded guilty in a court-martial held Wednesday in Baghdad and was sentenced to a year's confinement. (Full story)
