Ban Torture

What do you stand for?

Timeline

Once you take the first step, it’s easy

The Best Summaries:

Timeline:

  • Clinton Administration - clandestine CIA rendition program begins
  • 2001 - Donald Rumsfeld instructs military intelligence officers to “Take the gloves off” in interrogating American Taliban recruit John Walker Lindh
  • 2001 - CIA developed a new set of interrogation rules, vetted by Justice Department and approved by NSA. Rules allow operators to use “enhanced measures” that cause temporary physical or mental pain upon approval from Washington. (Washington Post)
  • Oct 2001 - Justice Department writes the first torture memo: international torture law does not cover “stress factors”.
  • Dec 2001 - DoJ Office of Legal Counsel writes a second torture memo: Guantanamo is outside of all court jurisdiction.
  • Feb 2002 - John Yoo and Robert Delahunty write torture memo to Department of Defense: the laws of war do not apply in Afghanistan, and international law has “no binding legal effect on either the President or the military”.
  • Jan 2002 - State Department Legal Adviser William Taft IV says Yoo memo is “seriously flawed”, wants to follow Geneva Conventions.
  • Feb 2002 - Alberto Gonzales and David Addington write response memo directly to Bush: “this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions”, and “substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act”.
  • Jan 2002 - Colin Powell personally objects.
  • Feb 2002 - John Ashcroft writes letter to Bush: “If a determination is made that Afghanistan was a failed state, various legal risks of liability, litigation, and criminal prosecution are minimized”.
  • Feb 2002 - White House decides that a few Geneva Conventions apply to Afghanistan, but not the parts about PoWs.
  • Apr 2002 - Al Qaida official Abu Zubaydah captured, tortured. Human Rights Watch
  • Aug 2002 - Justice Department memo advises White House that torturing is acceptable in the war on terror. (Washington Post)
  • Aug 2002 - Jay Bybee writes torture memo to Gonzales titled “Standards of Conduct for Interrogations”: “certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within Section 2340A’s proscription against torture”. And besides, “necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Section 2340A”.
  • Sep 2002 - Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, is detained in New York while boarding a plane for home. He is sent to a prison in Syria and tortured with electric cables for a year.
  • Oct 2002 - Guantanamo commanders ask for permission to use stronger methods.
  • Oct 2002 - General James Hill passes request to the Joint Chief, with a few misgivings: “I am particularly troubled by the use of implied or expressed threats of death of the detainee or his family”.
  • Nov 2002 - William Haynes sends Action Memo to Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of Guantanamo.
  • Dec 2002 - Rumsfeld authorizes hooding, nakedness, dark rooms, and “using detainees’ individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress”.
  • Dec 2002 - Two Afghans die in U.S. custody, both deaths classified as homicides. Washington Post
  • 2003 - Maher Arar, Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was rendered to Jordan where he was interrogated and beaten. Jordan turned him over to Syria, where he was beaten, tortured, and kept in a shallow grave for 10 months. Returned to Canada after pressure from Canadian government and activists. (cbc.ca)
  • Jan 2003 - After Navy interrogators object to the new techniques, Rumsfeld takes it back.
  • Mar 2003 - Pentagon writes memo: “the prohibition against torture [in the 1994 criminal statute] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority”.
  • Mar 2003 - Department of Defense memo prepared by Bush administration lawyers states that U.S. laws and international treaties banning torture can be ignored because of national security concerns and presidential fiat.
  • Apr 2003 - Creation of list of approved interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay. Includes reversing sleep patterns, exposing prisoners to hot and cold, and sensory assault by loud music and bright lights. (Washington Post)
  • Apr 2003 - Judge Advocate General’s office secretly contacts international human rights lawyer Scott Horton, asks him to go to court since they can’t intervene.
  • May 2003 - Four soldiers plea-bargain to beating Iraqi prisoners, quietly discharged.
  • May 2003 - Guantanamo General Geoffrey Miller writes “72-point matrix for stress and duress” which recommends hooding, nakedness, dark rooms, and increasing levels of pain.
  • 2003 - CIA interrogators and CACI contractors hold secret prisoners in Iraq.
  • Jun 2003 - US withdraws military aid from 50 countries for supporting international prosecution of war crimes.
  • Jun 2003 - General Miller plans an execution chamber at Guantanamo.
  • Jun 2003 - General Karpinski takes command of prisons. Like most of her troops, she has no experience with prisons.
  • 2003 - CIA “ghost detainees” shuttled around different cells to avoid being seen by Red Cross.
  • Sep 2003 - General Miller visits Karpinski, puts Abu Ghraib prison under command of military intelligence.
  • Sep 2003 - Major General Miller of Guantanamo recommends that Abu Ghraib guards “be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees.”
  • Oct 2003 - General Ryder investigates prisons.
  • Nov 2003 - Ryder report indicates lack of controls. Pentagon calls for second inquiry.
  • Nov 2003 - Undocumented prisoner killed during interrogation, then packed in ice, given fake IV, listed as medical mortality.
  • Nov 2003 - U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear two appeals about Guantanamo Bay detainees.
  • Nov 2003 - Abu Ghraib guards had definitely started abusing prisoners by this time (Taguba report)
  • Dec 2003 - General Karpinski says “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”
  • 2003 - Red Cross detects abuse. Their reports “repeatedly asked the U.S. authorities to take corrective action”.
  • Jan 2004 - General Taguba questions prison guards, gets confessions.
  • Jan 2004 - General Karpinski reassigned.
  • Feb 2004 - Taguba report explicitly verifies abuse.
  • Feb 2004 - White House chief counsel tells ABA that President Bush makes the final decision on a U.S. citizen being designated as an enemy combatant.
  • Apr 2004 - CBS gets abuse photos, asks DoD, then holds story for two weeks. No action taken.
  • Apr 2004 - Solicitor General tells Supreme Court that Guantanamo Bay is not part of U.S.
  • Apr 2004 - Photographs from Abu Ghraib are reported by CBS.
  • Apr 2004 - Abuse at Abu Ghraib on 60 Minutes II.
  • Apr 2004 - New Yorker publishes Hersh article, excerpts of Taguba report.
  • May 2004 - Washington Post reports that CIA employees are being investigated for 2 interrogation-related deaths in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. This article also reports that the CIA would move captives (”ghost detainees”) around to hide them from the Red Cross.
  • May 2004 - Deputy Solicitor General tells Supreme Court ‘they must “trust the executive to make the kind of quintessential military judgments that are involved in things like that.” The government’s interrogators understand that information obtained through coercion may be unreliable, Clement said, and they know that “the last thing you want to do is torture somebody or try to do something along those lines.” When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that some governments engage in “mild torture” to obtain information, Clement shot back: “Well, our executive doesn’t.”‘ (PBS)
  • Jun 2004 - Congressional 9/11 Commission asks for torture memos. John Ashcroft refuses, says there is no link between the administration redefining torture and the soldiers committing torture.