Senate Probes How Department of Defense Made the Case for Torture at Gitmo

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White

Scroll to the bottom of this story for an update.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding hearings beginning Tuesday morning into the Department of Defense's case for using "aggressive interrogation techniques" on detainees in U.S. custody. The evidence being presented to the committee is expected to show that senior Defense Department officials solicited information and opinions about such techniques that they later used to justify the use of torture at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Dr. Jerald Ogrisseg will testify as the former chief of psychology services at the U.S. Air Force Survival School. He monitors students' reactions to training in how to survive being a prisoner of war. He said he was asked in 2002 by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baumgartner, Jr., a former chief of staff for the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency of the Air Force who will also testify before the committee today, for his opinion on torture techniques such as waterboarding. He described the interaction in his opening statement:

"Lt. Col. Baumgartner asked me if I'd ever seen the waterboard used, and what I thought of it. I told him that I had seen it used while observing Navy training the previous year, and that I would never recommend using it in training...I told Lt. Col. Baumgartner that waterboarding was completely inconsistent with the stress inoculation paradigm of training that we used, and was more indicative of a practice that produces learned helplessness -- a training result we tried strenuously to avoid. The final area I recall Lt. Col. Baumgartner asking me about my thoughts on was using the waterboard against the enemy. I responded by asking, "Wouldn't that be illegal?" He replied that some people were asking from above about the utility of using this technique against the enemy for the same reasons I wouldn't use it in training. I replied that I wouldn't go down that path because, aside from being illegal, it was a completely different arena that we in the Survival School didn't know anything about."

Alberto Mora is a former lawyer for the U.S. Navy. While he provided information on torture to the Navy Inspector General in 2004 during the Abu Ghraib scandal investigations, he will testify Tuesday on his personal and legal opinion on torture. In his prepared opening statement, he criticized policymakers' use of interrogators' views to justify such techniques:

"Our nation's policy decision to use so-called 'harsh' interrogation techniques during the war on terror was a mistake of massive proportions. It damaged and continues to damage our nation in ways that appear never to have been considered or imagined by its architects and supporters, whose policy focus seems to have been narrowly confined to the four corners of the interrogation room. This interrogation policy -- which may aptly be labeled a 'policy of cruelty' -- violated our founding values, our constitutional system and the fabric of our laws, our over-arching foreign policy interests, and our national security. The net effect of this policy of cruelty has been to weaken our defenses, not to strengthen them, and has been greatly contrary to our national interest."

Mora added that while there is a legal distinction between cruelty and torture, there is no moral one. He also said that calling our current interrogation techniques "harsh" or "enhanced" is misleading and used in order to evade the more apt but less appealing label of "torture." He said that the use of torture hurts the nation's international reputation and cited four examples of national security being harmed by the practice.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver will testify as a former staff judge advocate for the Joint Task Force at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. In her opening statement, Beaver introduced herself to the committee as the "vilified" lawyer who wrote the October 2002 legal opinion that was used to justify the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay. She defended her opinion, but said she didn't realize she would be the only lawyer weighing in on the matter:

"I did not expect that my opinion, as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, would become the final word on interrogation policies and practices within the Department of Defense. For me, such a result was simply not foreseeable. Perhaps I was somewhat naïve, but I did not expect to be the only lawyer issuing a written opinion on this monumentally important issue."

She added that more legal opinions on the matter could lead to a consensus, which may or may not change the current policy:

"I believed at the time, and still do, that such a balance could be reached -- if the interrogations were strictly reviewed, controlled and monitored. My legal opinion was not a 'blank check' authorizing unlimited interrogations."

The Senate inquiry is part of a greater debate over whether the entire U.S. military should abide by the prisoner-of-war treatment rules outlined in the Geneva Conventions. Because detainees are not classified as prisoners of war, the terms of their treatment have been largely undefined.

In March, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have required the CIA to abide by interrogation rules laid out in the Army Field Manual. While former prisoner of war and presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) generally opposes the use of torture on U.S. detainees, he voted against the so-called "Waterboarding Ban." Despite support from many Democrats, the bill did not have sufficient votes to override the veto. Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) did not vote due to his campaign schedule, but has said he opposes harsh interrogation techniques that amount to torture.

UPDATE: Sen. John McCain, ranking minority leader of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is not present at the hearing today. He is campaigning in Texas, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) filling in as ranking member.

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