Pentagon Denies Abuse Charges at Guantanamo

The Pentagon on Tuesday strongly denied allegations that terrorism suspects were being tortured at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying that charges reportedly made by the International Committee of the Red Cross run counter to a Defense Department review that found “no credible instances of detainee abuse.”

Although Red Cross officials would not confirm that their July inspection of the facility found instances of torture, an official at the organization’s Geneva headquarters did say that “there are significant problems” at the prison “that have not yet been addressed.”

The Guantanamo Bay base holds about 550 detainees who have been classified as “enemy combatants” and thus do not fall under the Geneva Convention protections for prisoners of war. Many were captured during the 2001 operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

A Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Maj. Michael Shavers, said Tuesday that the Department of Defense would not officially discuss any confidential reports by the Red Cross. But he did release a lengthy statement countering much of what the Red Cross reportedly found last summer.

The statement specifically denied an assertion that some military doctors and other personnel were complicit in the alleged torture by withholding medical assistance in an attempt to persuade prisoners to cooperate with interrogators.

“DOD personnel have not denied medical care to a detainee to obtain information during an interrogation,” the Pentagon statement said. “There have been investigations to review procedures at [the prison] and there has been no credible information that DOD personnel improperly used detainee medical information to physically or mentally harm a detainee during detention or interrogation operations.

“The Department would take such allegations seriously and would investigate all credible reports.”

According to the New York Times, which obtained a memo based on the Red Cross report, the organization concluded after the July inspection that the military intentionally employed psychological and sometimes physical coercion against detainees that was “tantamount to torture.”

The Red Cross report would be the first from an outside agency to document such abuse, similar to that found at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But many detainees and some of their American lawyers have complained that harsh tactics are often used at Guantanamo Bay. The Los Angeles Times reported last month, for instance, that many prisoners had spoken openly during special hearings at the prison about harsh treatment, including beatings and long stretches of solitary confinement.

Amanda Williamson, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Washington, said that officials began regular visits to the prison in Cuba in early 2002 “for the purpose of monitoring that persons held there are treated in accordance with applicable international laws and standards.”

The Red Cross also repeatedly visited the Abu Ghraib facility, and several times put the military on notice about problems with prisoners there last fall.

Scott Horton, a New York lawyer who has worked on human rights issues, said Tuesday that he did not think it was unusual for such treatment of prisoners to go on in Cuba even after the scandal in Iraq at Abu Ghraib embarrassed the Pentagon.

“It’s authorized. This is completely on the up-and-up as far as they are concerned,” Horton said of top Defense officials.

He said he recently spoke with a student at the military’s school for interrogators in Arizona and learned that sexual humiliation, as seen at Abu Ghraib, was being taught as a suitable technique for breaking down prisoners and getting more information from them.

The military, Horton said, “can be very abusive and create very grave damage, with mental illness and mental disease.”

But the Pentagon statement released Tuesday said, “We vehemently deny any allegations of torture at Guantanamo, and reject categorically allegations that the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo is improper.”

The statement said the military had conducted numerous investigations into “detainee treatment and handling,” and that “in all alleged cases of abuse at Guantanamo, DOD has examined the allegations and has found no credible instances of detainee abuse.”

The statement added, “The United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances.”