Author
Human Rights Watch
John Sifton is Senior Researcher on Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism for Human Rights Watch. Here, he talks about the report he co-authored “No Blood, No Foul: Soldiers Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq.”
HRW: You co-authored a report about detainee abuse in Iraq. What is the report about?
This is one of the first reports about abuse in Iraq that is based on the testimony of soldiers themselves. The words, the stories, and accounts of interrogators and MP guards who served in Iraq 2003 to 2005. Talking about abuses they saw with their own eyes and even in some cases participated in.
The title of the report is called "No Blood, No Foul: Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq." Why did you name it that way?
"No Blood / No Foul" refers to a sign that was posted at an interrogation center at Baghdad Airport. This was an off-limits facility called Camp Nama, where a special taskforce interrogated high level detainees. The abuses at Camp Nama were some of the most serious reported in Iraq, but this report is also about abuses at other facilities in the country including one on the Syrian border near the town of Al-Qa'im, and [one] near Mosul airport in the north of Iraq.
Since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in 2004, we've known about abuses of Iraqi detainees. What's new about your report?
Well this report is based on the account of soldiers themselves, describing abuse they saw with their own eyes. The soldiers describe detainees being routinely subjected to beatings, painful stress positions, severe sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme cold and hot temperatures -- very serious abuses. It shows abuses in Iraq were not isolated events by independent actors, rather they were routine and authorized.
HRW: Can you give examples -specific examples- of the types of abuses that have been happening against Iraqi detainees?
Soldiers interviewed in this report describe various forms of mistreatment and even torture, including beatings, psychological torture of various kinds. At Camp Nama for instance, detainees were regular stripped naked, subjected to sleep deprivation [and] extreme cold, and they were placed in painful stress positions and beaten. At a base called FOB Tiger, they were held without food or water for over 24 hours at a time in temperatures exceeding 135°F, after that they were taken into interrogation rooms where they were beaten and subjected to death threats. Soldiers placed guns against detainees' heads with no cartridge in the chamber and fired the weapon at the head. At Mosul, detainees were regularly subjected to all those techniques, including severe sleep deprivation and forced exercises and were threaten with military guard dogs. Soldiers described various forms of sleep deprivation. In some cases, detainees were lined up and forced to stand for 24 hours or more at a time. In other cases, they were forced to do exercises. It was only after the initial periods of sleep deprivation that people were brought in for interrogation. During interrogations, there were serious allegations that Military Intelligence officers were beating detainees and subjecting them to further psychological torture: playing music very loudly, strobe lights, and other forms of disorienting "environmental manipulation" - as they called it.
HRW: According to your report, this abuse is known as "standard operating procedure" among military personnel. Did military leadership authorize abuse against detainees?
The accounts in this report reveal detainee abuse in Iraq was an established, even authorized, part of detention and interrogation processes in Iraq through much of 2003 to 2005. Military Intelligence officers were ordering military interrogators to use techniques of sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, forced exercises, threats, using military guard dogs. A lot this abuse was then spilling over into ostensibly unauthorized techniques: outright beatings, detainees died in custody, and in many instances, abuses weren't reported and nothing would happen when soldiers complained.
HRW: Has anybody been held accountable for these abuses?
Since the Abu Ghraib scandal there have been investigations including courts-martial into detainee abuse, but one of the most disturbing findings Human Rights Watch has is that only military police and low level soldiers have been held accountable for abuse. This report shows that military intelligence officers and even Department of Defense officials up the chain of command authorized the techniques that spilled into outright illegal assaults, yet no officer in the military intelligence chain of command has been held accountable. Not a single military intelligence officer stationed in Iraq has been court-martialed for abuse.
HRW: Did any military personnel speak out against this abuse, and how were they responded to?
A lot of soldiers in Iraq were very disturbed by what they were seeing. Many soldiers attempted to report abuse up the chain of command. A disturbing aspect of the accounts provided in our report is how military leadership rebuffed or ignored most of the complaints by soldiers and officers who were troubled by what they were seeing. Investigations were initiated in some cases, but in most cases complaints were either ignored or investigations found no wrongdoing that warranted further investigation.
HRW: Why are you focusing on the US forces when there's so much violence by Iraqi insurgents and security forces?
Human Rights Watch is aware that US forces in Iraq are fighting armed groups who themselves have shown little willingness to follow international law. Human Rights Watch has reported previously that Iraqi insurgent groups routinely violate international law. They carry out abductions; attacks against civilians and humanitarian aid workers; they detonate bombs in public places, mosques and police stations. And Human Rights Watch has condemned those responsible. But the activities of insurgent groups are no excuse for US violations. Abuses by one side to a conflict, no matter how vile or egregious, never justify violations by the other side. It is a fundamental principle of international law.
HRW: So what are Human Rights Watch's recommendations?
Our first recommendation is that the Bush administration and the military admit that there is a serious problem with detainee abuse in Iraq. Second, Congress needs to get serious about detainee abuse. We're calling for Congress to reconvene hearings into detainee abuse issues and for them to appoint a bipartisan and independent commission along the lines of the September 11th Commission to further investigate detainee abuse and establish who's been responsible in the military chain of command. Third, we're asking for Congress to pressure the President to appoint independent prosecutors in the military and Justice Department to investigate and prosecute abuse cases and focus not just on the abuse cases themselves, but on the military and civilian leaders who authorized them. We're also calling on the Secretary of Defense to convene a high level panel - members of the Judge Advocate General Corp - to consider reforms of the criminal justice system of the US military. Right now both the military and the CIA have institutional, systemic problems that make it very difficult for their personnel to report abuses. And both the Secretary of Defense and the Head of the CIA need to think about how that can be reformed. This report makes it impossible for US government officials to claim there has been real accountability for torture and abuse of detainees in Iraq. The government needs to acknowledge that serious abuse has routinely occurred. And they need to ensure that these crimes are adequately investigated and punished, both now and in the future.