By Wayne S. Smith and Jennifer Schuett

In the past, the United States was seen as a champion of human rights with a strong record of upholding those rights. There were exceptions, of course; no nation was, or is, perfect. But any instances in which the U.S. did not support human rights were seen as exceptions to the rule. Even during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, it was the policy of the United States strictly to uphold the Geneva Conventions and to treat prisoners accordingly.

But all that seemed to end with the horrifying pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004 - pictures of laughing American soldiers standing over piles of naked, abused prisoners. And there was one of a hooded Iraqi prisoner with electrodes connected to his fingers and penis!
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and their supporting cast, tried to pass off the abuses as the isolated acts of a few misguided enlisted men. A few of those enlisted men were indeed tried and sentenced to prison. But responsibility went much higher. Soon to come to light, for example, was a 50-page Justice Department memo dated August 1, 2002, to Alberto Gonzalez, then the counsel to the President. In other words, the memo was written for the White House and it stated that the Geneva Conventions against torture did not apply to "unlawful combatants" captured during the war on terrorism. The memo also averred that anti-torture stipulations in various other international conventions might well not apply and that the acts themselves might not really constitute torture. "Certain acts may be cruel, inhuman or degrading," it said, "but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within [the] proscription of torture."

That the Bush Justice Department could have written such a memo, and that the White House accepted it rather than sending it back with a stinging rejection, says much about the nature of this Administration and how the U.S. came to today's deplorable situation.

Equally as harmful was a 56-page memo dated March 6, 2003, written by Pentagon lawyers for Rumsfeld. It insisted that the president had "complete authority over the conduct of the war" and that legal prohibitions against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander and chief authority."

Incredible! What the Pentagon lawyers were saying, clearly, is that the President can do whatever he wishes in conducting the war, even to ordering the torture of prisoners!

These memos and others like them circulated widely and set a definite tone. Bush never took issue with them in any way or disassociated himself from them. They set the stage for what happened at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and at Guantanamo.

Complicity of Senior Officers
Not surprisingly, in light of the memos, Iraqi Theater Commander Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez authorized the use of dogs to frighten prisoners, also the removal of clothing, stress positions, extreme temperatures and long-term solitary confinement, most of which were already in use at Guantanamo. Brig. General Janis Karpinski, who at one point commanded at Abu Ghraib but was relieved of duty, has stated publicly that she was told by Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had taken over command at Abu Ghraib after having been in charge at the Guantanamo prison,that prisoners at Guantanamo had to be treated like dogs. "If you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog, then you've lost control of them," Karpinski quoted him as saying.

We must assume General Miller applied the same tactic at Abu Ghraib, i.e. treating the prisoners like dogs. A handful of enlisted men were punished for abusing prisoners. No disciplinary action was ever taken against Generals Sanchez or Miller, or against other senior officers. They could treat prisoners like dogs if they wished!

Amnesty International Report and Administration Reaction
On May 25, 2005, Amnesty International issued a stinging report charging the Bush Administration with "atrocious human rights violations" at Guantanamo and various other U.S.-controlled detention centers.

President Bush responded on May 31, describing the charges as "absurd" and based on the lies of "people who hate America," i.e., the detainees.

Vice President Cheney insisted in an interview on May 30 that the prisoners had been "well-treated, treated humanely and decently…What we're doing down there has, I think, been done perfectly appropriately."

General Richard B. Meyers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called the Amnesty Report "absolutely irresponsible," and described the prisoners as terrorists who, if released, would try to slit our throats

Given the massive reports of abuse coming out of Guantanamo, it is difficult indeed to understand how Bush, Cheney and Meyers could make such obviously untruthful statements. Especially since the reports came not just from Amnesty International. The International Red Cross and the FBI both had eyewitness accounts (and surely the FBI does not "hate America!"). An FBI e-mail in December of 2003 (obtained through the Freedom of Information Act), for example, reported that Defense Department interrogators at Guantanamo had impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" so that they could not be held accountable. Other released FBI memos speak of the practice of shackling inmates, often in a fetal position, for as long as 24 hours, leaving them to defecate and urinate on themselves.

The memos also suggest that what was going on at Guantanamo was systematic and done with the consent of senior officials with the intent of having a system of prolonged psychological and physical coercion.

Tarnished U.S. Image
President Bush has insisted that the U.S. reputation remains unsullied, that it is seen as "a country that promotes freedom around the world." Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan would go even further. In a statement on May 25, 2005, he said: "The United States is leading the way when it comes to protecting human rights and promoting human dignity."

But do other countries any longer see the United States in that light, i.e., as a protector of human rights? Unfortunately, no. The abuse of prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo have been widely reported around the world and done grave harm to the U.S. image and reputation. Indeed, even among our closest allies, they have been brought to an all-time low by the Bush Administration. In 2005, for example, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament charged that the U.S. had committed "grave violations of human rights" in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. The European Parliament called for an investigation of the situation at Guantanamo, and the Council of Europe, a human rights body more than half a century old, denounced the U.S. for resorting to the torture of prisoners. And in Latin America, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights in 2005 called for immediate hearings to determine the status of prisoners held at Guantanamo. True to form, the Bush Administration ignored the call.

Who are the Prisoners?
Since the first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo in January of 2001, some 775 have been held there. And yet, despite Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's early description of them as among "the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth," in over five year's time, not a single detainee has been convicted of any crime. Until quite recently (see below), only ten had even been charged. With little fanfare, some 360 detainees have been returned to their home countries, where most were found innocent of any crime and released. How does that square with Rumsfeld's statement that they are all "vicious killers"?

In fact, the majority of the some 385 detainees still held at Guantanamo (prior to June of 2006 - see below) were arrested by Pakistani forces or the Afghan Northern Alliance and turned over to U.S. forces. Often those turning them over to the Americans were given rewards, supposedly for "capturing terrorists." Evidence of their culpability, however, was not required. In fact, no evidence of anything was required. Most were guilty of nothing. But guilty or not, they have been held year after year under deplorable conditions, and without any idea as to what the charges are (if any) against them. It was a scenario out of Franz Kafka: "We can hold you as long as we wish and never tell you why."
In a transparent effort to give some credence to its claim that the detainees at Guantanamo are "vicious killers," a few months ago, in September of 2006, the U.S. government transferred some 14 detainees from a secret CIA prison to Guantanamo. The most notorious of these, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in a hearing on Feb. 10 to determine whether or not he is a "combatant" and thus can be tried by a Military Commission, confessed to being the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and various other acts of terrorism.

Illegality of the Trials
Given the Bush Administration's position that those held at Guantanamo were "unlawful combatants" or "terrorists" it also held that they did not enjoy the protection of the Geneva Conventions or even the most basic legal rights. From 2001 forward, detainees against whom charges were to be brought were to be tried under a system of Military Commissions, which denied habeas corpus, denied the right to see evidence, the right to a speedy trial and various other rights that are normally taken for granted.

In June of 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that this system of military commissions at Guantanamo violated both U.S. and international law. The Court also stated that the detainees were indeed protected by the Geneva Conventions, contrary to the position taken by the Bush Administration. For a brief moment, it seemed that justice might be within reach of the Guantanamo detainees. But no, in October of 2006, President Bush persuaded a compliant Congress to pass the Military Commissions Act, which, in effect, returned the situation to the status quo ante. It denies habeas corpus, denies presumption of innocence, denies the right to trial within a reasonable period of time, denies the right to a lawyer of choice, and denies the right to challenge and present evidence. A strange situation. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Military Commissions violate U.S. and international law. But if they result from an act of Congress they can go forward, even though they clearly violate the most basic legal rights.

Given that the Democrats now control Congress, however, all may not be lost. There are now moves afoot to overturn the Military Commissions Act, or at least to restore habeas corpus and various other basic rights the Act would deny. Some in Congress are even talking of closing the prison at Guantanamo altogether. Mohammed and the handful of other detainees against whom charges might be brought could then be transferred to other locations to stand trial.

Secret CIA Bases and Extreme Renditions
We have had not time nor space to get into a description of the system of secret CIA bases that now exist around the world, bases to which the CIA takes prisoners suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. It neither has to account for these prisoners nor even acknowledge that it is holding them.

And then there is the process of "extreme renditions" under which representatives of the U.S. government in effect kidnap persons suspected of terrorist involvement and flies them to countries where it knows torture will be used to get information from them - even if the information turns out to be concocted or otherwise valueless. Perhaps the best known of these cases was that of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was seized at Kennedy airport and subsequently flown to Syria, where he was held and tortured for almost a year. As it turned out, and as is now publicly recognized by Canadian authorities, Mr. Arar as absolutely guiltless. He was never involved with any terrorist activities whatever. He was tortured anyway.

Conclusion
The practices described above give evidence of just how far the Bush Administration has strayed from the concept of Rule of Law. It is time for the U.S. Congress and the American people to insist on a return to those principles.

Wayne S. Smith, now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, Jennifer Schuett is associated with the same organization.