Report: Exams reveal abuse, torture of detainees
Story Highlights
-Report reveals medical evidence of torture, including beatings and electric shock
-Study calls on U.S. government to issue a formal apology to tortured detainees
-Rights group gives list of demands to Bush administration
Quote:
The detainees were never charged with crimes.
"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering," said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.
In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.
The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003.
"There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes," Taguba says. "The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account."
Four of the men evaluated were arrested in or taken to Afghanistan between late 2001 and early 2003 and later were sent to Guantanamo Bay, where they were held for an average of three years before being released without charge, the report says. The other seven were detained in Iraq in 2003 and released within a year, the report says.
Among the ex-detainees was an Iraqi in his mid-40s, identified only as Laith, whom U.S. soldiers took into custody in October 2003 and who was released from Abu Ghraib in June 2004. According to the report, Laith was subjected to sleep deprivation, electric shocks and threats of sexual abuse to himself and his family.
"They took off even my underwear. They asked me to do some movements that make me look in a very bad way so they can take photographs. ... They were trying to make me look like an animal," Laith told examiners, according to the report.
According to the report, Laith said the most "painful" experiences involved threats to his family: "And they asked me, 'Have you ever heard voices of women in this prison?' I answered, 'Yes.' They were saying, 'Then you will hear your mothers and sisters when we are raping them.' "
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I wonder, 50 years from now, will people look back at how the United States acted during this time like we do now at the Nazi's?
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