The Defense Department has posted documents regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. One that is particularly disturbing is an interview with an unnamed member of a Guantanamo Bay “Behavioral Science Consultation Team.” The interview was part of a 2005 Army investigation (Schmidt-Furlow report) into claims of abuse at Guantanamo.
In this interview, an unnamed Defense Intelligence Agency civilian in charge of the interrogation believed in the purposeful application of physical pain as an interrogation technique: “[Redacted] believed that the only way to extract information from ‘difficult’ detainees was with more physical or psychological pain.”
Read the interview.
There are more documents on the treatment of detainees that have been posted by DOD, under Freedom of Information Act. I find all very disturbing. Growing up in the 1960s, we heard horror stories about how the Germans and Japanese treated U.S. prisoners. We saw television the POW’s captured by the Viet Cong. We took pride that we treated our prisoners more humanly.
