Guantanamo tactics "tantamount to torture"-NY Times

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30697233.htm

WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has accused the U.S. military of using tactics "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

An ICRC inspection team that spent most of June at Guantanamo Bay reported the use of psychological and sometimes physical coercion on the prisoners, the newspaper said.

It said it had recently obtained a memorandum that quoted the report in detail and listed its major findings.

In Geneva, the ICRC said it would neither confirm nor deny the New York Times report -- in which allegations of treatment tantamount to torture go further than what the neutral intermediary has publicly stated before about inmates held at Guantanamo.

more

[WildClarySage]

1. tantamount to?

[LoneDriver]

2. I want to cry...

What happened to the country my parents fled to? The land of the free and home of the brave? Don't we join great company now, condemned by the Red Cross.

[indigobusiness]

6. Welcome to DU.... and the Brave New World

What's doublespeak for torture, again? I forget.

[shoelace414]

3. Lets pretend that for the sake of argument

one of the people they got was Osama BinLaden himself when they invaded Afghanistan.

what the hell information would he have that was worth torturing him anymore?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. dupe

of http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1031185
(links to original NYT article)

[fraud08]

5. Pentagon Disputes Red Cross Criticism (Gitmo)

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon (news - web sites) spokesman said Monday that Red Cross officials have "made their view known" that the indefinite detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amounts to torture.



Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said, "It's their point of view," but it is not shared by the Bush administration.


He noted that the administration believes it has the legal right to detain such suspects until the end of the war on terrorism because they are unlawful combatants not subject to the protections of the Geneva conventions.


The New York Times reported Monday that the International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the American military of using techniques "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&nci...

NYT-Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo

~snip~

The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo.

The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."

Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said.

The United States government, which received the report in July, sharply rejected its charges, administration and military officials said.

~snip~

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1031862&mesg_id=1031862&page=

[Moderator]

7. Duplicate - original New York Times

article discussed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1031185