Warner Questions ‘Gaps’ in Probe of Detainee Abuse
    Senate Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner, R-Va., today pressed a panel of senior military officials to fill “gaps” in an investigation of detainee abuse at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and said Congress may step into the issue of how enemy combatants are treated.
    “Congress has a role in this in trying to determine how we” treat detainees, Warner said during today’s hearing.
    Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt and Army Brig. Gen. John T. Furlow delivered a classified report to Congress this week that detailed the findings of their investigation into FBI allegations of mistreatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The two officials said they found that no torture occurred and practices were humane.
    But in several cases, key witnesses were not interviewed, the officials told the Senate panel.
    “It seems to me we’ve got to revisit this and facilitate filling the gap,” Warner said.

Source: CQ Midday Update

Abu Ghraib Tactics Were First Used at Guantánamo
   
    By Josh White
    The Washington Post

    Thursday 14 July 2005

    Interrogators at the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

    The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani - the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - were used at Guantánamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

    Military investigators who briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on the three-month probe, called the tactics "creative" and "aggressive" but said they did not cross the line into torture.

    The report's findings are the strongest indication yet that the abusive practices seen in photographs at Abu Ghraib were not the invention of a small group of thrill-seeking military police officers. The report shows that they were used on Qahtani several months before the United States invaded Iraq.

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