Detainee abuse in America's "War on Terror." Based on a post at DailyKos.
Created by TerrranceDC on May 7, 2009
Last updated: 03/04/10 at 12:17 AM
Tags: torture guantanamo bay abu ghraib
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As ordered by President Obama, DoJ releases copies of the Bradbury memos.
President Obama orders the release of several previously classified memos, including the Yoo and Bybee memos, but not the 2005 Bradbury memos.
On his second full day in office, President Barack Obama issues an executive order requiring that treatment and interrogation of all detainees be in accord Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions - in other words, no more torture.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-22-execorder-interrogation_N.htm
Bush defends CIA tactics, saying its methods are necessary and legal and do not constitute torture.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/06/nation/na-torture6
The Red Cross delivers to the Bush administration its report detailing torture of prisoners at GTMO. In keeping with standard Red Cross practice, it keeps the report confidential until it is leaked by an unknown source in March 2009, though information in the report does make its way into Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side.
http://www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf
Bush denies that Cheney meant waterboarding or any similar technique, saying "This country doesn’t torture, we’re not going to torture."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15453452/
In a radio interview, VP Dick Cheney "endorses" waterboarding of teror suspects, calling it a "no-brainer."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/187ba7a6-6522-11db-90fd-0000779e2340.html?nclick_check=1
The Senate passes the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which approves torture for detainees, in effect reversing Hamdan. Then-Senator Barack Obama delivered a speech on the Senate floor in which he accused his colleagues of cutting corners and betraying American values.
http://usliberals.about.com/od/extraordinaryspeeches/a/ObamaTorture.htm
The International Committee of the Red Cross visits Guantanamo and conducts unsupervised interviews with 14 "high-value" detainees.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/12/national/main2085345.shtml
U.S. rejects charges by Amnesty International that it is torturing prisoners at GTMO.
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-05/2006-05-23-voa87.cfm?moddate=2006-05-23
Bush insists Americans are not allowed to torture.
http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/20060127/20060127_56_284192.html
ABC News learns about, and reports on, some of the specific CIA interrogation techniques being used, including waterboarding and also rendition to third-party countries. The CIA declines to comment.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866
Philip Zelikow, legal adviser to now-SoS Rice, writes a memo in which he takes issue with each of the justifications offered by the Bradbury memos. The Bush White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of the memo.
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/21/the_olc_torture_memos_thoughts_from_a_dissenter
Steven Bradbury of the OLC issues a new memo, which, apparently, finish the job Levin was not allowed to do, and replaces Levin's December 2004. In it, he finds that: although extended sleep deprivation and use of the waterboard present more substantial questions in certain respect under the statute and the use of the waterboard raises the most substantial issue - none of these specific techniques, considered individually, would violate the prohibition against torture.
Bradbury issues two other memos in May further providing legal cover. But it seems clear from the timeline that in the period of June 2004, when the Yoo memos were rescinded, and certainly from December 2004 with the Levin memo, until May 2005, the issuance of the Bradbury memos, there was no legal cover from OLC allowing torture. When the existence though not the actual content of the Bradbury memos became known in October 2007, Dana Perino, Bush's spokesperson, denied that any torture was taking place or that the Levin memo had been rescinded.
http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05102005_bradbury46pg.pdf
The OLC publishes Daniel Levin's memo, stating that: Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms. This universal repudiation of torture is reflected in our criminal law....There is no exception under the statute permitting torture to be used for a "good reason." Thus, a defendant's motive (to protect national security, for example) is not relevant to the question whether he has acted with the requisite specific intent under the statute.
Levin's memo replaces the Yoo memos. There is a report that Gonzalez, who was about to take over as Attorney General, blocked Levin from finishing a second memo which would have examined specific techniques, including waterboarding, to determine if they fell within the definition of torture.
http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/dojtorture123004mem.pdf
Alberto Mora, general counsel for the US Navy, writes a memo (PDF) summarizing the history to date of abuse of detainees at GTMO and his office's attempts to stop it. The memo dismisses the legal arguments in Yoo's memos. Mora's memo is buried and he is forced to retire.
http://www.newyorker.com/images/pdf/2006/02/27/moramemo.pdf
The Supreme Court rules in Hamdi v Rumsfeld that detainees at GTMO were entitled to legal due process, rejecting the administration's claim of expansive executive powers in wartime.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZS.html
In response to the revelation of the 2002 Yoo/Bybee memo, DoJ disavows the memo. Bush denies ordering prisoners at GTMO tortured. "Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country: We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20040623/ai_n14578366/
Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith orders both Yoo memos withdrawn. He directs Daniel Levin in the OLC to write a new memo. That same month, Goldsmith is forced by pressure from the White House and from Cheney counsel David Addington to resign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09rosen.html?pagewanted=5
The BBC posts one of the early stories suggesting the CIA is using "brutal" interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3709793.stm
The Abu Ghraib scandal breaks.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-121403saddam_lat,1,774081.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Saddam Hussein is captured. Although news stories at the time report that he was found in a hole in the ground after "torture lite" of captured bodyguards, later reports tell a different story, including that Saddam was captured by Kurds, who drugged him and turned him over to US authorities.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-121403saddam_lat,1,774081.story?coll=la-home-headlines
John Yoo writes a second memo which basically says the president can do anything he wants in time of war.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdfs/OLCMemo1-19.pdf?sid=ST2008040102264
US officials report that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) has been arrested in Pakistan and transferred to US custody for questioning. KSM is subjected to waterboarding, [winning] the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. It is later revealed that KSM was waterboarded "183 times during March 2003...."
http://www.icue.com/portal/site/iCue/flatview/?cuecard=1447
The US military issued a statement denying stories that its prisoners in Afghanistan were being tortured, or that the CIA had a secret base there.
http://www.why-war.com/news/2002/12/29/usdenies.html
Rumsfeld signs a memo authorizing 15 specific "aggressive techniques." The Senate report notes that interrogations using these techniques (including sleep deprivation) actually started on 23 Nov 2002, a week before Rumsfeld gave his approval of them
http://www.democrats.com/senate-armed-services-committee-report-on-torture
The commander at GTMO requests permission to use "aggressive interrogation techniques."
http://www.democrats.com/senate-armed-services-committee-report-on-torture
Assistant Attorney General Jay Baybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, issues a memorandum to the CIA telling them that "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding do not, in the OLC's opinion, constitute torture.
http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2009/04/16/16/Taylor-OLC-CIAtorturememo-1.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf
FBI officials are so concerned about the CIA's interrogation of Zubaydeh that they have a meeting with FBI Director Robert Mueller to discuss it. Mueller decides that the FBI will no longer participate in the interrogation, which he later extends as a "bright line rule" applying to all CIA interrogations of detainees.
http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/testimony-of-the-department-of-justice/investigations-into-specific-allegations-of-mistreatment-by-non-fbi-personnel/fbi_review_chapter_4.pdf
Condoleeza Rice and "other top Bush administration officials" are briefed about "alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding." In July, Rice tells CIA Director George Tenet he can proceed to use these techniques.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece
The JPRA sends a memo to DoD general counsel William Haynes warning him that the use of harsh interrogation techniques such as those used in SERE training constitute torture and produce unreliable intelligence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403171_pf.html
John Bolton, at that time Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, formally informs the UN that the US "does not intend to become a party to the treaty [establishing the International Criminal Court]."
http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/9968.htm
Condoleeza Rice and "other top Bush administration officials" are briefed about "alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding." In July, Rice tells CIA Director George Tenet he can proceed to use these techniques.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8013759.stm
Senior officials begin studying how to use SERE techniques in prisoner interrogations. SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY 12 Dec 2008 In April, the CIA begins videotaping interrogation sessions, some of which apparently include waterboarding. It is not yet clear whether Zubaydeh was among those waterboarded at that time. The tapes have all been reported destroyed.
http://www.democrats.com/senate-armed-services-committee-report-on-torture
Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al-Qaeda official, is arrested in Pakistan and brought to the United States for interrogation. Ali Soufan, a supervisory special FBI agent, and a second agent, with CIA agents watching, use traditional interrogation methods to question him from March through June 2002, and learn that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was the mastermind of the 11 September attacks.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/reports/intelligence/story/16310.html
Bush has decided to overthrow Hussein.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/reports/intelligence/story/16310.html
Bush signs a memorandum stating the Article 3 protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainee
http://www.democrats.com/senate-armed-services-committee-report-on-torture
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez accepts Yoo's argument, saying that the new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." SoS Colin Powell and the JAG object to this interpretation, but their objections are ignored.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/20040608_DOC.pdf
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez accepts Yoo's argument, saying that the new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." SoS Colin Powell and the JAG object to this interpretation, but their objections are ignored.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b79532.html
John Yoo writes a memo (PDF) stating that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda members.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/02.01.09.pdf
James Mitchell, a retired Air Force psychologist, and Bruce Jessen, the senior SERE psychologist at the agency, drafted a paper on "al-Qaeda resistance capabilities and countermeasures to defeat that resistance."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042104055_2.html
Administration officials, particularly Cheney and Rumsfeld, pressure the CIA to come up with a link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html
"American Taliban" John Walker Lindh is captured in Afghanistan. Lindh, an American citizen, was pictured blindfolded, duct-taped naked to a board.... in what is probably the first recorded instance of torture of a detainee under the Bush administration.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/2/10933/44543/616/527217
Former CIA Director James Woolsey is sent to England "in search of evidence that Saddam Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/reports/intelligence/story/16300.html
The Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) issues a memo warning against using SERE techniques, such as waterboarding, in interrogations. The memo has not yet been declassified, but is referenced in the just-released July 2002 JPRA memo.
In an interview on Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney hints strongly that the administration will consider using torture.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/525111/posts
At a meeting in the White House Situation Room, Bush takes Clarke aside and demands to know if there is a connection between the terror attacks and Saddam Hussein.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml
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