New documents on Bush-era torture, secret detention, extraordinary rendition

The documents are available here (scroll down to the sections titled “DOD Document Release” and “Noteworthy Pages from DOD Doc Release” at the bottom of the page).

AlterNet has covered the release: “Explosive New Documents Reveal More Details of Bush-Era Torture, Including Prisoners Tortured to Death.”

From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

February 12, 2009, New York and Washington, DC—Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit confirm Department of Defense involvement in the CIA’s ghost detention program, revealed three prominent human rights groups today. The groups—Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ)—today released documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. Department of State (DOS), resulting from their lawsuit seeking the disclosure of government documents that relate to secret detention, extraordinary rendition, and torture. At a public press conference, the groups revealed that these documents confirm the existence of secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq; affirm the DOD’s cooperation with the CIA’s ghost detention program; and show one case where the DOD sought to delay the release of Guantánamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home by a month and a half in order to avoid bad press.

…
Examples of DOD Joint Chiefs of Staff (JS) and TRANSCOM Documents of Interest:

•    JS 986 (May 28, 2004 Information Paper :“Applicability of Geneva Conventions to “Ghost Detainees” in Iraq) shows that the DOD interpreted the “security internee” provisions of the Geneva Conventions to allow for “ghosting” of detainees by prohibiting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting. It also shows that the DOD recognized that indefinitely prohibiting the ICRC from visiting or failing to notify the ICRC of the existence of detainees was illegal under the Geneva Conventions.

•    JS 1026 & 1048 (Identical pages with different redactions from the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Detainee Update” presentation regarding “Internment Serial Number Policy [ISN],” appear to be dated August 2005) show that the DOD did not, as a matter of course, register detainees with the ICRC until they had been in custody for up to 14 days and that authorization was sought to hold some individuals for up to 30 days without ISN/registry with ICRC to “maximize intelligence collection,” even though “there is some disagreement as to legal basis to go beyond 14 days.” These policies demonstrate the ease with which the CIA could have used DOD facilities as “sorting facilities” without having to worry about ICRC oversight or revelation of the ghost detainee program.

•    JS 712, 713, 903, 919 (December 8, 2005, records from Detainee Senior Leadership Oversight Council Meeting) contain references to a previously unreleased section of the Church Report and discuss the need for the DOD to develop and enforce guidelines governing their relationship with “Other Government Agencies,” including the CIA, in order to regulate interrogation and other “operations overseas.” These documents demonstrate that the DOD and CIA were in an ad hoc relationship, apparently unconstrained by formal guidelines.

•    TRANSCOM 1 (February 17, 2006, email exchange between unnamed USTRANSCOM Political Advisor and General Norton Schwartz, then TRANSCOM Commander, currently the Air Force Chief of Staff) shows that in early 2006, in response to the release of a critical UN special rapporteur report on Guantánamo, high-level personnel within the US Transportation Command discussed delaying the return of releasable Guantánamo detainees to avoid bad press.

•    JS 43 (July 25, 2007, ICRC Report of Undisclosed Detention Facility at Bagram) Highly redacted report from ICRC concerning secret detention facility at Bagram Air Force Base.

•    Multiple Records detail the implementation of recommendations from the Ryder Report concerning detainee operations in Iraq, including the need to develop appropriate programs for juveniles and mentally ill detainees.  The records also review in detail the efforts to implement the recommendations from numerous reports related to detainee operations, including the following

• Comprehensive Reviews: Schlesinger (comprehensive review of detainee operations); Church (review of DOD interrogation operations); Church Gaps & Seams Report;
• Assessments: Ryder (Detainee Operations), DAIG (Functional Assessment), NAVY IG (Detainee Care at GTMO), Jacoby (Detainee Operations in Afghanistan), and Miller (Interrogation Operations), USAIR IG (Reserve MP/MI Unit);
• Investigations: Taguba (800th MP Brigade); Kerm (205th MI Brigade); CID (serious crimes); Formica (detainee abuse); SOUTHCOM (FBI interrogation memos); and
• Ongoing Investigations as of the date of document: DAIG (senior accountability); Navy IG FOIA; Surgeon General Medical review

•    The  records from the Joint Chiefs of Staff include:

• April 28, 2005 DSLOC (Detainee Senior Leadership Oversight Committee) Open Recommendations Review (begins at JS 44);
• Aug 3, 2005 DSLOC Open Recommendation Review (begins at JS 426);
• Dec. 8, 2005, DSLOC Meeting (begins at JS 770);
• Aug. 19, 2004, Brief for the Secretary of Defense on Gaps & Seams (Church) (begins at JS 947);
• Jan. 27, 2005, DSLOC Briefing for all OSD Components (begins at JS 987); and
• Date unclear, Detainee Update  briefing for Vice Chairs Joint Chiefs of Staff (begins at JS 1022)