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The Bush Administration Homicides
Karel Prinsloo / AP Photo
For five years as a researcher for Human Rights Watch and reporter, John Sifton helped investigate homicides resulting from the Bush administration's torture policy. His findings include:
• An estimated 100 detainees have died during interrogations, some who were clearly tortured to death.
• The Bush Justice Department failed to investigate and prosecute alleged murders even when the CIA inspector general referred a case.
• Sifton’s request for specific information on cases was rebuffed by the Bush Justice Department, though it was “familiar with the cases.”
• Attorney General Eric Holder must now decide whether to investigate and prosecute homicides, not just cases of torture.
A simple fact is being overlooked in the Bush-era torture scandal: the number of cases in which detainees have been tortured to death. Abuse did not only involve the high-profile cases of smashing detainees into plywood barriers (“walling”), confinement in coffin-like boxes with insects, sleep deprivation, cold, and waterboarding. To date approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death.
The bottom line is that many detainee homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan were the direct result of approval and orders from the highest levels of government, and that high officials in the government are accomplices.
A review of homicide cases, however, shows that few detainee deaths have been properly investigated. Many were not investigated at all. And no official investigation has looked into the connection between detainee deaths and the interrogation policies promulgated by the Bush administration.
Yet an important report by the Senate Armed Services Committee, declassified in April 2009, explains in clear terms how Bush-era interrogation techniques, including torture, once authorized for CIA high-value detainees, were promulgated to Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where (as reporter Jason Leopold recently noted at The Public Record) the policies have led to homicides.
The killings, at least some of them, have hardly been kept secret. As early as May-June 2003, The New York Times and Washington Post reported on deaths of detainees in Afghanistan. Two detainees at Bagram air base died after extensive beatings by U.S. troops in December 2002—a case reported by The New York Times and that was also the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. Another death involved a man beaten to death by a CIA contractor at a base in Asadabad, in eastern Afghanistan, in June 2003.
In September 2004, the Crimes of War Project, working with investigative journalist Craig Pyes, uncovered a torture murder in Gardez, Afghanistan, in March 2003. Jamal Naseer, a soldier in the Afghan Army, died after he and seven other soldiers were mistakenly arrested. Those arrested with Naseer later said that during interrogations U.S. personnel punched and kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables. Some said they were doused with cold water and forced to lie in the snow. Nasser collapsed about two weeks after the arrest, complaining of stomach pain, probably an internal hemorrhage.
In May 2005, as a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I reported on several other cases of torture homicides, including a case in which the military claimed a detainee had died because he was “bitten by a snake.”
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John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
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John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
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John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
exploora
People really think that allegedly torturing people like this is really going to stop terrorism?
In many ways this is a form of terrorism and doesn't appear to gather useful information any more than 911 style terrorism appears to work in keeping foreigners out, if anything it bring foreigners in.
n2chat
You are right, and it makes the rest of the world look on us as disregarding human rights, the same thing we condemn other countries for. Hypocritical, isn't it?
connie47
This story just keeps on getting worse. Obama, whom I support in general, is writing himself a black page in world history if he does not do something and do it soon.
CorporateRobot
Connie, he can't do it, because it cannot be done. To do so would set a precedent that would end the autonomy of the Presidency. Don't forget, each successive administration has pushed, pulled, and bullied to make the highest office in the land stand above the law.
Who could ever forget the launching of an invasion of another country, and THEN, going to the Congress for approval and a declaration of war?
Banjo1
Human Rights Watch has the same politics as Code Pink. Handle any of its "findings" with a 10-foot pole.
Ritarita
Facts
Please.
theoPitt
Yes, please, let us see the facts. I would have thought that if 100 plus prisoners were tourtured to death, it would have been on the network news. Even Fox would have said something about it!
Ritarita
Why theo?
You were
Not even allowed
To look at
Coffins.
ncopas
"even Fox would have said something"... what makes you think that??
heaterbox
people like john sifton, see conspiracy behind every corner, Oh My !! I meant Republican corners. They never seem to complain about Democratic intervention's like to one still going on in Balkins, or Korea ( Harry Truman started that one)
mbgillil
Human Rights Watch criticizes everyone equally. Who exactly are they favoring here?
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
DreddBlog
The fox replies "what feathers" when asked if it has been taking good care of the chickens and what is that on your lips.
The Bush II Department of Just Us has been resurrected:
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/resurrected-department-of-just-us. html
RussianHatGuy
I agree with Connie. I also think it is a mark of strength to admit wrong doing, not a weakness.
What is weak is to hide behind lawyers and propaganda.
Dave1959
Repeat after me .. Bush was right, Bush was right, Bush was ... Can this get more funny ? Re recent U-Turn on military trials. If obama keeps this up, his next apology tour will be his election !!
johnjohnson68510
Well, it seems The Hague should be putting these people to trial, despite our huge influence and pressure not to.
MrCleaveland
This is very disturbing. Is there any actual evidence that 100 people were tortured to death? If so, the killers must be punished. If not, this "researcher"/"reporter" ought to be punished for fabricating such serious charges.
ajhil3
Let me get this straight. You read the article and didn't notice any references to the evidence? How about the determination by an Army medical examiner that Dilawar's death at Bagram AFB was a "homicide"?
Johnnyappleseed
Facts, er,uh, er facts, why confuse Mr Sifton.
Estimates are just that estimates,he should be doing articles for PETA.
pgs1308
you people are idiots these people are responsible for killing thousands of people, we killed 100 so in my book thats 100 less terrorist in the world.
connie47
Your book needs some fleshing out in the history, facts and ethics departments, not to mention grammar.
motrbotr
Grammer is irrelevant when discounting liberal agendas. Ethics are also irrelevant come to think of it.
Personally, I think all incoming administrations should scour the records and decisions of all outgoing administrations for wrongdoings. Because #1, the have nothing better to do. #2 That is what liberals would want except for when its a democratic president leaving office because then that would be unfair or actually it will probably be considered racist when Obama leaves, to question any decision he has made. Oh, I forgot, he is the Annointed One. He doesnt make mistakes. Silly me. Well, anyhow, you are stupid and ignorant if you think that an investigation would accomplish anything other than start a precedent that would be followed by every incoming adminstration. You are all living in a dream world.
Ritarita
But motr-
I don't
Think the last
Democratic
President
Got a chance
To leave office
Before the
Investigations started.
Using that precedent
The Dems would
Be little behind
Schedule.
McLeod396
motrbotr is a hater.
orourke
Dear McLeod396,
The only haters here seem to be the liberals.
You people are nasty and rude when a Republican is in office, and you are nasty and rude when a Socialist is in office. What makes you people happy? Oh wait, I know, you would be happy if the ENTIRE WORLD AGREED with EVERYTHING YOU SAID AND DID, right?
ncopas
orourke, nicely stated. You uphold your party's values with great aplomb.
Nothing like being nasty and rude while calling someone nasty and rude.
And showing a total lack of respect for the first man in eight years who's willing to take on the task of saving your sorry ass from the hole you've dug for yourself, very eloquent.
OH, and acting as if democrats are impossible to please and are never satisfied unless everyone agrees with them, when, by the very virtue of you saying so, you show that you are in fact more intolerant and unable to handle people who think differently than any democrat ever could be... very classy.
Yessir, you make your party proud. :)
ncopas
motrbotr, did u spell grammar wrong on purpose? hope so...
but i doubt cuz due to your total lack of logic, and conclusions that came straight from your anal cavity, i'd guess that you're an uneducated republican who'd rather rape a minority than see a deserving person get proper health care
"it will probably be considered racist when Obama leaves" lol, yeah, probably.
"He doesn't make mistakes"... uh, unless you ask any republican in America right now. Cuz that's all they talk about... idiot.
ncopas
wow. And you are exactly what's wrong with America. You don't deserve your citizenship or your freedom.
I hope there's a hell, for scum like you.
BoshSpong
This is the result of deregulation of military interrogation practices.
Some people seem to believe that might makes right and that one can achieve anything trough the application of violence. These folks are basic in their thinking and their thought processes leave no room for an examination of any matter.
This "make my day" type of reaction would seem proper amongst pubescent boys - it is not the stuff of mature men and women.
Unless the room is cleared and the matter fully aired out with the proper outcomes to the parties involved, we are doomed to repeat this sad chapter.
If President Obama stops this process from reaching its natural outcome - his administration will suffer and his legacy will be tremendously diminished.
confused
The torture issue will continue to be a "dead chicken around our neck" until a through investigation is concluded . If the investigation finds that crimes were committed, there must be prosecutions. Get this out in the open so we can move on.
SharksBreath
pgs1308: How many Iraqi's and American's have died in our search for weapons that were never there.
Do you realize the next time a country decides to eliminate there enemy there isn't a damn thing we can say about it.
Remember Georgia.
Do you know a North Korean spokesman responded to a question about the health of an American reporter they arrested with, " THIS IS NOT GUANTANOMO".
In other words stupid it wasn't worth it.
SharksBreath
Seems to be plenty of facts in the link he provided.
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/874-senate-panels-report-links-detainee s-murders-to-bushs-torture-policy.html
sippewissett
I believe we are in for a string of stories like this, some of which will leak out, some of which will be exposed because you can't conduct a war without "collateral damage". Bush got us into two wars of dubious purpose and along with that go torture and homicide. There's more to come, believe me -- assuming that the Bush clean-up team didn't purge their files completely as they left office. (Remember that their email system allowed for deletions from the server!)
BTW everyone, ignore 'banjo1'. He rants all the time, never with facts to back up his diatribes.
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