Report finds few violations at Cuba prison

WASHINGTON -- Military interrogators forced a suspected al-Qaida terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay to wear a bra on his chest and thong panties on his head and to dance with another man, told him his mother and sister were whores, called him a homosexual, tied a leash to him and made him perform dog tricks, deprived him of sleep, threatened him with a growling dog and forced him to stand naked in front of females, Pentagon investigators told a Senate committee yesterday.

But military investigators said that although this treatment was "degrading and abusive," it was neither "torture" nor "inhumane."

Covering a three-year period with more than 24,000 interrogations, the investigators found "only three interrogation acts" that violated Army Field Manual regulations and Department of Defense guidance. "No torture occurred," they concluded. "Detention and interrogation operations were safe, secure and humane."

In a four-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Mark Schmidt and Army Brig. Gen. John Furlow described the findings of their investigation into allegations of abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay that were first revealed in FBI e-mails in 2003 and 2004.

Almost all the alleged abuses revolved around a "Special Interrogation Plan" approved by the Defense Department for one detainee.

The investigating generals said they had recommended that Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Guantanamo Bay facility, be reprimanded for failing to oversee the interrogation of this prisoner, Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi suspected of involvement in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

However, their recommendation was overruled by Gen. Bantz Craddock, commander of the U.S. Southern Command. "Since there was no finding that U.S. law or policy was violated, there is nothing for which to hold him accountable," Craddock told the committee.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., noted that after commanding Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003, Miller set the interrogation policy for Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq just before the abuses occurred there in 2003.

The report cited one FBI allegation that a female military interrogator pretended to wipe "menstrual blood" on a detainee after he spit on her. The technique was not approved. The interrogator was verbally reprimanded and has since left the service, the report said.

Craddock said "more aggressive" interrogation was developed because al-Qahtani had resisted "standard" techniques.

Captured in December 2001 on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, al-Qahtani "was to take part in the September 11th attacks, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service blocked his entry into the United States" that August in Orlando, Craddock told the committee.

The "more aggressive techniques ... led to breaking al-Qahtani's resistance and to solid intelligence gains," Craddock said.

He said al-Qahtani was interrogated for 18 to 20 hours a day for 48 of 54 days and subjected to air-conditioning adjustments to make his room uncomfortable, the report said. He was held down while a female interrogator straddled him and forced to wear the bra and thong.

In other cases, the report said two detainees were chained to the floor in fetal positions, and one detainee had his mouth taped shut because the detainee was chanting resistance slogans and verses from the Quran and "potentially provoking a riot."