Report details detainee abuse by US forces

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. special operations troops kept
some Iraqi detainees chained in a room with a diet of bread and
water for as long as 17 days, according to a U.S. military
report made public on Friday under a court order.

The report by Army Brig. Gen. Richard Formica, dated
November 8, 2004, but withheld by the Pentagon until now,
examined in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal
the treatment of detainees in Iraq by U.S. special operations
troops.

The heavily redacted report was turned over by the U.S.
government to the American Civil Liberties Union under court
order as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

It also described detainees being kept in very small cells,
including one who was naked “because he continually urinated on
himself and his clothes,” and exposed to loud music to prevent
them from communicating and sleeping.

“The government’s own documents demonstrate that the abuse
of detainees in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan was
widespread and systemic.

“It shows that special operations task forces were
repeatedly involved in detainee abuse incidents and they
continued to escape scrutiny,” said ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh.

“The U.S. policy is to treat all detainees humanely,” said
Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman.

The report, Ballesteros added, “covers prior events — they
are not new abuses — and we have undertaken significant steps
to investigate, hold accountable and change our operations as
appropriate.”

The report described special operations troops, at a
temporary holding facility in April 2004, keeping detainees in
a room on a 3- or 4-foot (0.9-1.2 meter) chain, with a diet
chiefly of bread and water, for up to 17 days.

But it concluded this diet was not intended as punishment
and that, for short periods, eating just bread and water “is
sufficient to maintain good health and prevent the onset of
nutritional deficiencies.”

‘TOO LONG’

“In my judgment, if true as alleged in the case of the one
detainee, 17 days with only bread and water is too long,” the
report stated, but said he “appeared in good health.”

The report cited a case in which detainees were kept at a
special operations team’s temporary holding facility in small
cells — measuring 20 inches by 4 feet by four feet — for up
to seven days, with at least one detainee kept naked.

It found that the cells fell short of minimum standards for
detainee’s quarters, called the removal of clothing
unacceptable and said a week in such a cell was too long.

The report did not recommend discipline of U.S. personnel
and concluded the incidents were not the result of deliberate
or malicious attempts by U.S. forces to abuse detainees.

It called for corrective training and education in the
principles of the Geneva Conventions and greater command
oversight. It concluded that while this kind of treatment was
wrong, the special operations facilities lacked the resources
to accommodate detainees.

Formica said he did not “spot check” detainee files for
completeness and indicators of abuse did not “conduct random
interviews” of detainees. “I did not reinvestigate the
underlying incidents,” Formica wrote, relying instead on the
military’s own previous findings on the incidents.

Singh said the reach of the report appeared narrow, “almost
in a deliberate attempt to avoid the truth of the extent of
detainee abuse.”

The inquiry was ordered in May 2004, weeks after the world
first saw pictures of U.S. forces abusing prisoners at Abu
Ghraib prison, by Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who the Army
last year exonerated of wrongdoing relating to detainee abuse.

The government also turned over a separate report on the
treatment of detainees by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.