At some point, the US’s refusal to abide by its clear Geneva Convention legal obligation to investigate and prosecute all rumors or evidence of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners was bound to get some formal push-back from the international community. And, sure enough, the UN Committee on Torture has been interrogating envoys from the Obama administration this week. These sentences appear in the NYT today:
In a two-day presentation in Geneva, the American delegation acknowledged that the United States had tortured terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks.
It took a long time for the US government to say that and for the NYT to print it. But it begs the question: So where were or are the investigations and prosecutions that are mandatory under international law? The Torture Report by the Senate Intelligence Committee (with prosecutions ruled out of bounds) is still being slow-walked two years after it was finished, and turned into indecipherable mush by the CIA itself, with the eager help of Denis McDonough. At this point, the only guarantee that it will ever see the light of day is outgoing Senator Mark Udall’s admirable intent to use his Senatorial privilege to release it himself.
As for criminal investigations, well, there was one, if you remember, and it was conducted at Eric Holder’s request by John Durham, an assistant US attorney in Connecticut. No evidence of torture was found and no charges were filed. One reason for this is simple: Durham never even bothered to interview the victims of the torture, the people most intimately connected to what happened:
Attorneys representing five other former CIA detainees, all of whom allege the agency was involved in their detention or rendition, now say Durham never interviewed their clients, either. One of them said he specifically suggested to Durham that he speak with his client. Lawyers for Walid bin Attash, one of the co-defendants in a military tribunal for the 9/11 attacks, said that Durham did not interview their client. Bin Attash is one of several people held at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp 7, for “high-value” detainees once in CIA custody.
In a secret CIA prison, believed to be in Poland, Bin Attash’s captors placed a collar around his neck that they would use to “slam me against the walls of the interrogation room”, he told the International Committee of the Red Cross in a leaked report. He estimates that for days on end, his captors kept him standing, naked, chained to the ceiling.
It’s a very strange idea of an investigation into crimes never to interview that actual victims of such crimes, don’t you think? But then this was a self-evidently sham investigation, a Potemkin piece of Beltway ballet, to give the appearance of giving a fuck about basic human rights, but never enough to actual do anything or hold anyone accountable.
Do your best, Senator Udall. Do your best.
The Dish 