Using the "T" Word

by: The Baltimore Sun | March 2009

A detainee looks through a steel grate as guards pass at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The International Committee of the Red Cross interviewed Guantanamo detainees about what they were subjected to while they were held in CIA prisons. (Photo: Brennan Linsley / AP)

Many Americans have long suspected the Bush administration wasn't being completely truthful about the interrogation techniques used to extract information from terrorist suspects captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials conceded some methods were "harsh," but they insisted no detainees were tortured or seriously mistreated. Now a long-suppressed report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has surfaced to give the lie to those denials. The report's contents, presented to U.S. authorities in 2007 but made public only this week, describe in graphic detail officially sanctioned beatings, torture and abuse of prisoners in secret CIA prisons around the world that clearly violated U.S. and international law.

[Read full article here]»