FBI Memo indicates Gitmo detainees were clad in Israeli flags and shown homosexual porn under strobe lights for up to 18 hours

Knight Ridder Tribune News
Feb. 24, 2006

WASHINGTON - Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday.

FBI agents working at the prison complained about the military interrogators' techniques in e-mail to their superiors from 2002 to 2004, 54 e-mails released by the American Civil Liberties Union showed. The agents tried to get the military interrogators to follow a less coercive approach and warned that the harsh methods could hinder future criminal prosecutions of terrorists because information gained illegally is inadmissible in court.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was in charge of the prison at the time, overrode the FBI agents' protests, according to the documents.

The memos offer some of the clearest proof yet that the abuses and torture of prisoners weren't the isolated actions of low-ranking soldiers, the ACLU said.

"These documents show that the abuse at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib was not caused by rogue elements but rather it was the consequence of policies that were deliberately adopted by senior military and Pentagon officials," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer. "We think this should provide further reason to hold senior officials, not just low-ranking soldiers, accountable for the torture of prisoners."

One of the memos said: "Although MGEN (Maj. Gen.) Miller acknowledged positive aspects of (the FBI's) approach, it was apparent that he favored (military) interrogation methods, despite FBI assertions that such methods could easily result in the elicitation of unreliable and legally inadmissible information," said one memo from May 2003, by an agent with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Miller later left Guantanamo and was sent to Iraq under orders to find better ways of extracting intelligence.












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