AP: Gitmo Soldier Details Sexual Tactics
By PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -
Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison
camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and
thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake
menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.
A draft manuscript obtained by The Associated Press is classified as secret pending a Pentagon (news - web sites)
review for a planned book that details ways the U.S. military used
women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation
tactics to get terror suspects to talk.
It's the most revealing account so far of
interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say
they have halted some controversial techniques.
"I have really struggled with this
because the detainees, their families and much of the world will think
this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even
though it is not the case," the author, former Army Sgt. Erik R. Saar,
29, told AP.
Saar didn't provide the manuscript or
approach AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages AP
obtained. He requested his hometown remain private so he wouldn't be
harassed. Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an
Arabic translator at the U.S. camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002
to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Maj. Gen.
Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from
prisoners, including alleged al-Qaida members caught in Afghanistan (news - web sites).
Saar said he witnessed about 20
interrogations and about three months after his arrival at the remote
U.S. base he started noticing "disturbing" practices.
One female civilian contractor used a
special outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra
during late-night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who
consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren't their
wives.
Beginning in April 2003, "there hung a
short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of
one interrogation team's office, he writes. "Later I learned that this
outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian
contractors ... on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle
of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
Some Guantanamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by "prostitutes."
In another case, Saar describes a female
military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi
detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the
Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour
received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December
1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"His female interrogator decided that she
needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked
the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could
"cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or
talking to a lawyer.'"
The man closed his eyes and began to pray, Saar writes.
The female interrogator wanted to "break
him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a
tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her
breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his
apparent erection.
The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.
The interrogator left the room to ask a
Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The
linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch
him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't
wash.
Strict interpretation of Islamic law
forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family,
and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.
"The concept was to make the detainee
feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go
before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped
"Secret."
The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.
"She then started to place her hands in
her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled
around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants.
When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood
on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her
with a piercing look of hatred.
"She then wiped the red ink on his face.
He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" —
so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.
"He began to cry like a baby," the draft
says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your
cell without any water to clean yourself."
Events Saar describes resemble two
previous reports of abusive female interrogation tactics, although it
wasn't possible to independently verify his account.
In November, in response to an AP request,
the military described an April 2003 incident in which a female
interrogator took off her uniform top, exposed her brown T-shirt, ran
her fingers through a detainee's hair and sat on his lap. That session
was immediately ended by a supervisor and that interrogator received a
written reprimand and additional training, the military said.
In another incident, the military reported
that in early 2003 a different female interrogator "wiped dye from red
magic marker on detainees' shirt after detainee spit (cq) on her,"
telling the detainee it was blood. She was verbally reprimanded, the
military said.
Sexual tactics used by female interrogators have been criticized by the FBI (news - web sites),
which complained in a letter obtained by AP last month that U.S.
defense officials hadn't acted on complaints by FBI observers of
"highly aggressive" interrogation techniques, including one in which a
female interrogator grabbed a detainee's genitals.
About 20 percent of the guards at
Guantanamo are women, said Lt. Col. James Marshall, a spokesman for
U.S. Southern Command. He wouldn't say how many of the interrogators
were female.
Marshall wouldn't address whether the U.S. military had a specific strategy to use women.
"U.S. forces treat all detainees and
conduct all interrogations, wherever they may occur, humanely and
consistent with U.S. legal obligations, and in particular with legal
obligations prohibiting torture," Marshall said late Wednesday.
But some officials at the U.S. Southern
Command have questioned the formation of an all-female team as one of
Guantanamo's "Immediate Reaction Force" units that subdue troublesome
male prisoners in their cells, according to a document classified as
secret and obtained by AP.
In one incident, dated June 19, 2004, "The
detainee appears to be genuinely traumatized by a female escort
securing the detainee's leg irons," according to the document, a U.S.
Southern Command summary of videotapes shot when the teams were used.
The summary warned that anyone outside Department of Defense (news - web sites) channels should be prepared to address allegations that women were used intentionally with Muslim men.
At Guantanamo, Saar said, "Interrogators
were given a lot of latitude under Miller," the commander who went from
the prison in Cuba to overseeing prisons in Iraq (news - web sites), where the Abu Ghraib scandal shocked the world with pictures revealing sexual humiliation of naked prisoners.
Several female troops have been charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Saar said he volunteered to go to
Guantanamo because "I really believed in the mission," but then he
became disillusioned during his six months at the prison.
After leaving the Army with more than four years service, Saar worked as a contractor briefly for the FBI.
The Department of Defense has censored
parts of his draft, mainly blacking out people's names, said Saar, who
hired Washington attorney Mark S. Zaid to represent him. Saar needed
permission to publish because he signed a disclosure statement before
going to Guantanamo.
The book, which Saar titled "Inside the Wire," is due out this year with Penguin Press.
Guantanamo has about 545 prisoners from
some 40 countries, many held more than three years without charge or
access to lawyers and many suspected of links to al-Qaida or
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, which harbored the terrorist
network.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE: Paisley Dodds is an
Associated Press reporter based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has been
covering the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since it opened in
2002.
___
On the Web:
http://www.defenselink.mil
|
News Alerts
