WASHINGTON — Top U.S. defense officials said Wednesday that military interrogation techniques approved for use in Iraq, such as depriving detainees of sleep, having military dogs present and placing prisoners in humiliating poses did not violate international law.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that the misconduct shown in photos and videos from the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison was inhumane and would be punished. However, he said, other interrogation procedures involving "physical and psychological manipulation" are permissible.
The testimony by Rumsfeld and others before the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee focused on what techniques the military had deemed appropriate in interrogating prisoners and how those related to the Geneva Convention. It came on a day when members of Congress viewed new videos and photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse.
Questions about the approved procedures come as lawmakers investigating the abuses reach into the Pentagon's chain of command to seek contributing factors. They have asked about the climate in which soldiers worked at Abu Ghraib, orders given by top commanders in Iraq and intelligence-gathering policies at the highest levels of the Defense Department. Many lawmakers blame an unchecked drive to gather usable intelligence for creating the conditions that led to some of the abuses.
Rumsfeld rejected that argument, saying that while the "abuses that took place are terrible, they're inhumane, they're inexcusable," they are not the result of Pentagon policies.
He told the committee that the Geneva Convention applied to all prisoners held in Iraq, but not to those at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whom he deemed "terrorists" and therefore not subject to international norms.
Rumsfeld said Pentagon lawyers had decided that practices such as dietary changes and isolation for longer than 30 days complied with the Geneva Convention, the international rules on war. A list of U.S. interrogation practices was released this week by the Pentagon.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the techniques approved by the Pentagon "go far beyond the standard which says there will be no physical or mental torture nor any other form of coercion." Durbin pointed to international rules that prohibited the use of "unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."
Myers replied that the practices were legal. "Every time we have an interrogation, we have an interrogation plan," he told senators. "Those are appropriate. And that's what we're told by legal authorities and by anybody that believes in humane behavior."
Noting that an American soldier was missing in Iraq, Durbin said: "I don't believe what you have issued is consistent with the Geneva Convention. And I think now, more than ever, in light of what happened in that prison, in light of the fact that an American serviceman is being held, we should be clear and unequivocal."
The Geneva Convention, a series of international agreements on war adopted in 1949, protects civilians in occupied territories as well as prisoners of war.
The list of interrogation techniques approved by the Pentagon showed that U.S. military leaders believed that the Convention and international law provided wide latitude to employ an array of aggressive methods to get prisoners to talk, a review of the procedures and interviews with interrogators show.
The so-called "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" that were posted at the Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities in Iraq required interrogators to obtain their commanders' approval before using the more severe methods. The rules stipulated that detainees "NEVER be touched in a malicious or unwanted manner," and interrogators stressed that they had nothing to do with the sadistic abuses meted out by MPs working the night shift at one of Abu Ghraib's high-security cell blocks.
The sheet listing the rules of engagement is divided into two sections. Approaches that can be used without prior approval include "incentive," in which some reward is dangled for cooperation and "fear up harsh," which involves trying to frighten the prisoner with table-pounding outbursts.
Methods that require approval include the use of humiliating poses, called "stress positions"; "presence of mil working dogs"; isolation for longer than 30 days; and the manipulation of prisoners' diets.
"Sensory deprivation" refers to the use of hoods on prisoners to keep them disoriented, interrogators said. "Environmental manipulation" could mean anything from providing extra blankets to subjecting prisoners to light or dark environments to confuse them.
In interviews with The Times, interrogators who had worked at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan described how the guidelines were implemented.
