Command's Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan

Appendices

On December 2, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld personally approved a list of interrogation techniques for use on detainees at Guantanamo. Many of these techniques were not consistent with international and U.S. law and contrary to the established rules and military standards governing detention and interrogation as set forth in Army Field Manual 34-52.  They included the use of “stress positions,” 20-hour interrogations, the removal of clothing, the use of dogs, isolation, and sensory deprivation. Although approved for Guantanamo, the techniques were later used by subordinates in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Doc. 2: General Sanchez authorizes harsh interrogation techniques, including stress positions 

On September 10, 2003, a memo from Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then U.S. Army Commander of the Coalition Joint Task Force in Iraq, authorized such harsh interrogation techniques as sleep and environmental manipulation, the use of aggressive dogs, and the use of stress positions. The memo, discussed for the first time as evidence in the January 2006 trial of a Chief Warrant Officer accused of involvement in a detainee’s murder, is at Appendix C.

Doc. 3: Junior officer claims use of “sleeping bag technique” that caused detainee death was authorized stress position

Human Rights First’s analysis of deaths in U.S. custody includes the case of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who suffocated to death after two soldiers forced him inside a sleeping bag, wrapped him in an electric cord, sat on him, and blocked his airways. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer faced a murder charge at court martial. At an initial stage in the investigation, Chief Welshofer was given a letter of reprimand by his commanding officer, General Charles H. Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. Both in a written rebuttal to Swannack’s reprimand and as part of his defense at court martial, Chief Welshofer argued that he understood “the sleeping bag technique” was authorized by General Sanchez’s September 10, 2003 memo, which specifically authorized the use of stress positions.

Doc. 4: Record keeping failure means cause of death
may never be known

Among the investigation flaws identified in Human Rights First’s review of deaths in U.S. custody are military investigators’ belated efforts to find out what happened to some detainees whose deaths were never reported and whose cases simply slipped through the cracks. Hadi Abdul Hussain Hasson al-Zubaidy (Hasson) is one of those cases. Appendix E is an extract from the Army’s October 2004 investigation report into Mr. Hasson’s death. As it describes, the Army’s eventual efforts to find out what happened to Mr. Hasson went nowhere because U.S. record-keeping about detainees was so poor.

Doc. 5 Army recommendation to lessen perception
of cover up 

Abu Malik Kenami died after he was subjected to extreme exercise – made to stand up, then sit down, over and over again – then cuffed, hooded and returned to a crowded cell. The investigation into his death is an example of other flaws Human Rights First identified:  investigators failed to conduct interviews of critical witnesses and did not gather and maintain physical evidence. The Army’s own subsequent review of the investigation into Mr. Kenami’s death found “it was weak in Thoroughness and Timeliness.”

Doc 6: No criminal investigation: shooting death of allegedly elderly and disabled man 

Among the deaths for which the official cause is unknown but which Human Rights First identifies as a possible homicide is an unnamed man, killed in Balad, Iraq, on January 3, 2004. The only publicly-available record of his death is in Appendix F, in which his family’s claim for compensation is considered by U.S. forces – and denied. Human Rights First found no indication that the man’s death was criminally investigated and has requested that information from the Department of Defense.

Doc 7:  List of Human Rights First Freedom of Information Act Requests