War Crimes Hurt US Image

Today marked the release of the highly anticipated report from the Office of the Inspector General on Torture from 2004. The release of the report is the result of a Freedom of Information lawsuit from the ACLU. Although the report is heavily redacted, it does add some new details to our understanding of what happen between September 11th, 2001, and 2004.
First the report details how "enhanced interrogation techniques" were conceived inside the Department of Justice, using some legalese and references to several statutes from US and International law. These include ten techniques recommended for interrogations, plus one that was suggested but was ultimately not adopted, and is not named. The techniques that were adopted include confinement, stress positions, sleep deprivation (of up to 11 days), an "insult slap," and, of course, water boarding, plus others. The Department of Justice cited an "EIT Phase," which would be in addition to conventional interrogations and last "likely no more than several days, but could last up to 30 days."
Next the report details how the EIT was actually put in to practice. It cites numerous cases of "improvisation." The first detainee to experience these EIT was Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah was captured on March 27th, 2002. He spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from injuries suffered during his capture, but then was almost immediately subject to these EITs. Of course there is also the case of Khalid Shiek Muhammed, who was water boarded 183 times. Perhaps the most egregious act in the report happened to Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashir. Al-Nashir was bound, naked and hooded, when an interrogator threatened him with a power drill. Al-Nashir was told that "we can get your mother in here," a threat that he would have understood to mean that she would have been sexually abused in his presence had he not talked. Al-Nashir was also threatened with a handgun; threatened both with being shot and being pistol-whipped.
Of course, all of these techniques are illegal under both the Geneva convention and United States law. The CIA, which carried out the interrogations, claims that such techniques lead to the capture of other suspected terrorist, but no one knows if any attacks were actually prevented. What we do know is that actions by the CIA, and the Department of Justice, are easily war crimes. They have tarnished the image of the United States abroad, caused a kind of legal purgatory for detainees, and made America less safe in the future.