FBI Confirms Abuse at Guantanamo

An internal FBI report confirms the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo. (Full Report) CNN has a full summary:

The FBI on Tuesday released documents showing at least 26 of the agency's employees witnessed aggressive mistreatment and harsh interrogation techniques of prisoners by other government agencies or outside contractors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The FBI surveyed all 493 FBI personnel who had been assigned to the military prison facility in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and determined no FBI agent or support personnel had participated in any of the controversial practices. (Note: the report concluded the FBI was not involved in the abuse.)

Unlike Abu Ghraib, the Guantanamo Bay detention center falls under US jurisdiction, and US actions there are more explicitly subject to domestic laws and international human rights accords banning torture. The main point of contention from here out, as it has been in the past year, will become the definition of 'torture' as opposed to abuse short of torture.

A few notes for context:

- American citizens can be extradited to Guantanamo without formal charges.
- Habeas corpus (considered both a human right and a founding principle of modern law) has been suspended at times for 'detainees' at Guantanamo.
- Several of these abuses are similar to those witnessed at Abu Ghraib. But at the Guantanamo operation, the chain of command links more directly and explicitly to its top.
- Torture has proven to be an ineffective manipulation tool in extracting intelligence. That is a conclusion drawn multiple times from independent sources, including leading military and security think tanks.