Is it a smoking gun? An Executive Order issued by President Bush authorizing interrogation methods that since the Abu Ghraib scandal have shocked and disgusted the world may exist. This, according to a May 2004 e-mail labeled "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" and sent to a handful of senior FBI officials and recently released to the ACLU.

The civil liberties organization obtained these FBI records from the US government after winning a lawsuit filed when the government refused to release some documents listed as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents related to interrogation methods, detainees' identifications and locations, and other issues related to Bush’s "war on terror."

ACLU director Anthony Romero stated, "These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests." Romero insisted that, "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers."

The two-page e-mail states that President Bush directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc."

Less than two weeks ago the ACLU posted a slew of documents uncovered in its FOIA lawsuit to its website ACLU.org. These documents revealed a systematic policy of torture, mistreatment, and abuse from the infamous Iraq prison to several US bases in Afghanistan to the facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which alone now hold over 500 detainees captured in various countries in operations said to be related to Bush's "war on terror." No estimate could be found of the total number of prisoners held in all US-controlled prison facilities around the world.

This memo’s existence among other FBI records indicate that the White House will have to answer charges that it has misled the public when it insisted that, despite the Abu Ghraib scandal and other hints of widespread abuse, its real policy is to abide by conventions, treaties, and agreements that govern the treatment of prisoners and detainees.

Of special interest also was a second seemingly incriminating e-mail sent in December 2003. According to the ACLU, this e-mail describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" apparently designed by the Pentagon on a prisoner.

The e-mail concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public."

Apparently no "intelligence of a threat neutralization nature" was gained during this phony "FBI" interrogation, and that "the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) believes that the Defense Department’s actions have destroyed any chance of prosecuting the detainee," states the e-mail.

The e-mail’s author, however, remained particularly concerned about protecting the FBI’s reputation as it appeared to that person, according to the e-mail, that the Department of Defense might use phony FBI interrogations to blame a potential torture scandal on the FBI.

The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists.

Other documents released on December 20th indicate further evidence of a policy of widespread abuse. Documents, some of which were forwarded to the FBI Director, record testimony about FBI agents who "observed numerous physical abuse incidents of Iraqi civilian detainees," including "strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings."

One June 2004 report refers to efforts to "a cover-up of these abuses." According to the ACLU, many of the documents they have obtained refer to cover-ups or demonstrate a specific effort on the part of military officials to avoid having their actions become public knowledge.

Other documents obtained by the ACLU list rape, extensive isolation, imprisonment in cells where the temperature rose to perhaps 100 degrees Fahrenheit, forms of humiliating treatment, and a "mysterious death" of a detainee that involved "a laceration on his head surrounded by internal bleeding."

The ACLU filed the FOIA lawsuit in June of 2004. The original FOIA requests were made in October 2003, more than six months before the Abu Ghraib scandal was brought to light.


--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.