A Pattern of Abuse?

By Mitch Frank

While nothing compared to the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime, the actions of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib unquestionably violated international law. What's more, for two years reports have piled up about "stress and duress" techniques military and CIA officers are using on al-Qaeda and Iraqi captives. Those tactics--torture lite--also go against international rules; their practice may have encouraged the crimes at Abu Ghraib. --By Mitch Frank

THE LAW

The Third Geneva Convention forbids subjecting POWs to "cruel treatment and torture, outrages upon personal dignity and humiliating treatment." U.S. officials say Iraqi and Taliban captives are covered by the convention but al-Qaeda members are unlawful combatants and thus not covered. The convention says tribunals must decide a prisoner's status.

The convention against torture defines torture as any act that inflicts severe pain or suffering, physical or mental. When the U.S. ratified the convention in 1990, it defined torture as anything cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment. The convention prohibits countries from handing over captives to another state known to employ torture.

THE TECHNIQUES

Prisoners and human rights groups have described various coercive methods used by the U.S. on captives held overseas. U.S. officials admit to some of them.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION Interrogators keep captives awake for days with bright lights and loud music.

UNCOMFORTABLE POSITIONS Prisoners are forced to stand or squat in positions for hours or are held in cramped spaces where they cannot sit, stand or lie down.

SHOCK THERAPY Soldiers "soften" captives before handing them over to interrogators. Prisoners are beaten, stripped, doused with water and subjected to drastic swings in temperature. They are often made to remain naked even while watched by female guards.

SENSORY DEPRIVATION To disorient captives, interrogators place hoods, duct tape or darkened goggles over their eyes for hours at a time.

MIND GAMES Interrogators cajole, scare or confuse prisoners. They threaten to send captives to countries with a known history of torture, like Egypt or Morocco. Occasionally the U.S. has carried out that threat.

THE CHALLENGES

Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last month that their clients deserve access to courts to challenge their imprisonment.

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit against the Justice Department in January on behalf of Maher Arar, a Canadian arrested during a layover in New York City because of suspected al-Qaeda ties. He was deported to Syria, where the C.C.R. alleges he was tortured for months before winning release.

Justice department and Pentagon investigators are examining multiple prisoner deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq. Three of those captives died while under interrogation by the CIA.