The United States does not commit, authorise or condone torture
We profoundly disagree with the report for its selective inclusion of only those factual assertions needed to support the rapporteurs’ initial conclusions, its avoidance of facts that would undermine those conclusions, and its erroneous legal analysis.
Not alone did those five people not visit Guantanamo, but they only met with a handful of released detainees in Spain, France, and the UK, as well as their attorneys.
Furthermore, the UN rapporteurs refused our offer of briefings in Washington from senior officials and there is little evidence they took into account the extensive materials they were given.
In the four years that Guantanamo has been in operation, over 1,000 journalists and hundreds of US Congressmen have visited the camp, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has had unrestricted access to the facilities and detainees. Additionally, over 110 attorneys have visited over 200 clients, many of them repeatedly.
The UN was offered the same level of access as our Congress and the media, but they refused it.
Had they visited the camp and seen conditions first-hand, they could have avoided many of the factual errors that riddle this report.
Detainees at Guantanamo are provided with shelter, culturally appropriate food, clothing, reading materials, medical care and the opportunity to worship, including prayer beads, rugs and copies of the Koran in their native language.
They are allowed to send and receive mail and many of them have even learned to read and write during their time in prison, thus enabling them to correspond with family members.
Yes, force-feeding is sometimes used to keep people from killing themselves through hunger strikes, but is that a “human rights violation?”
Of course not.
How can saving a life be considered “torture” or a “human rights violation”? In fact, the lives of dozens, if not hundreds, of insurgents and detainees have been saved by superior medical treatment provided by US military personnel. This is hardly a “concentration camp” by even the loosest of standards. Your editorial repeatedly describes this report as a “UN report,” but that is not the case. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said at his February 16 press conference that the report was not a UN report, but one by individual experts, “so we should see it in that light,” he said.
He also said that “sooner or later there will be a need to close the Guantanamo camp, and I think it will be up to the government to decide, and hopefully it will be as soon as possible.”
We could not agree with him more; indeed, we want to shut down Guantanamo as quickly as possible, but will not do so until alternative legal measures are in place to deal with the issues that the global war on terror raises, such as how to detain fighters who do not claim allegiance to any one country and do not fall under any of the categories of fighters covered by the Geneva conventions.
Finally, the report called on the US to “refrain from any practice amounting to torture...”
Again, this report does not acknowledge that all such treatment is already explicitly banned. The United States does not commit, authorise or condone torture.
The recently enacted Detainee Treatment Act codifies worldwide the existing policy not to authorise interrogations involving cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, as defined under US law. We have vigorously investigated credible allegations of torture and punished our personnel as appropriate.
In the Abu Ghraib investigation alone, more than 25 individuals, officers and enlisted alike, were held accountable for criminal acts and other unauthorised conduct.
Through interrogations of detainees, the coalition has learned about al Qaida and Taliban recruitment and how they form terrorist cells.
We have learned how they communicate, train, raise funds and travel. Lives have been saved and terror attacks averted. Ultimately, the coalition will win the global war on terror through information.
Information allows us to prevent future attacks and protect innocent lives. The world community has benefited from the intelligence gained from detaining these terrorists and will continue to do so as long as we work together to win the war on terror.
James C Kenny
Ambassador
Embassy of the United States of America
42 Elgin Road
Ballsbridge
Dublin 4
