US backs interrogation of prisoners stripped naked

THE US Defence Department last year approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba that include forcing inmates to strip naked and subjecting them to loud music, bright lights and sleep deprivation, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

The techniques were approved in April, 2003, and require approval from senior Pentagon officials and in some cases Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the paper reported on its website, citing unnamed defence officials. It cited a document outlining 20 procedures that require interrogators to justify the harshest questioning techniques as a “military necessity,” quoting an official said to possess the document. Some techniques require “appropriate medical monitoring”.

Similar methods have been approved for use on detainees in Iraq with links to terror or insurgent groups, though it was not clear whether they were approved for use at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the Post said. A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment on the report, referring questions to US Southern Command in Miami.

Col David McWilliams, spokesman for Southern Command, confirmed the US military approved a sliding scale of interrogation techniques in the spring of 2003, but denied that the list includes forcing detainees to strip.

“Not only is there no protocol that calls for disrobing a detainee, it was never considered.”