US ‘used torture after 9/11’

An independent review of the US government’s anti-terrorism response after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks says it is “indisputable” the US engaged in torture and the George W Bush administration bears responsibility.

The report by the Constitution Project, a non-partisan US think-tank, is an ambitious review of the Bush administration’s approach to the problems of holding and interrogating detainees after attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The report says brutality has occurred in war before. “But there is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after Sept 11, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”