Civil liberties group raises new Guantanamo concerns

Pentagon officials are investigating new allegations by a civil liberties group that military interrogators at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay questioned detainees under the guise of friendlier FBI agents.

The American Civil Liberties Union released emails that showed FBI officials disapproved of the practice and suggested the military interrogators were trying to take advantage of the rapport the FBI had established with some detainees at the prison in Cuba.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said posing as FBI agents is not on a list of interrogation methods approved by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But the emails, which the ACLU obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, raised other questions.

One FBI email dated May 22, 2004, suggested President George Bush personally signed off on some, more harsh interrogation techniques in an executive order, which the White House denied.

The military operation at Guantanamo Bay has come under increased scrutiny as former prisoners have alleged they were tortured. The Pentagon maintains it runs a humane operation there, and says all allegations of abuse are investigated.

A military review has found a second prisoner wrongly classified as an enemy combatant, and he will be released soon to his home country, Navy Secretary Gordon England said.

Of the roughly 200 detainees already released, at least a dozen have returned to the battlefield, he added.

Asked about Guantanamo, Bush said: “You’ve got to understand the dilemma we’re in. These are people that got scooped up off a battlefield attempting to kill US troops, and I want to make sure, before they’re released, that they don’t come back to kill again.”

The newest prisoner to face release would be the second freed under a military process instituted after the US Supreme Court ruled last summer that prisoners at Guantanamo could challenge their detentions through the US court system.

To bolster its case for each of the prisoners against any such challenge, the Pentagon set up tribunals to review circumstances of each man’s capture to determine whether they are properly held.

England refused to identify the prisoner to be released by name or nationality, and the circumstances of his capture were not immediately available. The State Department has been notified of the decision and will arrange his return home.

More than 300 additional cases are still being reviewed.

The ACLU’s latest disclosures about the prisoners’ treatment were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and primarily constitute emails between FBI officials whose names the government removed before releasing them.

In several, the writers describe and criticise various interrogation techniques they say they witnessed at Guantanamo.

While military interrogators are performing much of the questioning at Guantanamo, the FBI and CIA also have operations there.

In one, the writer described seeing a “detainee sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli flag draped around him, loud music being played and a strobe light flashing”.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, say the FBI documents continue to show the US government was “torturing individuals in some instances” and demonstrates a major rift between FBI agents and the military over proper interrogation techniques.

“There was real concern within our law enforcement community about whether we are torturing individuals,” Romero said.