i don't play poker so;
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/
a secret 1992 report written for then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney warning that U.S. Army intelligence manuals that incorporated the earlier work of the CIA for training Latin American military officers in interrogation and counterintelligence techniques contained "offensive and objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility, and could result in significant embarrassment."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse#United_Nations_Law_application
The United States has ratified the UN's Convention Against Torture and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions. Although the Bush Administration has argued that prisoners taken in Afghanistan did not qualify as prisoners of war under international law, Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the President, has stated: "Both the United States and Iraq are parties to the Geneva Conventions. The United States recognizes that these treaties are binding in the war for the liberation of Iraq." ("The Rule of Law and the Rules of War", New York Times (op-ed piece), May 15, 2004).
The Convention Against Torture defines torture in the following terms:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him... information or a confession, punishing him for an act he... has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him. (Article 1)
From the perspective of this definition, one very important photograph is the one shown to the right: a hooded prisoner, standing on a box with electrical wires connected to various parts of his body. The prisoner was reportedly told that he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box. The army claims, however, that the wires were not live and that the prisoner at no time faced actual electrocution, only the threat thereof.
If the prisoner believed the deception and was sincerely convinced that he faced the possibility of execution, then the situation would seem to constitute "mental suffering" as defined in the Convention. The motivation of the act would also appear to have been to obtain a confession or to intimidate or coerce him – purposes referred to in Article 1. Debate lies in the Convention's use of the adjective "severe" to qualify the suffering and the difficulties inherent in determining whether the suffering felt by the photographed prisoner was severe or mild.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse#More_evidence_of_torture
Reaction from the US administration characterises the Abu Ghraib abuse as an isolated incident uncharacteristic of American actions in Iraq; this view is widely disputed, notably in Arab countries, but also by organisations such as the International Red Cross, which says that it has been making representations about abuse of prisoners for more than a year. A former military intelligence officer with experience at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib alleges (see external link - "Cooks and drivers...") a systematic failure caused by a combination of inexperienced troops arresting innocent Iraqis, who are then interrogated by inexperienced interrogators determined to 'break' these apparent hard cases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay
The U.S. classifies the prisoners held at Camp Delta and Camp Echo as illegal enemy combatants,
but has not held the Article 5 tribunals that would be required by international law for it to do so. This would grant them the rights of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), as opposed to the more common Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) which deals exclusively with prisoners of war. On November 9, 2004 US District Court Judge James Robertson ruled that the Bush Administration had overstepped its authority to try such prisoners as enemy combatants in a military tribunal and denying them access to the evidence used against them.
Three British prisoners released in 2004 without charge have alleged that there is ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution being committed by U.S. forces at Guantánamo Bay and have released a 115-page dossier detailing these accusations [1] (
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/aug2004/guan-a06.shtml). They also accuse British authorities of knowing about the torture and failing to respond. Their accounts have been confirmed by two former French prisoners, a former Swedish prisoner, and a former Australian prisoner. In response to accusations, US Navy Secretary Gordon England has claimed that a Navy inspector general has performed a review of the practices at Guantánamo and concluded that it was "being operated at very high standards."
Former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, freed last month after nearly three years in captivity, has accused his American captors of torturing him and other detainees arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr Begg, in his first broadcast interview since his release, claimed that he “witnessed two people get beaten so badly that I believe it caused their deaths”.
The report points out several activities which, it said, were "tantamount to torture": exposure to loud noise or music, prolonged extreme temperatures, or beatings. It also reports the existence of a behavior science team (BSCT), also called "Biscuit", and the fact that the physicians of the base communicate confidential medical information to the interrogation teams (weaknesses, phobias, etc.), resulting in the prisoners losing confidence in the medical team of the base.
