We have of course all known for some time about the documented evidence of torture, mistreatment and worse in Abu Ghraib. Having read about the break down in the Army investigation of the death of two prisoners at Bagram, the International Committee of the Red Cross passing along "multiple" reports of mistreatment of the Koran, Amnesty International report on Guantanamo Bay as the "gulag of our times," and FBI documents released by the ACLU included a dozen reports of mistreatment of the Koran by the military at Guantanamo, I was forced to make an urgent plea to the Judiciary Committee for hearings (see extended entry).
Will it make a difference? Obviously, Democrats are not in control, but we would not be doing our jobs in the Minority if we did not at least put the onus on the Majority to accept responsibility if they fail to act.
May 26, 2006
The Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
Chairman
House Judiciary Committee
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
I write with an urgent and imperative request that our Committee investigate and hold hearings concerning a series of alleged human rights abuses by our government in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and elsewhere.
I appreciate that conducting hearings of this nature may not serve the Majority's political interests, however, I would like to believe that if our roles were reversed, that I would have the courage and fortitude to challenge an Administration run by my own political party on such an important human rights issue. None of us wants to see our legacy in Congress as the countenance of a secret, all powerful, and all knowing Administration that holds itself to be unaccountable and above the law.
I am calling on hearings now for a number of reasons. As you know, just yesterday, the international human rights group Amnesty International issued a devastating report decrying our human rights record. Among other things, the report labeled our prison at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times," and described our nation as "a leading purveyor and practitioner" of torture and mistreatment of prisoners. Amnesty International warned that "when the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity."
Also yesterday, new FBI documents were released summarizing FBI interviews during which nearly a dozen detainees at Guantanamo Bay asserted that guards has mistreated copies of the Koran, including one who said in 2002 that guards "flushed a Koran in the toilet." This new disclosure comes only after last week's revelation by the International Committee of the Red Cross that it had given the Pentagon "multiple" reports from prisoners in Guantanamo that U.S. personnel had mistreated the Koran. In this regard, I would note that, at a minimum, permitting our Committee to review the logs maintained by our military regarding these allegations would immeasurably add to the credibility of the Pentagon's ongoing internal review of this matter.
The latest disclosures come on top of a growing mountain of evidence regarding abuse and mistreatment in Afghanistan. For example, just last week the New York Times detailed a major breakdown in the Army's investigation into the death of two prisoners at the hands of American guards at the military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan. The report also included a finding that "in sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers described one female investigator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet an other prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning." Significantly, these are reports of U.S. soldiers, not prisoners. See "In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of Two Afghan Inmates' Deaths," NYT, May 20, 2005, Tim Golden; "The Rumsfeld Stain," NYT, May 23, 2005, Bob Herbert.
Of course, these disclosures come in addition to the by now widely know abuses at Abu Ghraib, where photos revealed an out of control military that frequently engaged in torture and condoned sexual and religious humiliation. Much of this misconduct, in turn, has taken place in the context of overt legal support and justification from the Justice Department and the White House Legal Counsel's office. As the world now knows, there has been little to no accountability at the senior level for that sad chapter in our nation's history.
I have previously sought the appointment of an independent commission to examine the myriad charges of human rights abuses by our government, but this request has been ignored by the Republican Leadership. Similarly, my repeated requests for the appointment of a special legal counsel to review these charges have also been rejected or ignored. Moreover, my requests to the Committee for investigations, for example into the rendition and subsequent of Maher Arar, have also been ignored.
As a result, I now feel I have no other choice but to personally appeal to you to conduct hearings and an investigation into these widespread and credible allegations of abuse. While the issue of human rights and prisoner and detainee mistreatment cuts across committee jurisdiction - including Armed Services, Intelligence, and Government Reform - there is ultimately only one Committee charged with protecting the integrity of our nation's commitment to constitutional safeguards and promise to respect human decency, fairness and due process - the House Judiciary Committee.
I fear that our government has taken the position that the war on terror which began in such tragedy has given the Bush Administration a carte blanche to operate as prosecutor, judge and jury of its own misconduct. This in essence means that we have been left in the untenable position of having no independent and credible authority who is able to rebut or respond to the charges being made against our military. To be blunt, simply having the White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan label charges of abuse as "ridiculous" as he did yesterday, is not an adequate response to charges of this nature and magnitude.
Under such circumstances, it becomes infinitely more difficult for our nation to credibly advocate for democracy and human rights abroad. I therefore believe it is incumbent upon us to conduct an investigation which can either rebut the growing cascade of allegations, or root out the wrongdoing and hold the ultimate parties responsible, no matter where the investigation takes us.
I look forward to receiving the courtesy of a response from you on this important matter.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member