By Stephen J. Hedges,Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON – The Guantanamo detainee suspected of being the would-be “20th hijacker” for the Sept. 11 attacks was subjected to abusive treatment, including being forced to wear a bra and perform a series of “dog tricks” during interrogation, according to an official report made public during a Senate hearing Wednesday.

The military investigators’ report recommended punishment for the commanding officer of the Guantanamo Bay facility at the time, Army Gen. Geoffrey Miller, but that suggestion was overturned by a higher-ranking officer.

The report said Mohamed al-Qahtani – labeled by U.S. officials as the “20th hijacker” – was forced to stand naked before a woman interrogator for at least five minutes, and was made to wear thong underwear on his head and a bra.

Qahtani also was told by interrogators that “his mother and sister were whores,” according to the report, and he was led by a dog leash attached to his hand chains and made to do a “series of dog tricks” as part of the interrogation.

Female interrogators also massaged Qahtani’s neck and back, and one ran her fingers through his hair and told him that resisting the questioning was futile.

A second “high value” detainee was told that he and his family would be killed if he did not cooperate.

Despite the harshness of these tactics, it is not clear that they violated any law. The Geneva Conventions prohibit sexually degrading tactics, but the Bush administration has declared that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Guantanamo detainees, saying they are suspected terrorists rather than prisoners of war.

An abbreviated, unclassified version of the report was made public during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday.

Despite finding specific instances of harsh treatment of some detainees, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, who led the investigation, told senators that “no torture occurred. Detention and interrogation operations across the board, and again, looking through all the evidence that we could, were safe, secure and humane.”

Schmidt did say, however, that other questionable activities raised by the FBI were confirmed, particularly with regard to the treatment of Qahtani. The use of interrogation techniques authorized by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Schmidt said, had a “cumulative effect” that had an “abusive and degrading impact on the detainee.”

The investigation sprang from e-mails written by FBI agents who conducted interrogations at Guantanamo, located in Cuba, which houses terrorist suspects captured in Afghanistan. In the e-mails, agents expressed concern over tactics used by military interrogators. The e-mails came to light after they were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU. Schmidt recommended that Miller, who served as the commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo at the time and who later introduced controversial practices at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, be admonished for failing to properly supervise Qahtani’s interrogation.

That recommendation, though, was overturned by Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command.

“My reason for disapproving that recommendation is that the interrogation of (Qahtani) did not result in any violation of a U.S. law or policy,” Craddock testified Wednesday. “And the degree of supervision provided by Maj. Gen. Miller does not warrant admonishment under the circumstances.”

The interrogation practices described by Schmidt bear a striking resemblance to the abuses uncovered at Abu Ghraib. Seven U.S. soldiers have been convicted of crimes related to those abuses, but just two senior officers have been reprimanded.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the decision to overturn a reprimand for Miller continues a pattern in which senior commanders have not been held responsible for prisoner abuse.

“We are left once again with a lack of accountability for the confirmed mistreatment of detainees,” Levin said.

The interrogation practices the military allowed at Guantanamo, however, was the focus of disagreement at the hearing.

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“It’s clear to me that one of the reasons why we’re sitting here today was … at least some of them did not understand that, quote “humane treatment’ might be in the eye of the beholder,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.

But other senators suggested that the prisoner mistreatment had been exaggerated.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said that Miller had “brought order to the chaos” of Guantanamo when he took command in November 2002. He told Craddock, “You did the right thing,” in overruling the recommendation that Miller be punished.

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(c) 2005, Chicago Tribune.

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AP-NY-07-13-05 2216EDT

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