• Bush-era torture use 'indisputable,' Guantanamo must close, task force finds

    An independent task force is asking President Obama to close the Guantanamo detention camp in a 577-page report critiquing interrogation methods used since 9/11 under President George W. Bush. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    Matt Spetalnick and Jane Sutton, Reuters writes

    An independent task force issued a damning review of Bush-era interrogation practices on Tuesday, saying the highest U.S. officials bore ultimate responsibility for the "indisputable" use of torture, and it urged President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo detention camp by the end of 2014.

    In one of the most comprehensive studies of U.S. treatment of terrorism suspects, the panel concluded that never before had there been "the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 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."

    "It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture," the 11-member task force, assembled by the nonpartisan Constitution Project think tank, said in their 577-page report.

    The scathing critique of methods used under the Republican administration of former President George W. Bush also sharpened the focus on the plight of inmates at Guantanamo, which Bush opened and his Democratic successor has failed to close.

    Obama banned abusive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding when he took office in early 2009, but the widely condemned military prison at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba has remained an object of condemnation by human rights advocates.

    A clash between guards and prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay camp last weekend and the release of harrowing accounts by inmates about force-feeding of hunger strikers threw a harsh spotlight on the predicament of the inmates, many held without charge or trial for more than decade.

    The task force called the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo "abhorrent and intolerable" and called for it to be closed by the end of 2014 when NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan is due to end and most U.S. troops will leave.

    By then, the 166 Guantanamo prisoners should be tried in civilian or military courts, repatriated or transferred to countries that would not torture them, or moved to U.S. jails, the task force's majority recommended.

    But the 2014 goal will be hard to achieve because of legal, legislative and political obstacles Obama faces. While the White House says he remains committed to shutting Guantanamo, he has offered no new path to doing so in his second term.

    The release of the encyclopedic report comes in the midst of the latest round of allegations of abuse at Guantanamo - which has become an enduring symbol of widely criticized Bush-era counterterrorism practices - where military officials say 43 prisoners are currently on a hunger strike.

    "TRUTH COMMISSION"

    Members of the task force described themselves as the closest thing to a "truth commission" since Obama decided early in his presidency against convening a national commission to investigate post-9/11 practices.

    The panel, which included leading politicians from both parties, two U.S. retired generals and legal and ethics scholars, spent two years examining the U.S. treatment of suspected militants detained after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

    Panel members interviewed former Clinton, Bush and Obama administration officials, military officers and former prisoners, and the investigation looked at U.S. practices at Guantanamo, in Afghanistan and Iraq and at the CIA's former secret prisons overseas.

    The task force was chaired by Asa Hutchinson, a Republican former congressman and undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security during the George W. Bush administration, and James Jones, a Democratic former congressman who served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

    In a finding the panel said was its most notable and was reached "without reservation," the report said, "Torture occurred in many instances and across a wide range of theaters."

    But the panel concluded there was "no firm or persuasive evidence" that the use of such techniques yielded "significant information of value."

    "The nation's highest officials bear some responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of torture," the report said, though it did not name names.

    The task force, while concluding that U.S. and international laws were violated, did not recommend legal action against any of those involved but it did press for tighter rules to prevent a recurrence of torture.

    "We as a nation have to get this right," Hutchinson told a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

    The panel urged the U.S. government to release as much classified information as possible to help understand what went wrong and cope better with the next crisis.

    "Publicly acknowledging this grave error, however belatedly, may mitigate some of those consequences and help undo some of the damage to our reputation at home and abroad," the report said.

    The sweeping report cataloged abusive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and chaining prisoners in painful positions.

    The task force also concluded that force-feeding hunger striking detainees is a form of abuse and should end. "But at the same time the United States has a legitimate interest in preventing detainees from starving to death," the panel said.

    The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross last week expressed opposition to the force-feeding of prisoners and said he urged Obama to do more to resolve the "untenable" legal plight of inmates held there.

    The hunger strike began in February to protest the seizure of personal items from detainees' cells. About a dozen are being force-fed liquid meals through tubes.

    Guards swept through communal cell blocks at the camp on Saturday and moved the prisoners into one-man cells.

    "The action was taken to ensure the health and safety of the detainees not to 'break' the hunger strike," said Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention center.

    Related:

    1246 comments

    Well done G.W..

    Show more
    Explore related topics: , , , ,

  • NBC's Mark Potter answers questions about the pope's visit to Cuba

    NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Mark Potter talk about the changes in the relationship between Cuba and America during the Obama administration.

    Pope Benedict XVI is on a state visit to Cuba this week hoping to highlight the role of the Roman Catholic Church on the Communist island, as well as making subtle push for change.

    Benedict called for "renewal and hope, for the greater good of all Cubans," during a speech on Tuesday. "I have also prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty."

    But the Cuban government was quick to say that there "will not be political reform" in the country as a result of the pope's visit.

    NBC News' Mark Potter is in Havana. He answered interesting reader questions about Benedict's visit earlier today.

    Click below to replay the chat.

     

  • Delicate dance between Catholic Church and Cuba's Communist government

    Pope Benedict arrives in Cuba, 14 years after Pope John Paul's visit to the island. The Pope's visit is expected to help strengthen ties with the Cuban Catholic Church.  NBC's Mark Potter reports.

    Mark Potter writes

    HAVANA, Cuba – At the historic San Francisco de Paula church, in a working-class neighborhood of Havana, Auxiliary Bishop Alfredo Petit recently walked the long hallways where priests, nuns and lay workers were busy caring for some of Cuba's elderly and infirm and also operating an orphanage. Outside the church is a sign welcoming the pope: "Bienvenido a Cuba Benedicto XVI."

    Petit hopes during the pontiff's three-day visit to the island his messages will provide an important boost for the Cuban Catholic Church and perhaps even inspire some gradual changes in Cuban society.  "I don't know what the words will be, but I think they will suggest more respect for human dignity,” he said.

    Since the Cuban revolution in 1959, the Catholic Church has struggled to raise its public profile here. For decades, under the Marxist government of Fidel Castro, the church was ostracized and believers were punished. The country was officially declared atheist until the government loosened that description in the 1990's.

    But, with Fidel Castro out of power now and his younger brother, Raul, in charge, the church has become much more accepted by the government. Recently, Cuban Cardinal Jamie Ortega negotiated the release of more than 100 political prisoners, although he was criticized by human rights activists after most of the prisoners were sent into exile.

    NBC analyst George Weigel discusses Pope Benedict's trip to Cuba and that Vatican's firm anti-communism stance.

    "The church has now been accepted as a legitimate and important interlocutor of the government on sensitive topics like freeing political prisoners, the conditions of those in prison, the treatment of dissidents," said Jorge Dominguez, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.  "This is a wholly unprecedented role for the Roman Catholic in Cuba for the past half century."

    With funds and supplies donated from overseas, the church also provides much-needed social services now as the government struggles to reshape Cuba's troubled economy. Church-run food banks and retirement homes along with medicine distribution centers have become lifelines many of Cuba's extremely poor.

    "It is very convenient for the government that the church will engage in activities providing for people in need," said Juan Clark, a Miami Dade College professor emeritus and an expert on the Cuban Church.

    Still, tensions remain over the issues of religious and personal freedoms.

    Last year, the church convinced state security to stop harassing the "Ladies in White," a church-based dissident group. However, two weekends ago, three-dozen members of the group were detained during a protest march in Havana. Ironically, 13 other dissidents who recently sought sanctuary in a Havana basilica were turned over by church officials to police, sparking accusations the church may have actually grown too close to Cuban leaders.

    Pope Benedict is now urging Cuba to find new alternatives to Marxism – patiently and peacefully – as the Catholic Church maintains a delicate relationship with the Communist government here. 

    The pope’s first stop on Monday will be Santiago de Cuba, the island's second city where he will celebrate a large open-air mass. On Tuesday, he visits the town of El Cobre, home to a tiny wooden statue of Our Lady of Charity, a symbol revered by all Cubans – Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

    Later that day he flies to Havana for what is expected to be a meeting with both Raul and Fidel Castro. On Wednesday morning he will celebrate another mass in Havana before departing the country.