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Trickle-Down Torture
One of the recipients of the ICRC confidential report was Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, an ICRC official said later. Sanchez had instituted a "dozen interrogation methods beyond the Army's standard interrogation techniques that comply with the Geneva Conventions, according to a 2004 report by a panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger.
Sanchez said he based his decision on "the President's Memorandum"- justifying "additional, tougher measures" against detainees, the Schlesigner report said. The memorandum Sanchez was referring to was an order that President George W. Bush signed on Feb. 7, 2002, excluding "war on terror" suspects from Geneva Convention protections.
As the ICRC gathered more information about the Bush administration's detention policies, it began to make some of its concerns public. On March 1, 2004, for instance, Gabor Rona, the ICRC's legal adviser, wrote an op-ed also in the Financial Times that took issue with the Bush administration's posture on the Geneva Conventions.
"The US is proceeding with plans to subject prisoners to military commission trials, citing the Geneva Convention provision that prisoners of war be tried by military courts. How can it do so while maintaining that no detainees are entitled to PoW status?" Rona wrote.
"That aside, the US risks throwing into the military-trial pot people whose alleged crimes have no connection with armed conflict, as understood in international humanitarian law. Such people can and should face trial, but not by military courts."
Taft responded with an angry letter to Kellenberger on March 16, 2004.
"Your staff states categorically that detainees are entitled to an individualized procedure to challenge the basis of their detention," Taft wrote. "No citation or support is provided for this assertion. There is, in fact, no such entitlement in the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
"However, the implication in the article is that the Geneva Conventions do provide such entitlement. This again has the unfortunate effect of misleading the public."
The Abu Ghraib Scandal
The behind-the-scenes dispute over detainee treatment went public in another way in April 2004 when photos were leaked showing U.S. prison guards at Abu Ghraib forcing naked Iraqi detainees into fake sexual positions, intimidating detainees with attacks dogs, committing other abuses, and posing with the corpse of an Iraqi who had died in custody.
After a public scandal erupted, Bush blamed the Abu Ghraib abuses on low-level prison guards.
"I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," Bush said. "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people."
However, Bush's finger-pointing at a few "bad apples"- was soon contradicted when the contents of the February 2004 ICRC report were leaked to the Wall Street Journal in May 2004. The ICRC findings made clear that the Abu Ghraib abuses were not an isolated case.
After the Wall Street Journal published excerpts of the ICRC report in May 2004, ICRC Director of Operations Pierre Krähenbühl held an unusual press conference to respond to reporter's queries on the findings.
"Various aspects of its contents had been discussed with the Coalition authorities at different times and at different levels during 2003 and included in documents submitted to them; "I won't go into the details but .... they don't concern only issues of water and food but also clearly of treatment."
