Since the start of the “war on terror,” roughly 100 detainees have died while in US custody, according to a report released in 2006 by Human Rights First. Of this number, the military itself has classified 34 as homicides. And of those 34 homicides, at least 8, and perhaps as many as 12, were the direct result of torture inflicted by US captors. In some cases this torture included exposure to extreme temperatures, strangulation, and suffocation. In other cases the torture included stress positions and restraint techniques that bear a striking and horrifying similarity to crucifixion. And in almost every case detainees were beaten, severely, often to the point where they were unable to stand or speak, or where they simply died from their injuries.

Many have argued that the various techniques employed by US interrogators (”enhanced interrogation”) did not really constitute torture. Former Bush administration officials, for example, have argued that torture only constitutes physical pain leading to organ failure or death. Though US interrogators subjected detainees to sleep deprivation, humiliation, fear tactics, stress positions, and simple beatings, these officials argue that Americans do not torture.

What the Human Rights First report shows is that, even under the Bush administration’s exceedingly narrow definition, torture did occur. Even if we accept the argument that torture is only torture if it leads to organ failure or death, we are left with, at minimum, 8 instances of torture, admitted by the military’s own records. Yet in none of these cases have the parties responsible been held fully accountable. For those few cases of detainee homicide that were investigated, even fewer resulted in criminal charges, and even fewer still resulted in punishment of any kind. The steepest punishment a US solider faced for the homicide of a prisoner? Five months in jail.

Even by the Bush administration’s own standards, US forces engaged in torture and caused the deaths of at least 8 detainees. Most of these deaths are now over 5 years old, and still we wait for accountability, for justice.

Read more about detainee deaths at the hands of US troops.

Tags: detention, torture

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