TIME TO CLOSE GITMO DETENTION FACILITY

Mohammed Al-Qahtani was captured near Tora Bora, Afghanistan in December 2001 and transported to GITMO shortly thereafter. Al-Qahtani was harshly interrogated. The Arab News headline screams Guantanamo Log Details Saudi’s Torture:

A Saudi held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on suspicion of terrorism, was forcibly injected with fluids, grilled in the proximity of military dogs and straddled by a female soldier, according to secret logs obtained by Time magazine.

Mohammed Al-Qahtani was forcibly injected with an undisclosed volume of fluids after refusing food and water in late 2002 at the Guantanamo camp, according to US interrogation logs obtained by Time and released yesterday.

The logs — parts of which are incomplete — provide a detailed account of some of the measures used against a detainee at the prison, many of which have been harshly criticized by rights groups.

The logs detail how Al-Qahtani was interrogated for 50 days from early November to early January 2002-2003, during which 16 additional interrogation methods were approved by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Often woken at 4 a.m. and probed until midnight, Al-Qahtani was forced to stand or sit on a chair, shown pictures of 9/11 victims, and told he could not pray.

At one point, Al-Qahtani mounts a food and water strike and becomes so dehydrated that medical corpsmen “forcibly administer fluids by IV (intravenous) drip.”

After a struggle, the Saudi is restrained, strapped down and “given an undisclosed amount of fluids,” according to Time.

Al-Qahtani subsequently tells his interrogators he works for Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, before urinating in his pants.

After Rumsfeld approved the new interrogation measures on Dec. 2, 2002, he was subjected to a drill known as an “Invasion of Space by a Female.” “He was laid out on the floor so I straddled him without putting my weight on him. He would then attempt to move me off him by bending his legs in order to lift me off but this failed because the MPs were holding his legs down with their hands,” one log entry states.

On Dec. 7, Al-Qahtani’s condition deteriorated so badly that he was not interrogated for 24-hours. Over the next month Al-Qahtani — after his condition improves — is stripped naked, told to bark like a dog and pictures of scantily clad women are hung around his neck. The logs recount Al-Qahtani saying he wants to commit suicide.

He was probed in the presence of a military dog, but “no details are given beyond a hazy reference to a disagreement between the military police and the dog handler,” Time said.

This has to stop. Not the interrogations, I've got no problem at all with the harsh methods being employed. Rather, something has to be done to stop the leaking of dribs and drabs of information about the treatment of detainees.

Terrorists and would-be terrorists must look at reports of the treatment meted out to detainees and laugh. Sure, it might come as a shock for someone like Al-Qahtani to have his beard shaved off, have pictures of scantily clad women hung around his neck and be straddled by a female. But, it's important to remember that such guys have been known to shave off their beards and to get right into the booze and broads.

The GITMO detainees should be disappeared into the secret camps of the American gulag never to be seen or heard from again. No records, no leaks, no good-byes, just bye-bye. With all of the secret, no doubt illegal activities the US gets up to every day surely a few thousand thugs can be quietly gotten rid of without causing so much as a ripple. Afterall, Bush and Co. have managed to hide all credible evidence of their involvement in 9/11.