text:
This page can be viewed at http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a012109investigatebush
This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event January 21, 2009: UN Official Says US Obligated to Investigate Bush Officials for Crimes against Humanity. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
The US Senate ratifies the international Convention Against Torture, originally proposed by the United Nations in 1985. The treaty bans any officials from signatory nations from inflicting "torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" on prisoners in order to gain information. It also establishes the UN Committee against Torture (UNCAT). The ban is absolute and cannot be waived: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 12/10/1984; Savage 2007, pp. 155) The treaty also forbids signatory nations from sending detainees to other countries if there is a reasonable expectation that they may be tortured. (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 12/10/1984; Human Rights Web 1/25/1997)
Beginning in January 2002, when the US-controlled Guantanamo prison opens in Cuba, until at least 2005, over 700 suspects are secretly flown by the CIA to Guantanamo over the territories of European countries. Most prisoners come from Afghanistan or other places in the Middle East and change planes at the Incirlik US military airbase in Turkey. Then they fly over Greek, Italian, and Portuguese airspace. About 170 other prisoners fly over or land in Spain. The first flight apparently takes place on January 14, and carries three British citizens known as the "Tipton Three" as well as others (see January 13, 2002). In 2007, the Council of Europe, Europe's leading watchdog on human rights, will claim that European countries had breached the international Convention against Torture (see October 21, 1994) by giving the US secret permission to use its airspace. Moazzam Begg, a British prisoner at Guantanamo until 2005, will later recall his flight to Guantanamo. "Inside the plane there was a chain around our waist, and it connected to cuffs around my wrists, which were tied in the back, and to my ankles. We were seated but it was so painful not being able to speak, to hear, to breathe properly, to look, to turn left or right, to move your hands, stretch your legs, or anything." (Grey 11/25/2007) All the member countries of NATO signed a secret agreement in late 2001 allowing blanket overflight clearances for any flight relating to terrorism (see October 4, 2001).
Jay Bybee, the chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), issues a classified memo to William Howard Taft IV, the chief counsel of the State Department, titled "The President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captive Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations." The memo, actually written by Bybee's deputy John Yoo, says Congress has no authority to block the president's power to unilaterally transfer detainees in US custody to other countries. In essence, the memo grants President Bush the power to "rendition" terror suspects to countries without regard to the law or to Congressional legislation, as long as there is no explicit agreement between the US and the other nations to torture the detainees. (US Department of Justice 3/12/2002 ; Savage 2007, pp. 148; American Civil Liberties Union [PDF] 1/28/2009 ; Lewis 3/2/2009) The memo directly contradicts the 1988 Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994), which specifically forbids the transfer of prisoners in the custody of a signatory country to a nation which practices torture. Once the treaty was ratified by Congress in 1994, it became binding law. But Yoo and Bybee argue that the president has the authority as commander in chief to ignore treaties and laws that supposedly interfere with his power to conduct wartime activities. (Savage 2007, pp. 148-149) In 2009, when the memos are made public (see March 2, 2009), Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch says she is shocked at the memo: "That is [the Office of Legal Counsel] telling people how to get away with sending someone to a nation to be tortured. The idea that the legal counsel's office would be essentially telling the president how to violate the law is completely contrary to the purpose and the role of what a legal adviser is supposed to do." (Smith and Eggen 3/3/2009)
The CIA comes up with a list of 10 "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" that it will allow to be used on captured high-ranking al-Qaeda detainees. In 2005, ABC News will reveal six of the techniques on the list and describe them as follows:
The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
The Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
Waterboarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised, and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. (Ross and Esposito 11/18/2005)
The New York Times will later reveal that there are actually four more techniques on the list, but will not detail what they are. (Jehl 11/9/2005)
Waterboarding Most Controversial Technique - Waterboarding will be the most controversial technique used. In centuries past, it was considered by some to be the most extreme form of torture, more so than thumbscrews or use of the rack. (Horton 12/15/2007) "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. CIA officials who allowed themselves to be waterboarded lasted, on average, 14 seconds before caving in. In addition, such confessions are dubious at best. "This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear," says one of the CIA sources. (Ross and Esposito 11/18/2005)
List Compiled with Help from Egypt, Saudi Arabia - The list is secretly drawn up by a team including senior CIA officials, and officials from the Justice Department and the National Security Council. The CIA got help in making the list from governments like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that are notorious for their widespread use of torture (see Late 2001-Mid-March 2002). (Jehl 11/9/2005) Apparently, "only a handful" of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use these techniques. Later this month, al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida will be captured and the CIA will begin using all of these techniques on him (see March 28, 2002). However, the White House will not give the CIA clear legal authority to do so until months after the CIA starts using these techniques on Zubaida (see March 28-August 1, 2002).
Techniques 'Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading' under Treaty - In 2004, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson will determine in a classified report that these techniques appear to constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty signed by the US (see October 21, 1994 and May 7, 2004). Former CIA officer Robert Baer calls the use of such techniques "bad interrogation," and notes, "[Y]ou can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough." (Ross and Esposito 11/18/2005)
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) sends a non-classified memo to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, offering the opinion that a policy allowing suspected al-Qaeda members to be tortured abroad "may be justified." (US Department of Justice 8/1/2002 ) This memo will later be nicknamed the "Golden Shield" by insiders in the hopes that it will protect government officials from later being charged with war crimes (see April 2002 and After). (Greenburg, Rosenberg, and de Vogue 4/9/2008)
Multiple Authors - The 50-page "torture memo" is signed and authored by Jay S. Bybee, head of OLC, and co-authored by John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general. It is later revealed that Yoo authored the memo himself, in close consultation with Vice President Cheney's chief adviser David Addington, and Bybee just signed off on it (see December 2003-June 2004). (Allen and Priest 6/9/2004) Deputy White House counsel Timothy Flanigan also contributed to the memo. Addington contributed the claim that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it is plainly torture. Addington's reasoning: US and treaty law "do not apply" to the commander in chief, because Congress "may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield." (Gellman and Becker 6/25/2007)
Statute Only Prohibits 'Extreme Acts' - Gonzales had formally asked for the OLC's legal opinion in response to a request by the CIA for legal guidance. A former administration official, quoted by the Washington Post, says the CIA "was prepared to get more aggressive and re-learn old skills, but only with explicit assurances from the top that they were doing so with the full legal authority the president could confer on them." (Allen and Priest 6/9/2004) "We conclude that the statute, taken as a whole," Bybee and Yoo write, "makes plain that it prohibits only extreme acts." Addressing the question of what exactly constitute such acts of an extreme nature, the authors proceed to define torture as the infliction of "physical pain" that is "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Purely mental pain or suffering can also amount to "torture under Section 2340," but only if it results "in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g. lasting for months or even years." (Allen and Priest 6/9/2004)
Torture Legal and Defensible - Bybee and Yoo appear to conclude that any act short of torture, even though it may be cruel, inhuman or degrading, would be permissible. They examine, for example, "international decisions regarding the use of sensory deprivation techniques." These cases, they notice, "make clear that while many of these techniques may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, they do not produce pain or suffering of the necessary intensity to meet the definition of torture. From these decisions, we conclude that there is a wide range of such techniques that will not rise to the level of torture." More astounding is Bybee and Yoo's view that even torture can be defensible. "We conclude," they write, "that, under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Section 2340A." Inflicting physical or mental pain might be justified, Bybee and Yoo argue, "in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda terrorist network." In other words, necessity or self-defense may justify torture. Moreover, "necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability." (Schmidt 6/8/2004) International anti-torture rules, furthermore, "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" of suspected terrorists. (Cannon 6/21/2004) Laws prohibiting torture would "not apply to the president's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants" in the "war on terror," because the president has constitutional authority to conduct a military campaign. (Priest 6/27/2004)
Protecting US Officials from Prosecution - In 2007, author and reporter Charlie Savage will write: "In case an interrogator was ever prosecuted for violating the antitorture law (see October 21, 1994 and January 26, 1998, Yoo laid out page after page of legal defenses he could mount to get the charges dismissed. And should someone balk at this strained interpretation of the law, Yoo offered his usual trump card: Applying the antitorture law to interrogations authorized by the president would be unconstitutional, since only the commander in chief could set standards for questioning prisoners." (Savage 2007, pp. 155-156)
Virtually Unrestricted Authority of President - "As commander in chief," the memo argues, "the president has the constitutional authority to order interrogations of enemy combatants to gain intelligence information concerning the military plans of the enemy." (Allen and Priest 6/9/2004) According to some critics, this judgment—which will be echoed in a March 2003 draft Pentagon report (see March 6, 2003)—ignores important past rulings such as the 1952 Supreme Court decision in Youngstown Steel and Tube Co v. Sawyer, which determined that the president, even in wartime, is subject to US laws. (Allen and Priest 6/9/2004) The memo also says that US Congress "may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield." (Priest 6/27/2004)
Ashcroft Refuses to Release Memo - After the memo's existence is revealed, Attorney General John Ashcroft denies senators' requests to release it, and refuses to say if or how the president was involved in the discussion. "The president has a right to hear advice from his attorney general, in confidence," he says. (Lewis 6/8/2004; Bloomberg 6/8/2004; Allen and Priest 6/9/2004) Privately, Ashcroft is so irritated by Yoo's hand-in-glove work with the White House that he begins disparagingly referring to him as "Dr. Yes." (Shane, Johnston, and Risen 10/4/2007)
Only 'Analytical' - Responding to questions about the memo, White House press secretary Scott McClellan will claim that the memo "was not prepared to provide advice on specific methods or techniques," but was "analytical." But the 50-page memo seems to have been considered immensely important, given its length and the fact that it was signed by Bybee. "Given the topic and length of opinion, it had to get pretty high-level attention," Beth Nolan, a former White House counsel from 1999-2001, will tell reporters. This view is confirmed by another former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer who says that unlike documents signed by deputies in the Office of Legal Counsel, memorandums signed by the Office's head are considered legally binding. (Allen and Priest 6/9/2004)
Memo Will be Withdrawn - Almost two years later, the OLC's new head, Jack Goldsmith, will withdraw the torture memos, fearing that they go far beyond anything countenanced by US law (see December 2003-June 2004).
Memo Addresses CIA Concerns - The administration, particularly the axis of neoconservatives centered around Cheney's office, has enthusiastically advocated the use of violent, abusive, and sometimes tortuous interrogation techniques, though the US has never endorsed such tactics before, and many experts say such techniques are counterproductive. The CIA, responding to the desires from the White House, hastily put together a rough program after consulting with intelligence officials from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where detainees are routinely tortured and killed in captivity, and after studying methods used by former Soviet Union interrogators. The legal questions were continuous. The former deputy legal counsel for the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, Paul Kelbaugh, recalls in 2007: "We were getting asked about combinations—'Can we do this and this at the same time?… These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature—can they be combined?' Or 'Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?'" The "torture memo" is designed to address these concerns. (Shane, Johnston, and Risen 10/4/2007)
At 3 o'clock in the morning, Maher Arar is woken up in his cell in New York and taken to another room where he is stripped, searched, shackled, and chained. Two officials read him a decision by the director of the INS, saying that he will be deported to Syria and, as Arar recalls it, "that INS was not the body that deals with Geneva Convention regarding torture." There is no such convention, but this is probably a reference to the Convention Against Torture (CAT—see October 21, 1994). However, Article 3 of the CAT states: "No State Party shall expel… a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." In addition, the US immigration law cited to justify Arar's deportation prohibits sending individuals to a country where "it is more likely than not that they will be tortured." A Justice Department spokesman nevertheless maintains that "the removal of Mr. Arar was accomplished after interagency consultation and in full compliance with the law and with all relevant international treaties and conventions." (Priest 11/19/2003) On that early morning of October 8, Arar is put on a small jet. After a landing in Washington, a "special removal unit," a term Arar overheard, boards the plane and is at this point in custody of the CIA. (Brown 11/12/2003; Priest and Stephens 5/11/2004) "They said Syria was refusing to take me directly," Arar will later recall, "and I would have to fly to Jordan." Torture is again his prime thought. "At that time I was thinking of what would happen once I arrived in Syria and how am I to avoid torture." Via Portland, Maine, and Rome, the jet lands in Amman, Jordan, where six or seven Jordanians are waiting for him. Without a word being spoken Arar is handed over. Blindfolded and chained, he is put in a van, and "right away,… they started beating me," Arar recalls. Half an hour later inside a building, he is subjected to more questioning. (CBC News 11/26/2004)
An unnamed US law enforcement official tells the Wall Street Journal, "[B]ecause the [Convention Against Torture—see October 21, 1994] has no enforcement mechanism, as a practical matter, 'you're only limited by your imagination.'" A detainee "isn't going to be near a place where he has Miranda rights or the equivalent of them," the official says. "God only knows what they're going to do to him. You go to some other country that'll let us pistol whip this guy." (Bravin and Fields 3/4/2003; Human Rights Watch 5/7/2004)
A working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes, completes a 100-page-plus classified report justifying the use of torture on national security grounds. The group—headed by Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker and including top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch—consulted representatives of the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies in drafting the report. It was prepared for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and was meant to respond to complaints from commanders working at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba who claimed that conventional interrogation tactics were inadequate. The conclusions in the report are similar to those of an August 1, 2002 memo (see August 1, 2002) drafted by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The OLC is said to have also contributed to this report. (US Department of Defense 3/6/2003; Bravin 6/7/2004; Savage and Schmitt 6/10/2004) The report notes that both Congress and the Justice Department will have difficulty enforcing the law if US military personnel could be shown to be acting as a result of presidential orders. (Priest and Smith 6/8/2004)
President's Authority During War Gives Power to Order Torture, Supersede Law - One of the main conclusions of the report is that the president's authority as commander-in-chief permits him during times of war to approve almost any physical or psychological interrogation method—including torture—irrespective of any domestic or international law. The report finds, "[I]n order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign… [the 1994 law banning torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority." The draft report clearly states that neither Congress, the courts, nor international law has jurisdiction over the president's actions when the country is waging war. The report asserts that "without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority" to wage war. Furthermore, "any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the commander-in-chief authority in the president." According to the document, the federal Torture Statute simply does not apply. "In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign… (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority," the report states (The parenthetical comment is in the original document). A career military lawyer will later tell the Wall Street Journal that many lawyers disagreed with these conclusions, but that their concerns were overridden by the political appointees heading the drafting of the report. The lawyer explains that instead, military lawyers focused their efforts on limiting the report's list of acceptable interrogation methods. (Bravin 6/7/2004; Priest and Smith 6/8/2004)
Guantanamo Bay Not Covered under Torture Restrictions - The report also finds that the 1994 law barring torture "does not apply to the conduct of US personnel" at Guantanamo Bay, nor does it apply to US military interrogations that occurred outside US "maritime and territorial jurisdiction," such as in Iraq or Afghanistan. (Priest and Smith 6/8/2004)
Legal Arguments to Defend against Torture Charges Conflict with International Statutes - The draft report lists several possible arguments that US civilian or military personnel might use to defend themselves against charges of torture or other war crimes. According to the administration's lawyers, one argument would be that such actions were "necessary" in order to prevent an attack. However, this rationale seems to ignore very clear statements in the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994) which states that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Another line of defense, the report says, would be to claim that the accused had been acting under "superior orders" and that therefore no "moral choice was in fact possible." Likewise, the report cites a Justice Department opinion, which the draft report says "concluded that it could not bring a criminal prosecution against a defendant who had acted pursuant to an exercise of the president's constitutional power." This also contradicts the Convention against Torture, which states that orders from superiors "may not be invoked as a justification of torture." The authors of the report also suggest in the draft report that accused officials could argue that they had "mistakenly relied in good faith on the advice of lawyers or experts," adding, "Good faith may be a complete defense." The memo also argues that the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights (ICCPR), to which the US is a party, "does not apply outside the United States or its special maritime and territorial jurisdiction (SMTJ), and that it does not apply to operations of the military during an international armed conflict," as the US "has maintained consistently." Since the "Guantanamo Bay Naval Station (GTMO) is included within the definition of the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States," the ICCPR does not apply to Guantanamo Bay. The authors are also convinced that officials would not be prosecutable under US law, concluding that "constitutional principles" precluded the possibility that officials could be punished "for aiding the president in exercising his exclusive constitutional authorities" and neither Congress nor the courts had the authority to "require or implement the prosecution of such an individual." (Bravin 6/7/2004)
Defining Parameters of Interrogation Methods - The document attempts to define the parameters of lawful interrogation methods in terms of the degree of pain or psychological manipulation they cause. The report states that the infliction of physical or mental suffering does not constitute torture. To violate Section 2340 A of the US Code, prohibiting physical torture, suffering must be "severe," the lawyers advise, noting that according to a dictionary definition, this would mean that the pain "must be of such a high level of intensity that… [it] is difficult for the subject to endure." It must also be "inflicted with specific intent," they say, meaning that the perpetrator expressly intends to cause severe pain and suffering. But if the defendant simply used pain and suffering as a means to an end, such specific intent would not exist. Under certain circumstances, the lawyers explain, the US would be justified in resorting to illegal measures like torture or homicide. They argue that such measures should be considered "self-defense" in cases where officials "honestly believe" that such actions would prevent an imminent attack against the US. "Sometimes the greater good for society will be accomplished by violating the literal language of the criminal law," the draft document asserts. "In sum," the panel determines, "the defense of superior orders will generally be available for US Armed Forces personnel engaged in exceptional interrogations except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful." Civil law suits, the panel notes, by a foreign victim of torture will not apply to the US government. (US Department of Defense 3/6/2003; Bravin 6/7/2004)
Report May Not Define Practices, Pentagon Implies - A Pentagon spokesman later says the memo represents "a scholarly effort to define the perimeters of the law," and notes: "What is legal and what is put into practice is a different story." (Priest and Smith 6/8/2004)
Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes responds to a letter from Senator Patrick Leahy which asked for clarification on the administration's interrogation policy (see June 2003). Haynes replies that "it is the policy of the United States to comply with all its legal obligations in its treatment of detainees [and]… to treat all detainees and conduct all interrogations, wherever they may occur" in a manner consistent with US obligations under the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994). He adds that the US "does not permit, tolerate, or condone any such torture by its employees under any circumstances." He also says that the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution require the US "to prevent other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture." Notably, he does not provide information about the specific interrogation tactics that US forces are permitted to use. "It would not be appropriate to catalogue the interrogation techniques used by US personnel thus we cannot comment on specific cases or practices," Haynes says. (Human Rights Watch 5/7/2004; Bravin 6/7/2004)
Amnesty International publishes a report stating that it believes that "the totality of conditions" in which "most" of the detainees at Guantanamo are being held may itself amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Amnesty notes that the Committee against Torture, established to oversee implementation of the Convention against Torture (see October 21, 1994), "has expressly held that restraining detainees in very painful positions, hooding, threats, and prolonged sleep deprivation are methods of interrogation which violate the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." (Amnesty International 10/20/2003)
Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement appears before the Supreme Court to argue for the administration in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (see June 28, 2004). Clement argues that the Court has no role in the White House's decision to hold suspected terrorists designated as "enemy combatants" without trial or charge. During oral arguments, several of the justices ask Clement if the Bush administration considers itself bound by the Convention against Torture (see October 21, 1994). Clement replies, "The United States is signatory to conventions that prohibit torture and that sort of thing, and the United States is going to honor its treaty obligations." He continues: "I wouldn't want there to be any misunderstanding about this. It's also the judgment of those involved in this process that the last thing you want to do is torture somebody or do something along those lines." That evening, CBS's 60 Minutes II airs the first photos of tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib (see April 28, 2004). (Oral Arguments, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld 4/28/2004 ; Savage 2007, pp. 188-189)
Major General Geoffrey Miller says during a Coalition Provisional Authority briefing that while physical contact between the interrogator and detainees is prohibited, "sleep deprivation and stress positions and all that could be used—but they must be authorized." (see April 16, 2003) But as Amnesty International later notes in a letter to George Bush, "The United Nations Committee against Torture, the expert body established by the Convention against Torture (see October 21, 1994) has expressly held that restraining detainees in very painful positions, hooding, threats, and prolonged sleep deprivation are methods of interrogation which violate the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." (Amnesty International 5/7/2004)
The CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, releases a highly classified report from his office that examines allegations of torture from the time period between September 2001 (after the 9/11 attacks, when the CIA first began detaining suspected terrorists and informants) and October 2003. In the report, Helgerson warns that some aggressive interrogation techniques approved for use by the CIA since early 2002 (see Mid-March 2002) might violate some provisions of the international Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994). The report doubts the Bush administration position that the techniques do not violate the treaty because the interrogations take place overseas on non-US citizens. It will be released, in heavily redacted form, to the public in August 2009 (see August 24, 2009). From what becomes known of the report's contents, the CIA engaged in a number of illegal and ethically questionable tactics on the part of its interrogators. Some of these tactics include the use of handguns, power drills, threats, smoke, and mock executions. Many of the techniques used against detainees were carried out without authorization from higher officials. The report says that the CIA's efforts to provide "systematic, clear, and timely guidance" to interrogators were "inadequate at first" and that that failure largely coincided with the most significant incidents involving the unauthorized coercion of detainees, but as guidelines from the Justice Department accumulated over several years, oversight "improved considerably." The report does not conclude that the techniques reviewed constitute torture, but it does find that they appear to constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under the Convention. (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Jehl 11/9/2005; Williams 8/24/2009; Finn, Warrick, and Tate 8/24/2009)
Physical Abuse - The report defines torture as an act "intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering." It then begins detailing such acts. Incidents of physical abuse include:
One incident caused the death of an Afghani detainee. According to the report: "An agency independent contractor who was a paramilitary officer is alleged to have severely beaten the detainee with a large metal flashlight and kicked him during interrogation sessions. The detainee died in custody." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009; Finn, Warrick, and Tate 8/24/2009; MSNBC 8/25/2009) In a 2009 statement, Helgerson will write: "In one extreme case, improvisation took a disastrous turn when an agency contractor in rural Afghanistan—acting wholly outside the approved program and with no authorization or training—took it upon himself to interrogate a detainee. This officer beat the detainee and caused his death. Following an investigation of the incident, this contract employee was convicted of assault and is now in prison." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Heron 8/24/2009)
Waterboarding was routinely used, in a manner far exceeding previously issued guidelines. Interrogators "continuously applied large volumes of water," and later explained that they needed to make the experience "more poignant and convincing." The CIA interrogators' waterboarding technique was far more aggressive than anything used in military survival training such as the SERE program (see December 2001). Eventually, the agency's Office of Medical Services criticized the waterboarding technique, saying that the "frequency and intensity" with which it was used could not be certified as "efficacious or medically safe." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009; Finn, Warrick, and Tate 8/24/2009) The report refers in particular to the treatment of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), who was reportedly waterboarded more than once (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003). Waterboarding is considered torture and is illegal in the US. The report also raises concern that the use of these techniques could eventually cause legal troubles for the CIA officers who used them. (Jehl 11/9/2005)
Helgerson will write: "We found that waterboarding had been utilized in a manner that was inconsistent with the understanding between CIA and the Department of Justice. The department had provided the agency a written legal opinion based on an agency assurance that although some techniques would be used more than once, repetition would 'not be substantial.' My view was that, whatever methodology was used to count applications of the waterboard, the very large number of applications to which some detainees were subjected led to the inescapable conclusion that the agency was abusing this technique." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Heron 8/24/2009)
In July 2002, a CIA officer used a "pressure point" technique "with both of his hands on the detainee's neck, the officer manipulated his finger to restrict the detainee's carotid artery." The carotid artery supplies the brain with oxygenated blood; such "manipulat[ion]" could lead to unconsciousness or even death. A second officer "reportedly watched his eyes to the point that the detainee would nod and start to pass out. Then the officer shook the detainee to wake him. This process was repeated for a total of three applications on the detainee."
A technique routinely used by CIA interrogators was the "hard takedown," which involves an interrogator grabbing a detainee and slamming him to the floor before having the detainee moved to a sleep-deprivation cell. One detainee was hauled off his feet by his arms while they were bound behind his back with a belt, causing him severe pain.
Another routinely used technique is "water dousing," apparently a variant of waterboarding, in which a detainee is laid on a plastic sheet and subjected to having water sluiced over him for 10 to 15 minutes. The report says that at least one interrogator believed the technique to be useful, and sent a cable back to CIA headquarters requesting guidelines. A return cable explained that a detainee "must be placed on a towel or sheet, may not be placed naked on the bare cement floor, and the air temperature must exceed 65 degrees if the detainee will not be dried immediately."
- - Detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of plotting the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000), was repeatedly "bathed" with hard-bristled scrub brushes in order to inflict pain. The brushes caused abrasions and bleeding. (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009; Finn, Warrick, and Tate 8/24/2009; MSNBC 8/25/2009)
Helgerson will write: "Agency officers who were authorized to detain and interrogate terrorists sometimes failed in their responsibilities. In a few cases, agency officers used unauthorized, threatening interrogation techniques. The primary, common problem was that management controls and operational procedures were not in place to avoid the serious problems that arose, jeopardizing agency employees and detainees alike." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Heron 8/24/2009)
Mental Abuse - Numerous instances of mental and emotional abuse were also documented.
In 2002, interrogators staged a mock execution to intimidate a detainee. CIA officers began screaming outside the room where the detainee was being interrogated. When leaving the room, he "passed a guard who was dressed as a hooded detainee, lying motionless on the ground, and made to appear as if he had been shot to death." The report says that after witnessing this performance, the detainee "sang like a bird."
Handguns and power drills were used to threaten detainees with severe bodily harm or death. One such instance involved al-Nashiri. An American, whose name is not released but who is identified as not being a trained interrogator and lacking authorization to use "enhanced methods," used a gun and a power drill to frighten him. The American pointed the gun at al-Nashiri's head and "racked" a round in the chamber. The American also held a power drill near al-Nashiri and revved it, while al-Nashiri stood naked and hooded. (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009; Williams 8/24/2009; MSNBC 8/25/2009)
In 2009, reporter David Ignatius will say he finds the "image of a CIA interrogator standing with a power drill next to somebody he's interrogating… particularly horrific, because that's a technique that's been used in torturing people in Iraq." (PBS 8/24/2009)
A CIA interrogator told al-Nashiri that if he did not cooperate with his captors, "we could get your mother in here" and "we can bring your family in here." The report says that the interrogator wanted al-Nashiri to infer for "psychological" reasons that his female relatives might be sexually abused. The interrogator has denied actually threatening to sexually abuse al-Nashiri's mother or other relatives.
An interrogator threatened the lives of one detainee's children. According to the report, an "interrogator said to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed that if anything else happens in the United States, quote, 'we're going to kill your children.'" According to the report, the debriefer was trying to exploit a belief in the Middle East that interrogation techniques included sexually abusing female relatives in front of the detainees. It was during these same interrogation sessions that Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a single month (see April 16, 2009). (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009; Williams 8/24/2009; MSNBC 8/25/2009)
Fear of Recriminations - According to the report, there was concern throughout the agency over the potential legal consequences for agency officers. Officers "expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action" and said "they feared that the agency would not stand behind them," according to the report. (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009) According to the report, CIA personnel "are concerned that public revelation" of the program will "seriously damage" personal reputations as well as "the reputation and effectiveness of the agency itself." One officer is quoted as saying he could imagine CIA agents ending up before the World Court on war crimes charges. "Ten years from now, we're going to be sorry we're doing this," another officer said. But "it has to be done." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Finn, Warrick, and Tate 8/24/2009) Helgerson will write: "This review of the agency's early detention and interrogation activities was undertaken in part because of expressions of concern by agency employees that the actions in which they were involved, or of which they were aware, would be determined by judicial authorities in the US or abroad to be illegal. Many expressed to me personally their feelings that what the agency was doing was fundamentally inconsistent with long established US government policy and with American values, and was based on strained legal reasoning. We reported these concerns." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Heron 8/24/2009)
Recommendations - The report lists 10 recommendations for changes in the treatment of detainees, but it will not be reported what these are. Eight of the recommendations are apparently later adopted. Former CIA assistant general counsel John Radsan will later comment, "The ambiguity in the law must cause nightmares for intelligence officers who are engaged in aggressive interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects and other terrorism suspects." (Jehl 11/9/2005)
Approval, Contradictory Statements by Attorney General - The report says that Attorney General John Ashcroft approved all of these actions: "According to the CIA general counsel, the attorney general acknowledged he is fully aware of the repetitive use of the waterboard and that CIA is well within the scope of the DOJ opinion that the authority given to CIA by that opinion. The attorney general was informed the waterboard had been used 119 times on a single individual." In 2009, reporter Michael Isikoff will say that the contents of the report "conflict… with the public statements that have been made over the years by Bush administration officials and CIA directors." In 2007, then-CIA Director Michael Hayden will tell the Council on Foreign Relations that the agency's detention and interrogation program was "very carefully controlled and lawfully conducted—has been carefully controlled and lawfully conducted." Isikoff will say, "It's kind of hard to square that with… what was in the CIA inspector general report that had been presented five years ago in 2004." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; MSNBC 8/25/2009)
Questions of Effectiveness - The report does document that some interrogations obtained critical information to identify terrorists and stop potential plots, and finds that some imprisoned terrorists provided more information after being exposed to brutal treatment (see August 24, 2009). It finds that "there is no doubt" that the detention and interrogation program itself prevented further terrorist activity, provided information that led to the apprehension of other terrorists, warned authorities of future plots, and helped analysts complete an intelligence picture for senior policymakers and military leaders. But whether the harsh techniques were effective in this regard "is a more subjective process and not without some concern," the report continues. It specifically addresses waterboarding as an illegal tactic that is not shown to have provided useful information. "This review identified concerns about the use of the waterboard, specifically whether the risks of its use were justified by the results, whether it has been unnecessarily used in some instances," the report reads, and notes that in many instances, the frequency and volume of water poured over prisoners' mouths and noses may have exceeded the Justice Department's legal authorization. In the instance of detainee Abu Zubaida, the report finds, "It is not possible to say definitively that the waterboard is the reason for Abu [Zubaida]'s increased production [of intelligence information], or if another factor, such as the length of detention, was the catalyst." In 2009, Isikoff will note that the effectiveness of torture is not clarified by the report. "As you know, Vice President [Dick] Cheney and others who had defended this program have insisted time and again that valuable intelligence was gotten out of this program. You could read passages of this report and conclude that that is the case, that they did get—some passages say important intelligence was gotten. But then others are far more nuanced and measured, saying we don't really know the full story, whether alternative techniques could have been used." (Central Intelligence Agency 5/7/2004 ; Mazzetti and Shane 8/24/2009; Williams 8/24/2009; Finn, Warrick, and Tate 8/24/2009; MSNBC 8/25/2009)
Cheney Blocked Report's Completion - Reporter Jane Mayer later learns that Cheney intervened to block Helgerson from completing his investigation. Mayer will write that as early as 2004, "the vice president's office was fully aware that there were allegations of serious wrongdoing in the [interrogation] program." Helgerson met repeatedly and privately with Cheney before, in Mayer's words, the investigation was "stopped in its tracks." She will call the meetings "highly unusual." In October 2007, CIA Director Michael Hayden will order an investigation of Helgerson's office, alleging that Helgerson was on "a crusade against those who have participated in controversial detention programs." (Leopold 3/6/2009)
Justice Department official Patrick Philbin testifies in a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee on the subject of interrogation tactics. Philbin testifies that each of the 24 approved interrogation tactics used by US personnel to interrogate terrorist suspects are "plainly lawful." He notes that laws such as the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice define, to an extent, what is and is not torture, and prohibit excessive interrogation methods that might come under that rubric. He also notes that the US is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994), which defines torture broadly as the intentional infliction of "severe pain or suffering" by anyone acting in an official capacity. He insists the US has done nothing to violate this treaty, nor the War Crimes Act, the Geneva Conventions, or Fifth and the Eighth Amendments to the US Constitution. Although terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and "extragovernmental" organizations such as the Taliban do not fall under the protection of the Geneva Conventions, Philbin argues that the US continues to follow its guidelines in its treatment of prisoners from those groups "to the extent consistent with military necessity…" (House Intelligence Committee 7/14/2007 ) However, in 2004, a classified report by the CIA's Inspector General concluded that some of the interrogation techniques used by the CIA probably did violate the Convention Against Torture (see May 7, 2004).
In a blistering editorial, the New York Times lambasts both the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership in the Senate for allowing Michael Mukasey, the new attorney general, to slide through the confirmation process with so little challenge (see November 8, 2007). The only thing left in the Senate's traditional responsibility of "advice and consent" is the "consent" part, the editors write. The editorial continues: "Once upon a time, the confirmation of major presidential appointments played out on several levels—starting, of course, with politics. It was assumed that a president would choose like-minded people as cabinet members and for other jobs requiring Senate approval. There was a presumption that he should be allowed his choices, all other things being equal. Before George W. Bush's presidency, those other things actually counted. Was the nominee truly qualified, with a professional background worthy of the job? Would he discharge his duties fairly and honorably, upholding his oath to protect the Constitution? Even though [he or] she answers to the president, would the nominee represent all Americans? Would he or she respect the power of Congress to supervise the executive branch, and the power of the courts to enforce the rule of law? In less than seven years, Mr. Bush has managed to boil that list down to its least common denominator: the president should get his choices." The Times observes that in the first six years of Bush's rule, he had an enthusiastically compliant set of Republican allies in Congress, but during that time, minority Democrats "did almost nothing… to demand better nominees than Mr. Bush was sending up. And now that they have attained the majority, they are not doing any better." The editors focus particularly on two issues: Mukasey's refusal to answer straightforward questions on whether waterboarding is torture, and the Democrats' refusal to filibuster the Senate vote. The Times notes that Mukasey passed confirmation with a 53-40 vote. Democrats have made what the Times calls "excuses for their sorry record" on a host of issues, and first and foremost is the justification that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. "So why did Mr. Mukasey get by with only 53 votes?" the Times asks. "Given the success the Republicans have had in blocking action when the Democrats cannot muster 60 votes, the main culprit appears to be the Democratic leadership, which seems uninterested in or incapable of standing up to Mr. Bush." The editors do not accept the rationale of Mukasey supporters like Charles Schumer (D-NY), who argued that by not confirming Mukasey, the path would be clear for Bush to make an interim appointment of someone far more extreme. The Times calls this line of argument "cozy rationalization," and by Mukasey's refusal to answer questions about his position on waterboarding, he has already aligned himself with the extremist wing of the administration. For the record, the Times notes, "Waterboarding is specifically banned by the Army Field Manual, and it is plainly illegal under the federal Anti-Torture Act, federal assault statutes, the Detainee Treatment Act (see December 30, 2005), the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994), and the Geneva Conventions." Therefore, "[i]t is hard to see how any nominee worthy of the position of attorney general could fail to answer 'yes.'" The Times speculates that Mukasey was not permitted to answer the question by the White House because a "no" answer "might subject federal officials who carried out Mr. Bush's orders to abuse and torture prisoners after the 9/11 attacks: the right answer could have exposed them to criminal sanctions." All in all, the Times is appalled by "the Senate giving the job of attorney general, chief law enforcement officer in the world's oldest democracy, to a man who does not even have the integrity to take a stand against torture." (New York Times 11/11/2007)
British Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the all-party Parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, files a formal complaint with the government's Information Commissioner over the government's use of the island of Diego Garcia for the rendition of US prisoners to foreign countries for interrogation and possibly torture (see After February 7, 2002 and June 2, 2008). Diego Garcia is a large atoll in the Indian Ocean under British jurisdiction, and hosts a large British-American military base (see July 27, 1971-May 26, 1973). Tyrie says he decided to make the complaint to learn if Britain was in breach of its obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994). The British government has recently admitted that at least two US rendition planes used Diego Garcia as a refueling base in 2002 (see December 2001-January 2002). "The foreign secretary has been forced to admit that two rendition planes refueled at Diego Garcia, despite explicit US assurances to the [British] government that no such flights had taken place," Tyrie says. "Clearly people will conclude that these assurances are worthless.… But in response to requests by me the government has twice refused to release the terms of these assurances. Their disclosure will allow for a legal assessment of whether or not [Britain] has breached its obligations under the convention against torture, both with respect to Diego Garcia and to rendition generally." Tyrie's complaint requests that Foreign Secretary David Milbrand name the prisoners rendered through Diego Garcia by the US. Milbrand has already apologized to Parliament about falsely claiming that no US rendition flights have ever used Diego Garcia as a refueling base; other British government officials have issued similar denials (see January 8, 2003). But Manfred Novak, the UN special investigator on torture, says that he has credible evidence that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003. Human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith says he believes two of the detainees were Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni (see Early January-January 9, 2002 and March 2004) and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (see December 19, 2001 and January 2002 and After), though he cannot be sure since neither the US nor British governments are releasing the names of potential detainees kept at Diego Garcia. In 2007, a Council of Europe investigation into extraordinary rendition will learn that US agencies use Diego Garcia in the "processing" of "high-value detainees." (Campbell and Norton-Taylor 6/2/2008; Campbell and Norton-Taylor 6/2/2008)
Sparked by the official confirmation that Guantanamo detainee Mohamed al-Khatani was tortured (see January 14, 2009), Amnesty International calls for the incoming Obama administration and Congress to launch an independent commission of inquiry into human rights violations in the "war on terror." In a press release, Amnesty International writes: "Torture is a crime under international law. The USA is obliged as a party to the UN Convention against Torture (see October 21, 1994) to investigate 'wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.' The same treaty requires it to submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution. The treaty, and international law more generally, precludes the invocation of exceptional circumstances or superior orders as justification for torture. Anyone who has authorized, committed, is complicit, or participated in torture must be brought to justice, no matter their level of office or former level of office. Yet the public acknowledgement that the USA has tortured al-Khatani was not accompanied by any news of efforts to bring those responsible to justice." Such a government commission "must not be used to block or delay the prosecution of any individual against whom there is already sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. A criminal investigation into the torture of Mohamed al-Khatani is already long overdue." The incoming president, Barack Obama, has already acknowledged that waterboarding, one of the "harsh interrogation techniques" used against Guantanamo detainees, is torture. "Next week, then, the USA will have a president who considers that torture has been committed by the USA," Amnesty writes. "He will be under an obligation to ensure full individual and institutional accountability. There must be no safe havens for torturers." As for al-Khatani, Amnesty believes the US should either release him or try him "in accordance with international fair trial standards in an independent and impartial court—not a military commission. No information obtained under torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should be admitted in any proceedings, except against the perpetrators of any such treatment as evidence that it occurred." (Amnesty International 1/14/2009)
In an interview for the German television program Frontal 21, broadcast on ZDF, Professor Manfred Nowak, the United Nations rapporteur responsible for torture, states that with George W. Bush's head of state immunity now terminated, the new government of Barack Obama is obligated by international law to commence a criminal investigation into Bush's torture practices. "The evidence is sitting on the table," Nowak says. "There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture." Nowak cites the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994), which obligates a signatory country such as the US to criminally prosecute anyone who tortures a person, or extradites a person to a country which will torture him. "The government of the United States is required to take all necessary steps to bring George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld before a court," Nowak says. Nowak headed a 2006 study of conditions at Guantanamo that concluded the practices used at that facility and approved by the Bush administration violated human rights norms and constituted torture. ZDF also interviews attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, who brought charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before German prosecutors. The Obama administration is "off to a good beginning" with its explicit renunciation of torture, Kaleck says, but has yet to show how it will hold Bush, Rumsfeld, and others accountable for their crimes, nor has it demonstrated its legally obligated duty to provide compensation to torture victims. Lastly, law professor Dietmar Herz confirms that Bush bears personal responsibility for the introduction and use of torture. Herz confirms that once Bush lost his immunity from prosecution as a head of state, the US is obligated to prosecute him for crimes against humanity. (Horton 1/21/2009)
In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the CIA turns over unredacted pages of a classified internal agency report that concluded the techniques used on two prisoners "appeared to constitute cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, as defined by the International Convention Against Torture" (see October 21, 1994). The CIA also turns over evidence showing that videotapes of the two prisoners being tortured were destroyed (see March 6, 2009). The pages are from a 2004 report compiled by then-CIA Inspector General John Helgerson. The document reads in part: "In January 2003, OIG [Office of Inspector General] initiated a special review of the CIA terrorist detention and interrogation program. This review was intended to evaluate CIA detention and interrogation activities, and was not initiated in response to an allegation of wrongdoing. During the course of the special review, OIG was notified of the existence of videotapes of the interrogations of detainees. OIG arranged with the NCS [National Clandestine Service, the covert arm of the CIA] to review the videotapes at the overseas location where they were stored. OIG reviewed the videotapes at an overseas covert NCS facility in May 2003. After reviewing the videotapes, OIG did not take custody of the videotapes and they remained in the custody of NCS. Nor did OIG make or retain a copy of the videotapes for its files. At the conclusion of the special review in May 2004, OIG notified [the Justice Department] and other relevant oversight authorities of the review's findings." The report has never been made public, but information concerning it was revealed by the New York Times in 2005 (see May 7, 2004). (Leopold 3/6/2009)
The New York Review of Books publishes a lengthy article documenting the Red Cross's hitherto-secret report on US torture practices at several so-called "black sites." The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a report on "The Black Sites" in February 2007 (see October 6 - December 14, 2006), but that report has remained secret until now. These "black sites" are secret prisons in Thailand, Poland, Afghanistan, Morocco, Romania, and at least three other countries (see October 2001-2004), either maintained directly by the CIA or used by them with the permission and participation of the host countries.
Specific Allegations of Torture by Official Body Supervising Geneva - The report documents the practices used by American guards and interrogators against prisoners, many of which directly qualify as torture under the Geneva Conventions and a number of international laws and statutes. The ICRC is the appointed legal guardian of Geneva, and the official body appointed to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war; therefore, its findings have the force of international law. The practices documented by the ICRC include sleep deprivation, lengthy enforced nudity, subjecting detainees to extensive, intense bombardment of noise and light, repeated immersion in frigid water, prolonged standing and various stress positions—sometimes for days on end—physical beatings, and waterboarding, which the ICRC authors call "suffocation by water." The ICRC writes that "in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they [the detainees] were subjected while held in the CIA program… constituted torture." It continues, "In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment." Both torture and "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" are specifically forbidden by Geneva and the Convention Against Torture, both of which were signed by the US (see October 21, 1994). The 14 "high-value detainees" whose cases are documented in the ICRC report include Abu Zubaida (see March 28, 2002), Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003), and Tawfiq bin Attash (see March 28, 2002-Mid-2004). All 14 remain imprisoned in Guantanamo. (Hederman 3/15/2009 ; Danner 3/15/2009) Based on the ICRC report and his own research, Danner draws a number of conclusions.
The US government began to torture prisoners in the spring of 2002, with the approval of President Bush and the monitoring of top Bush officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft. The torture, Danner writes, "clearly violated major treaty obligations of the United States, including the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, as well as US law."
Bush, Ashcroft, and other top government officials "repeatedly and explicitly lied about this, both in reports to international institutions and directly to the public. The president lied about it in news conferences, interviews, and, most explicitly, in speeches expressly intended to set out the administration's policy on interrogation before the people who had elected him."
Congress was privy to a large amount of information about the torture conducted under the aegis of the Bush administration. Its response was to pass the Military Commissions Act (MCA—see October 17, 2006), which in part was designed to protect government officials from criminal prosecutions under the War Crimes Act.
While Congressional Republicans were primarily responsible for the MCA, Senate Democrats did not try to stop the bill—indeed, many voted for it. Danner blames the failure on its proximity to the November 2006 midterm elections and the Democrats' fear of being portrayed as "coddlers of terrorists." He quotes freshman Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): "Soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire." (Obama voted against the MCA, and, when it passed, he said, "[P]olitics won today.")
The damage done to the US's reputation, and to what Danner calls "the 'soft power' of its constitutional and democratic ideals," has been "though difficult to quantify, vast and enduring." Perhaps the largest defeat suffered in the US's "war on terror," he writes, has been self-inflicted, by the inestimable loss of credibility in the Muslim world and around the globe. The decision to use torture "undermin[ed] liberal sympathizers of the United States and convinc[ed] others that the country is exactly as its enemies paint it: a ruthless imperial power determined to suppress and abuse Muslims. By choosing to torture, we freely chose to become the caricature they made of us."
A Need for Investigation and Prosecution - Danner is guardedly optimistic that, under Democratic leadership in the White House and Congress, the US government's embrace of torture has stopped, and almost as importantly, the authorization and practice of torture under the Bush administration will be investigated, and those responsible will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. But, he notes, "[i]f there is a need for prosecution there is also a vital need for education. Only a credible investigation into what was done and what information was gained can begin to alter the political calculus around torture by replacing the public's attachment to the ticking bomb with an understanding of what torture is and what is gained, and lost, when the United States reverts to it." (Danner 3/15/2009)
A Spanish court begins preliminary work towards opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former top Bush administration officials may be guilty of war crimes related to torture of prisoners at Guantanamo. Spanish law allows the investigation and prosecution of people beyond its borders in the case of torture or war crimes. Investigative judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered the arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and has overseen the prosecution of numerous terrorists and human rights violators, wants to prosecute former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee, former Defense Department officials William Haynes and Douglas Feith, and David Addington, the former chief of staff to then-Vice President Cheney. Many legal experts say that even if Garzon's case results in warrants being issued, it is highly doubtful that the warrants would ever be served as long as the six potential defendants remain in the US. Spain has jurisdiction in the case because five Spanish citizens or residents have claimed to have been tortured at Guantanamo; the five faced charges in Spain, but were released after the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained through torture was inadmissible. Garzon's complaint rests on alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions and the 1984 Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994). The complaint was prepared by Spanish lawyers with the assistance of experts in Europe and America, and filed by the Association for the Dignity of Prisoners, a Spanish human rights group. Lawyer Gonzalo Boye, who filed the complaint, says that Gonzales, Yoo, and the others have what he calls well-documented roles in approving illegal torture techniques, redefining torture, and ignoring the constraints set by the Convention Against Torture. "When you bring a case like this you can't stop to make political judgments as to how it might affect bilateral relations between countries," Boye says. "It's too important for that." Boye adds: "This is a case from lawyers against lawyers. Our profession does not allow us to misuse our legal knowledge to create a pseudo-legal frame to justify, stimulate, and cover up torture." The US is expected to ignore any extradition requests occuring from the case. (Simon 3/28/2009; Haven 3/28/2009)
New York Times editor Clark Hoyt, in a column entitled "Telling the Brutal Truth," writes of the lengthy discussions among Times editors and staffers on using the term "torture" in their reports and editorials. Hoyt writes that the term is not used in news reports, though it is in editorials. "Until this month," he writes, "what the Bush administration called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques were 'harsh' techniques in the news pages of the Times. Increasingly, they are 'brutal.'" He characterizes the decision to use, or not use, the word "torture" as an example of "the linguistic minefields that journalists navigate every day in the quest to describe the world accurately and fairly." He notes that the final decision—to rely on the adjective "brutal"—"displeas[es] some who think 'brutal' is just a timid euphemism for torture [as well as] their opponents who think 'brutal' is too loaded."
Reader Criticism - Hoyt notes that some readers have criticized the Times for its lack of "backbone" in not using the term "torture" in its reporting, with one writing that by refusing to use the term, "you perpetuate the fantasy that calling a thing by something other than its name will change the thing itself." Others say that even using the word "brutal" is "outrageously biased."
'Harsh' Not Accurately Descriptive - Hoyt notes that in the process of editing an April 10 news report on the CIA's closing of its network of secret overseas prisons (see April 10, 2009), reporter Scott Shane and editor Douglas Jehl debated over the wording of the first paragraph. Jehl had written that the interrogation methods used in the prisons were "widely denounced as illegal torture," a phrase Jehl changed to "harshest interrogation methods." Shane argued that the term "harshest" was not strong enough, and the two agreed to use the word "brutal." After reading the recently released Justice Department torture memos (see April 16, 2009), managing editor Jill Abramson said a new and stronger term needed to be used. "Harsh sounded like the way I talked to my kids when they were teenagers and told them I was going to take the car keys away," she says. She, too, came down in favor of "brutal" after conferring with legal experts and Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet. But senior editors have all agreed that the word torture will not be used except in quoting others' descriptions of the methods. "I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques," Jehl says. "Exactly what constitutes torture continues to be a matter of debate and hasn't been resolved by a court. This president and this attorney general say waterboarding is torture, but the previous president and attorney general said it is not. On what basis should a newspaper render its own verdict, short of charges being filed or a legal judgment rendered?" (Hoyt 4/25/2009)
Accusation of Bias, Semantic Games - Media critic Brad Jacobson accuses Hoyt and the Times staff of engaging in meaningless semantic wordplay instead of labeling torture as what it is, and notes that Hoyt seems to admit that public opinion, not journalistic standards, has determined what terms the Times will and will not use. Jacobson writes: "1) If the Times called techniques such as waterboarding torture in its reporting, which it should based on US and international law, legal experts, historians, military judges, combat veterans, and human rights organizations, and described, however briefly, what that torture entailed, then the use of modifying adjectives such as 'harsh' or 'brutal' would not only be superfluous but, in a news story, better left out; and 2) isn't the Times (along with any news outlet that has failed to report these acts as torture) directly responsible in some way for inspiring the kind of response it received from readers [who objected to the term 'brutal']? If readers are not provided the facts—a) waterboarding is torture and b) torture is illegal—while Times editors are simultaneously ascribing arbitrary descriptors to it like 'brutal' or 'harsh,' then the Times is not only denying its readers the necessary information to understand the issue but this denial may also lead directly to accusations of bias." He also notes that Jehl censored Shane's story to eliminate the reference to the methods being "widely denounced as illegal torture," and asks why Abramson discussed the matter with legal experts rather than determining if waterboarding, physical assaults, and other techniques do indeed qualify as torture under the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994), and other binding laws and treaties. (Jacobson 4/26/2009)
Former Bush National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has returned to Stanford University to teach political science and serve as a senior fellow at the university's conservative Hoover Institute (Gorelick 1/28/2009) , refuses to take any responsibility for the Bush administration's torture policies. All she ever did, she tells students, was "convey… the authorization of the administration" (see Late 2001-Early 2002, April 2002 and After, Mid-May, 2002, July 17, 2002, September or October 2002, Summer 2003, May 3, 2004, and April 9, 2008). However, Rice adds, since President Bush authorized the torture program, it was by definition legal, no matter what domestic law or international treaties stipulated. "The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture" (see October 21, 1994), she says. "So that's—and by the way, I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department's clearance. That's what I did." Asked if waterboarding constitutes torture, Rice responds: "I just said, the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture." Ali Frick, a reporter with the progressive news Web site Think Progress, writes in response: "Rice is attempting to hide her central role in approving torture.… Rice's opinion that a presidential authorization—'by definition'—grants something legality is deeply disturbing. In fact, the United States—and its president—are bound by US statute and international treaties that ban the use of cruel, humiliating, degrading treatment, the infliction of suffering, and the attempt to extract coerced confessions. Memo to Rice: Bush may have been 'the Decider,' but he didn't have the authority to make an illegal act magically legal." (Frick 4/30/2009) In the same conversation, Rice seems to say that al-Qaeda poses a greater threat to the US than did Nazi Germany, and again denies that the US ever tortured anyone. A student asks, "Even in World War II facing Nazi Germany, probably the greatest threat that America has ever faced—" and Rice interjects, "Uh, with all due respect, Nazi Germany never attacked the homeland of the United States." "No, but they bombed our allies—" the student replies, and Rice once again interrupts: "No, just a second, just a second. Three thousand Americans died in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon [referring to the 9/11 attacks]." The student observes, "500,000 died in World War II—" to which Rice replies, "Fighting a war in Europe." The student continues, "—and yet we did not torture the prisoners of war." Rice says, "We didn't torture anybody here either." (Duss 4/30/2009)
Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean says that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have unwittingly admitted to being part of a criminal conspiracy in regards to the Bush administration's torture policies. Rice recently told students at Stanford University that she did not authorize any torture policies, she merely forwarded the authorization for them from higher up (see April 28, 2009). Dean tells MSNBC talk show host Keith Olbermann that she may have admitted to a criminal conspiracy. Dean calls Rice's comments "surprising," and says she has mired herself in the possibility of legal proceedings. "She tried to say she didn't authorize anything, then proceeded to say she did pass orders along to the CIA to engage in torture if it was legal by the standard of the Department of Justice," Dean says. "This really puts her right in the middle of a common plan, as it's known in international law, or a conspiracy, as it's known in American law, and this indeed is a crime. If it indeed happened the way we think it did happen.… These kinds of statements are going to come back and be interesting to any investigator." Dean says that President Obama will stand in violation of the Geneva Conventions if he refuses to prosecute those found responsible for the torture policies. "He is indeed in violation if the United States does not undertake investigation of this, or ultimately prosecution, if that's necessary," Dean says. "It's not only the Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994) also requires this. There are no exceptions with torture. There are no real things like 'torture light.' The world community I think is going to hold the United States responsible, and if we don't proceed, somebody is going to proceed." (Edwards and Byrne 5/1/2009; MSNBC 5/1/2009)
Home | About | Timelines | Forum | Development | Donate | Contact
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use
Except where otherwise noted, the textual content of each timeline is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike


text:
VGS – Video Game Stats
Interesting statistics and fun facts about more than 10,000 video games, consoles, franchises and publishers.
Last Updated on: October 24th, 2020
Here is our enormous collection of video games from the Way of the Samurai franchise and detailed information on each. As always, new games are added to this collection regularly.
Click on a game listing to find out much more about it.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
http://mmajunkie.com Two notables have been tapped co-headliners of next month's Titan Fighting Championships 18 event.
They include former UFC champ Jens Pulver (21-14-1), who meets featherweight Mike Powell (10-2), and former UFC middleweight Drew McFedries (9-6), who meets Darryl Cobb (6-2).
Titan Fighting Championships 18 takes place May 27 at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan., and the four-fight main card airs live on HDNet.
Tickets for the event are now on sale.
"Our first two events on HDNet were met with both praise from critics and fans alike," Titan Fighting CEO Joe Kelly stated. "Titan Fighting 18 will be a continuation of our formula for Titan Fighting 16 and 17 with a mix of nationally recognized names and rising prospects. Pulver and McFedries will not be the only national headliners on this show as we are completing negotiations for two other high-profile fights. In short, Titan Fighting 18 will be our deepest show in history."
As MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) recently reported, the organization is expected to begin airing monthly shows on HDNet as part of an expansion plan. Past Titan Fighting competitors have included Tim Sylvia, Bobby Lashley, Phil Baroni, Abe Wagner, Jason High, Rudy Beaars, Rich Clementi and Aaron Rosa, among others.
Pulver, a 12-year pro who once was the world's top 155-pounder, contemplated retirement following a six-fight losing streak, which included an unsuccessful 1-5 run in the WEC that ended in 2010. However, the 36-year-old since has rebounded in 2011 with wins over Mike Lindquist and Wade Choate on the Illinois regional circuit.
His opponent, Powell, is a Midwest fight-circuit prospect who's won three straight fights (including a TKO of Lindquist in 2009). The Iowa-based fighter has eight stoppages (five submissions) in his pro 10 wins.
McFedries, meanwhile, looks for his second straight Titan win since his 2009 UFC release. After a 4-5 run with the world's biggest MMA promotion, the hard-hitting Iowan knocked out Gary Tapusoa at Titan Fighting 16. It was his seventh knockout in nine career wins.
His opponent, Cobb, is well versed in Muay Thai, and half of his wins have come via knockout. The Illinois-based fighter fought twice for Strikeforce and picked up wins over Gary Tapusoa and Booker DeRousse.
(Pictured: Jens Pulver)


text:
CHICAGO (AP) Jeff Keppinger isn't sure where he'll play with the White Sox. He is certain Chicago is the place for him, though.
The White Sox announced a three-year, $12 million contract with Keppinger on Monday after reaching an agreement last week, adding a versatile infielder who could fill a hole at third base.
``I really like that city,'' he said on a conference call. ``I thought it would be a good fit for me.''
Keppinger is set to earn $3.5 million next season, $4 million in 2014 and $4.5 million in 2015 after hitting a career-high .325 in 115 games with Tampa Bay last season. He made 41 starts at third base, 23 at second, 21 at first and 19 as the designated hitter. The White Sox have an opening at third and there's a good chance he'll wind up there even though he never discussed that with them. Kevin Youkilis finished last season at the position for Chicago and is now a free agent.
``I haven't talked to anybody about where I'm going to play,'' Keppinger said. ``To me, it really doesn't matter. I've played a lot of different positions throughout my career, and I feel comfortable at all of them. Wherever they want me to play, I'm good with it.''
Just as important, his right leg is improving. Keppinger broke his fibula when he tripped down some stairs at home early in the offseason, terrible timing for a player on the market. He said he'll be out of his walking boot on Tuesday and expects to be healed by the start of spring training.
``I thought I just rolled my ankle and sprained it,'' he said. ``I'm wearing flip-flops coming down the stairs and slipped. I tried to catch myself and I just didn't land right.''
Keppinger is a career .288 hitter over eight seasons with the New York Mets, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Houston, San Francisco and Tampa Bay.
``His versatility gives (manager Robin Ventura) some options to move him around the infield, which was part of the appeal for us,'' general manager Rick Hahn said. ``Obviously, if we were to start the season today - which we obviously don't - I would expect him to be the Opening Day third baseman, but there's still a fair amount of the offseason to go.''
He said the White Sox are still in contact with other teams and free agents. Catcher A.J. Pierzynski remains unsigned, too, but Hahn had no update on that situation.
``We're not going to give any update on it,'' he said. ``I think we're better served by not providing conversation about conversations, blow-by-blow updates, on how the talks are going other than saying we're in regular contact, and the dialog's been very open and honest from our perspective about expectations and fit. We expect it to continue in that vein until there's some resolution.''


text:
2 x 12mm White 8 Strand Nylon Mooring Ropes x 10 Metres
2 x 12mm White 8 Strand Nylon Mooring Ropes x 10 Metres
2 x 12mm White 8 Strand Nylon Mooring Ropes, choose your required length.
Both complete with 8" inch soft eye spliced at one end, other end is heat sealed and taped to prevent the rope from fraying.
8 Strand Nylon Rope
8 Strand navy white rope is a very strong synthetic fibred rope with excellent shock absorption properties.
Rope Properties:
- Superior Octoplait Rope
- Does Not Float
- Water Resistant
- Zero Water Absorption
- High Strength & abrasion resistance
- Excellent For Absorbing High Shock Loads
- Excellent Knot Holding Ability
- Resistant UV Radiation
- Resists Rot & Mildew
- Excellent insulation capacity
- RopeServices UK offers nylon rope in 3 strand and 8 strand. We offer these ropes in white, navy blue, and black.
All mooring ropes are manufactured to order, so if you require longer/shorter lengths, larger/smaller soft eyes, galvanised thimbles / stainless steel thimbles, protection on rope, then please call us for a quote.
We can manufacture all of our ropes to your requirements.
- Brand: RopeServices UK
- Product Code: 14752
- Availability: In Stock
- £36.90
Tags: mooring ropes, nylon mooring ropes, nylon rope, strong mooring ropes, synthetic mooring ropes, 12mm, white, strand, metres


text:
Come Hear Hearing Center is a premier provider of hearing healthcare – and we are growing. We have built a reputation for professionalism. Our team focuses on outstanding hearing care. We offer an excellent selection of the world's finest hearing devices. Our talented colleagues and client-focused organization make us proud to work at Come Hear Hearing Center.
Come Hear Hearing Center encourages all staff to flourish and grow their skill set. That's why we provide opportunities to support learning and broaden your hearing health career. Our company has a strong emphasis on training and utilizing advanced technology. Come Hear Hearing Center invests in its personnel and promotes a culture where motivated employees can thrive.
We also offer a unique dispenser training program. As a result, countless professionals have obtained their licenses.
Since technology changes over time, we keep our team aware of trends and best practices. As the field advances, we strive to stay ahead in client-focused care.
We are proud to offer competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits to our employees. Managers are encouraged to share success stories and celebrate even the smallest of victories. Whether you seek a client-focused career, or a position behind the scenes, we have opportunities to shine. Join a company that is proud to offer unique growth opportunities in a dynamic setting.
As a premier hearing healthcare provider, we need a skilled and motivated talent pool. If you seek a position with a service-oriented organization, consider applying for an opening at Come Hear Hearing Center. Finally, please note that we leverage AuDtalent as our resource for recruitment. See if we have openings at audtalent.com.
Do you have concerns about your hearing? We have options for financing.Learn more
* Subject to credit approval.
You deserve solutions tailored to your lifestyle. Whether you are an athlete or a bookworm – you can achieve optimal hearing.Get started
We understand that hearing aids can be costly. For a limited time, CareCredit® is offering HearingLife customers two years to pay for your hearing aids. You can get a $100 statement credit when you open a new CareCredit credit card account, spend $1000+ with your new card and register your purchase.


text:
Condoms Keep You Going For Longer!
Created to maximize your pleasure, our special Marathon Condoms help you go the distance in two different ways. First, the outside is coated with a special long-lasting lube for smoother thrusting and enhanced pleasure. Secondly, the inside of each condom contains our very own Climax Control desensitizer.
Climax Control goes to work as soon as you slip the condom on. The special cream targets the hyper-sensitive nerves in your tip – the same nerves that cause premature ejaculation – and dampens their sensitivity. This makes it harder for you to orgasm, so you and your lover can enjoy longer-lasting sex.
Each package includes 12 condoms.
Due to manufacturer pricing policies, the full value of your coupon may not be applied to this item. We will apply the maximum discount allowed to the item in your cart.


text:
All 19 MLS clubs released their 2013 schedules on Wednesday. Crew President and General Manager Mark McCullers and Head Coach Robert Warzycha offered up their reactions to the announcement.
To start the 2013 season, the Crew will play just three of its eight games in March and April in Columbus. While two of those three matches at home come against playoff teams in the San Jose Earthquakes on March 16 and D.C. United on April 27, three of its five on the road to start 2013 come against Vancouver Whitecaps FC, D.C. United and the Chicago Fire, all of whom made the playoffs in 2012. March and April will be crucial as the Black & Gold look to avoid the rocky 2-4-1 start the team began 2012 with and qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs in November
"It's going to be a tough stretch for us," Warzycha said on Wednesday. "It's five away and three at home, and obviously we're going to have to play well. We have to get points away from home because everybody knows how important the beginning of the season is. You want to start on the right note and with your best players. Another thing is not having injuries, so we have a full squad ready for the first game."
"Health is one of the things I look at as being key," McCullers echoed. "We've got veterans on the team who know how to start the season. It's a marathon, not a sprint, as we know. But if we can get some points out of the away games early in the season and take care of business at home, I think we're going to be in good shape."
To finish 2013, the Crew will play three of its final five matches at Crew Stadium against the Chicago Fire, Sporting Kansas City and the New England Revolution. Those three matches will play a pivotal role in a potential Eastern Conference playoff race.
"With the season starting earlier and earlier, it's just inevitable we're going to have more games on the road earlier in the season," McCullers explained. "The flip side of that is that we have more games at home down the stretch. I think it's a favorable situation for us as he get into a playoff run in the fall."
Added Warzycha, "We have a lot of home games in the later part of the season, so we have to make sure that in the first part of the season we do well."
In all, the Black & Gold will play 13 home games against Eastern Conference foes in 2013. Of the 14 slated matches against 2012 Eastern Conference playoff teams, eight will come at home in Columbus. The Crew will relish two home fixtures against the New York Red Bulls, Chicago Fire and Houston Dynamo each this upcoming season.
"It's one of the first things I noticed about the schedule," McCullers said. "When you look at some of the teams that were the stronger teams in our conference last year: we have New York home two out of three and we have Houston at home two out of three. Kansas City is really the only team where we have two away this year out of three. That works favorably for us, in terms of hosting the majority of the stronger teams here at Crew Stadium."
Last season, the Crew went 11-3-3 in Columbus. It will look to build on that success again in 2013.
"The last few years, we've been very successful at home," Warzycha explained. "It always keeps us in good shape. Last year, we won 11 games at home. That's a good record, I think it was third in the League. We're going to try to continue to do the same. We know how important home games are because of the standings and having your supporters here cheering for us. We feel like we have an extra player on the field, so that always helps. We just have to have a better record on the road, because that's what will get us into the playoffs."
3/16 - Crew vs. San Jose Earthquakes
The Crew will welcome defending MLS Supporters' Shield winners the San Jose Earthquakes to open Crew Stadium for 2013, providing a measuring stick for the Black & Gold right off the bat.
McCullers: "First Kick is a game that jumps out at me, right out of the gate. We're playing San Jose with [former Crew players] Stevie Lenhart and Jon Busch on that team, I think it's a great matchup for our home opener. It's exciting."
5/4 - Crew vs. New York Red Bulls
In the only national TV game at Crew Stadium this season, the Black & Gold will host Thierry Henry and the New York Red Bulls to begin the month of May.
7/7 - Crew vs. Portland Timbers FC
Former Akron University Head Coach Caleb Porter returns to Ohio in early July, potentially squaring off against former Akron standouts Ben Speas and Wil Trapp.
6/22 and 9/21 - Crew vs. Chicago Fire
The Black & Gold welcome their Midwestern rival twice in 2013, looking to avenge two away losses to the Fire last season.
8/17 - Crew vs. Toronto FC
The Crew will look to secure the Trillium Cup at home as the 2013 series concludes in August.
8/31 - Crew vs. Seattle Sounders FC
2008 MLS Cup winning Head Coach Sigi Schmid returns to Columbus following the Crew's first-ever victory against the Sounders last season in Seattle.
10/27 - Crew vs. New England Revolution
The Black & Gold close 2013 against the New England Revolution in late October. This could be a match that sends the Crew into the MLS Cup Playoffs.


text:
High Country Baking: Band of chocolate bundt cake
VAIL CO, Colorado
Editor's note: Living in the Colorado high country is pure joy. Baking in it isn't. High altitude makes cookies spread in the pan, cakes fall, and few baked goods turn out as they do at sea level. This twice-monthly column presents recipes and tips to make baking in the mountains successful.
Like a chat with a dear friend, a bite of this band of chocolate bundt cake adds a little pleasure to your day. No, it isn't decadent or dazzling; it won't be served as the finale to a presidential dinner. Instead, it's good in a homey, relaxed way. The crumb is tender, the taste buttery, with hints of vanilla and almond, and the streak of chocolate chips adds a little crunch and richness. The overall experience is an enjoyable mixture of complementary flavors and textures.
I've topped this one with a brown sugar glaze but I like a chocolate glaze just as well and have also served the cake plain, with ice cream and chocolate sauce.
Please note that this recipe is for a six-cup Bundt pan. If your pan has a 12-cup capacity, you can successfully double the recipe and use it.
Band of chocolate bundt cake
(Adjusted for altitudes between 8,000 and 10,000 feet. Make in a six-cup, non-stick Bundt pan.)
Chocolate chip band
1⁄4 cup flour
11⁄2 (one and a half) tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1⁄8 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1⁄4 cup mini chocolate chips
11⁄2 cups plus 3 tablespoons bleached all-purpose flour
1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
A pinch salt
3 large eggs
11⁄4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1⁄4 teaspoon almond extract
12 tablespoons (11⁄2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese (regular or low fat) at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Optional brown-sugar glaze
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract
About 1⁄2 cup confectioner's sugar
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees, with a rack in the center position. Generously grease the six-cup Bundt pan (yes, even though it's non-stick) with a vegetable-oil and flour spray. Make sure to grease the center tube as well as the pan's sides. Set the pan aside.
Make the chocolate chip band: Combine the flour, the two sugars and the cinnamon in a small bowl and stir until blended. Add the melted butter and knead or stir until all the dry ingredients are evenly moistened and crumbly. Stir in the mini chocolate chips until evenly distributed. Set the bowl aside.
Make the cake: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt vigorously until aerated and well combined. Set this aside. Break the eggs into a small bowl, whisk to combine the yolks and whites, add the vanilla and almond extracts, whisk again, and set aside. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the room-temperature butter and cream cheese until well combined. Add the sugar and beat until light in color and fluffy in texture. (Give this time, it's important to the cake's texture.) In three equal additions, add the egg mixture, beating well after each addition (about one-two minutes). Beat one minute more after the last addition. Using low speed on your mixer or by hand, add the dry ingredients in three additions, stirring only until the flour is blended with the wet ingredients.
Pour or spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the band mixture evenly over it. Add more of the batter, spreading it evenly, until the pan is about two-thirds full and the batter comes to about one-and-a-half inches from the pan's top. You may have some batter left over (not all six-cup bundt pans are exactly the same size). Gently tap the pan on a counter to settle the batter and rid it of air bubbles. Bake directly on the oven rack until the cake starts to pull away from the pan sides, the top is light golden, and a tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. This takes about 45 minutes in my oven, but start checking earlier. Don't overbake or the cake will be dry.
Remove the cake to a cooling rack. Wait about fifteen minutes, then invert it onto the rack, remove the pan, and cool it completely. When cool, glaze it or serve it, unglazed, with a drizzle of good commercial chocolate sauce and chocolate chip ice cream. It can be stored for two days at room temperature if well covered.
Optional: Make the glaze: Melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan until it's about half way melted. Add the light brown sugar and stir constantly until it dissolves and combines with the butter. Add the cream, continue to stir and simmer gently for one or two minutes. Remove from the stove, stir in the vanilla, sift in half of the confectioner's sugar and stir until well combined. Gradually add more, a little at a time, until slightly thickened. You may not use all the sugar. Let cool until it thickens a bit more and is a good consistency to drizzle over the cake's top and run down its sides.
The cake recipe is a variation of one by Elinor Klivens.
Vera Dawson, a chef instructor with CMC's Culinary Institute, lives in Summit County, where she bakes almost every day. Her recipes have been tested in her home kitchen and, whenever necessary, altered until they work at our altitude. Contact her at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Support Local Journalism
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.
User Legend: Moderator Trusted User
Eagle County bear sightings have doubled from 2019
Are we seeing more bears because there are more bears on the valley floor, or because we're all spending more time at home? It could be a bit of both.