Roots of Abu Ghraib in CIA techniques: 50 years of refining, teaching torture found in interrogation manuals

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 5, 2004 by James Hodge, Linda Cooper

When seeking comment on the evidence that the torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib are not new, but have a 50-year history, NCR first talked to a Sgt. Watson at the Defense Department's press office.

Watson referred the call to Lt. Col. Barry Venable, who said he couldn't comment, that he was "not too familiar with the whole detainee operation." Venable turned the call over to his colleague, Lt. Col. John Skinner, who said he was not an interrogation expert and couldn't speak to what's been used in the past. Skinner, in turn, recommended calling the U.S. Army, which he said is "the executive agent for detention operations" and could provide a historical look at what "they might have used in previous conflicts."

Skinner suggested NCR call Army public affairs officer Dov Schwartz. Upon hearing the question about the history of the techniques, Schwartz referred us to Skinner. When told that Skinner had just sent the call to him, Schwarz then said to call Lt. Col. Barry Johnson in Iraq.

When asked if Johnson would know the history, Schwartz replied: "I don't know if any of us are going to know the history, but he's the best one I'm going to be able to give you."

Several calls to Johnson each ended in a recording that said, "The customer you have dialed is unavailable." There was no voice mail to leave a message.

RELATED ARTICLE: Photos 'speak volumes,' says torture victim.

"If you live through this, no one will believe you. No one will listen. No one will care."

For years, the torturer's words haunted Sr. Dianna Ortiz, an Ursuline missionary in Guatemala when she was kidnapped in 1989, blindfolded, burned with cigarettes and repeatedly raped. U.S. government officials tried to discredit her. Others refused to believe that her torture came at the hands of Guatemalan security forces operating under the direction of an American.

Until the release of pictures showing U.S. military personnel torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison, Ortiz told NCR, many Americans were skeptical about their government's being involved in torture. "But photographs speak volumes, they're really worth a thousand words."

When she first saw the photographs of hooded Iraqis being sexually humiliated, of vicious dogs within inches of the faces of the detainees, Ortiz started reliving her own torture. "When all these photographs came out," said Ortiz, now the head of Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International, "I can't tell you how many survivors, myself included, traveled back in time."

"It's sad, but what we see in Iraq is not an aberration," said Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of a movement seeking to close the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, which has not only graduated hundreds of human rights abusers, but used manuals advocating torture and assassination. "Hopefully, this is a teachable moment, when more Americans will be open to learning about what their government has been doing for years in their name with their tax dollars."

Like Ortiz, Bourgeois was once abducted by Latin American security forces trained and backed by the United States. The priest was a missionary in Bolivia in the 1970s during the dictatorship of Gen. Hugo Banzer, who had overthrown the government and operated torture cells around the country.