WASHINGTON — Military lawyers warned against the harsh detainee interrogation techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, contending in separate memos weeks before Rumsfeld’s endorsement that they could be illegal, a Senate panel has found.
The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee also has confirmed that senior administration officials, including the Pentagon’s then- general counsel William “Jim” Haynes, sought the help of military psychologists early on to devise the more aggressive methods — which included the use of dogs, making a detainee stand for long periods of time and forced nudity, according to officials familiar with the findings.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not been formally released. Details, including the names of the service lawyers who objected to the interrogation techniques, were to be discussed at an open committee hearing today.
Rumsfeld’s December 2002 approval of the aggressive interrogation techniques and later objections by military lawyers have been widely reported. But the November protests by service lawyers had not, and the interest by Pentagon civilians in military psychologists has surfaced only piecemeal.
The lawyers’ objections were sent to the Joint Staff, which would have relayed the messages to civilian leadership. There is no proof, however, that Rumsfeld or Haynes personally saw the memos.
Today’s hearing is the committee’s first look at where the harsher methods — used in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq — originated and how policy decisions on interrogations were vetted across the Defense Department.
The review fits into a broader picture of the government’s handling of detainees, which includes FBI and CIA interrogations in secret prisons.
Ultimately, Democrats say, the Senate investigation will prove that abusive conditions in some military prisons were not — as the administration contends — the result of a few “bad apples” but rather the consequence of senior defense civilians anxious to extract intelligence in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“Senior officials in the United States government sought out information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who will preside over today’s hearing as Armed Services Committee chairman.
The panel is expected to hold further hearings on the matter and release a final report by the end of the year.
