From Andy Worthington Author and Journalist
By Andy Worthington

The Bush administration has maintained a low profile over the last month, as waves of indignation over the destruction of CIA videotapes showing the torture of two “high value” detainees have lapped ever closer to the White House. In the last few weeks, as coverage of the presidential primaries has consumed the media, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney must also have been hoping that they would be able to escape scrutiny on today’s bleak anniversary. It is, however, imperative that they are not allowed to do so. Despite its claims that it “does not torture,” this is an administration drenched in torture, which must one day be made answerable for its crimes.

Six years ago, on January 11, 2002, the first of 778 prisoners – referred to as “detainees,” and identified only by numbers – arrived at a hastily erected prison in the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where, ever since, they have been subjected to a disturbingly lawless experiment.

Under the terms of a military order initiated in November 2001, the President claimed that he could hold the detainees indefinitely, without charge or trial, as “enemy combatants.” Guantánamo, leased from Cuba in 1903 under an arrangement that cannot be broken unless both countries agree to it, was specifically chosen for this experiment because it was presumed to be beyond the reach of the US courts.

For two and a half years, the administration succeeded in its aims, running an illegal offshore interrogation center, which mutated into a torture prison when the detainees proved resistant to interrogation. The “enhanced interrogation techniques” introduced by the administration included prolonged solitary confinement, forced nudity, sexual and religious humiliation, sleep deprivation, the use of extreme heat and cold, and the use of painful stress positions. Despite condemnation by world leaders, international legal experts, global bodies including the United Nations and an unprecedented array of former US military commanders, the administration defined torture so narrowly – as being equivalent to organ failure or death – that it refused to concede that it was actually engaged in torture.

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