Dirty hands or dirty decisions? Investigating, prosecuting and punishing those responsible for abuses of detainees in counter terrorism operations

Abstract

It is well established that in response to the events of 11 September 2001, the US routinely and systematically used torture and other forms of ill-treatment against terrorist suspects and that this was authorised at the highest levels of the Bush administration. The authors of that policy have vociferously defended the use of so called enhanced interrogation techniques with dirty hands justifications. Cheney, for instance, has aggressively defended the necessity of ‘tough, mean, dirty, nasty tactics’ to keep the country safe and this is mirrored in academic justifications for torture as dirty hands decisions in extreme circumstances. This article will: (1) dispute that the use of torture and ill-treatment were genuine cases of dirty hands; and (2) even if they were, it is a feature of dirty hands justifications that there is focus on the abiding wrong of the necessary evil and punishment is necessary to acknowledge the wrong that has been done. In the light of this, it will be argued that those who ordered, designed and applied the policy should be held to account in criminal investigations or in some appropriate socially sanctioned proceedings.

Keywords:

• torture
• war on terror
• dirty hands
• accountability
• prosecution
• punishment

Notes

I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H.J. Paton (London: Harper Row, 1964), Ch II, Section 428.

See for example E. Scarry, The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 27–59; J.T. Parry, ‘Escalation and Necessity: Defining Torture at Home and Abroad’ in Torture: A Collection, ed. S. Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 153. For an account of torture as a distinctive kind of wrong see D. Sussman, ‘What's Wrong with Torture?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33, no. 2 (2005): 4, 13, 14, 22, 30.

A. Cooperman, ‘CIA Interrogation Under Fire: Human Rights Groups say Techniques Could be Torture’, The Washington Post, 28 December, 2002, A09, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/US0405 (accessed 10 December 2010).

Report of the ICRC reprinted in M. Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror (London: Granta Books, 2005), 241–70.

Human Rights Watch, ‘“No Blood, No Foul” Soldiers’ Account of Detainee Abuse in Iraq', Human Rights Watch 18, no. 3(G) (July 2006), http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/07/22/no-blood-no-foul-0 (accessed 10 December 2010).

S. Goldberg, ‘US Confirms Existence of Secret Prisons Network’, The Guardian, 9 September, 2006.

D. Eggers, ‘White House Pushes Water Boarding’, The Washington Post, 13 February, 2008.

Other commentators have demonstrated this by cataloguing and analysing evidence from documents produced within the Bush administration, see for example Danner, Torture and Truth; K.J. Greenberg and J.L. Dratel, The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), S. Strasser, ed., The Abu Ghraib Investigations (New York: Public Affairs LLC, Perseus Book Group, 2004); Human Rights Watch Report, The Road to Abu Ghraib, June 2004, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/USA0604 (accessed 10 December 2010); Amnesty International Report, ‘Human Rights Denied: Torture and Accountability in the War on Terror, October 27, 2004, http://www.web.amnesty/org/library/Index/ENGAMR511452004 (accessed 10 December 2010); C.P. Plum, L. Margarrell and M. Wierda, ‘Prosecuting Abuses of Detainees in US Counter-Terrorism Operations’, An International Centre for Transitional Justice Policy Paper, November 2009, 6, http://www.ictj.org/static/Publications/ICRJ_USA_CriminalJustCriminalPolicy_pb2009.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

Plum, Margarrell and Wierda, ‘Prosecuting Abuses of Detainees’.

Ibid., 3.

Memo to Rumsfeld from William J. Haynes 11, re Counter-Resistance Techniques, 27 November, 2002, approved by Rumsfeld, 2 December, 2002, reprinted as Memo 21 in Greenberg and Dratel, The Torture Paper, 237.

Memo to Alberto Gonzales from Jay Bybee, Office of Legal Counsel, Dept of Justice re. Standards for Interrogation, reprinted as Memo 14 in Greenberg and Dratel, The Torture Papers, 172–217.

John Yoo, Memorandum for William J. Haynes General Counsel Department of Defense, re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States, March 14, 2003, 38–9, http://wwwtorturingdemocarcy.org/documents/20030314.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

Memo from Steven Bradbury to John A. Rizzo, general counsel, CIA, 20 July 2007, http://washingtonpost.com/wp_srv/nation/documents/2007_0720_OLC_memo_warcrimesact.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

August 2002 Memo from Jay Bybee, assistant attorney general, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, general counsel, CIA, http://luxmedia.com.edgesuite.net/aclu/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf; 10 May 2005 Memo from Steven Bradbury, assistant attorney general, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, general counsel, CIA, http://luxmedia.com.edgesuite.net/aclu/olc_05102005_bradbury46pg.pdf; 10 May 2005 Memo from Steven Bradbury, assistant attorney general, OLC, to John A Rizzo, general counsel, CIA, http://luxmedia.com.edgesuite.net/aclu/olc_05102005_bradbury_20pg.pdf; Memo Steven Bradbury, assistant attorney general, OLC, to John A Rizzo, general counsel, CIA, 30 May 2005, http://luxmedia.com.edgesuite.net/aclu/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf

ICRC Report on the Treatment of 14 ‘High Value Detainees’ in CIA Custody (sent to US government, 14 February 2007, and made public when published by the NRB in April 2009, http://www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010)).

Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody, May 10, 2007, http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Detainees.121108.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

ICRC Report on the Treatment of 14 ‘High Value Detainees’.

Interview with Dick Cheney, 16 September, 2001, NBC Meet the Press, TV Broadcast, September 16, 2001.

Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, from Jay S. Bybee, Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 USC, 1 August, 2002, in Danner, Torture and Truth, 150–1.

George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 29 January, 2002, http://www.usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror (accessed 10 December 2010).

M. Walzer, ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, no. 2 (1973): 161.

Ibid., 79.

B. Williams, ‘Politics and Moral Character’, in Public and Private Morality, ed. S. Hampshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 62.

S. de Wijze, ‘Tragic Remorse: The Anguish of Dirty Hands’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7, no. 4 (2004): 453–7.

M. Stocker, Plural and ConflictingValues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 27.

Ibid., 38, 41.

S. de Wijze and T. Goodwin, ‘Bellamy and Lesser Evils: A Response’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 11, no. 3 (2009): 537.

Walzer, Political Action, 78.

See for example, J.T. Parry, ‘Escalation and Necessity: Defining Torture at Home and Abroad’, in Levinson, Torture, 60; R.A. Posner, ‘The Best Offense’, New Republic 2 (2002): 28; O. Gross, ‘The Prohibition on Torture and the Limits of the Law’, in Levinson, Torture, 238; J.B. Elshstain, ‘Reflections on the Problem of “Dirty Hands”’, in Levinson, Torture, 87–8.

Gross, ‘The Prohibition on Torture’, 240–1; R.A. Posner, ‘Escalation and Necessity: Defining Torture at Home and Abroad’, in Levinson, Torture, 298.

Gross, ‘The Prohibition on Torture’, 241; see also Posner, ‘Escalation and Necessity: Defining Torture at Home and Abroad’, 298.

S.F. Kreimer, ‘Too Close to the Rack and Screw: Constitutional Constraints on Torture in the War on Terror’, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 6 (2003): 156–7.

Elshstain, ‘Reflections on the Problem of “Dirty Hands”’, 83.

Parry, ‘Escalation and Necessity’, 160.

Gross, ‘The Prohibition on Torture’, 247.

K.L. Scheppele, ‘Hypothetical Torture in the “War on Terrorism”’, Journal of National Security Law and Policy 1, no. 2 (2005): 205.

Y. Ginbar, Why Not Torture Terrorists? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), Part 11.

V. Bufacchi and J.M. Arrigo, ‘Torture, Terrorism and the State: A Refutation of the Ticking Bomb Argument’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 23, no. 23 (2006): 355–72.

H. Shue, ‘Torture in Dreamland’, Case Western Reserve, Journal of International Law 37 (2006): 238.

Ibid., 234.

D. Leigh and M. O'Kane, ‘Iraqi War Logs: US Turned Over Captives to Iraqi Torture Squads’, The Guardian, 24 October, 2010.

L.W. Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 212–3; B. Paskins, ‘What's Wrong with Torture’, British Journal of International Studies 138 (1976): 141–2; Ginbar, Why Not Torture Terrorists?, 162.

P. Harris, ‘Soldier Lifts the Lid on Camp Delta’, The Observer, 8 May, 2005.

S. Goldenberg, ‘The Battle to Close Guantanamo’, The Guardian, 24 June, 2006.

B. Urquhart, ‘A Matter of Truth’, New York Review of Books, 13 May, 2004.

See http://www.defenselink.mil.news/Mar2005/d20050304.info.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010); Washington Post, December 17, 2004.

J.F. Harris, M. Allena and J. Vandehei, ‘Cheney Warns of New Attacks’, Politico, March 5, 2009.

N. Temko and P. Harris, ‘On the Eve of Anniversary, Bush Claims Secret CIA Jails Stopped Second 9/11’, The Observer, 10 September, 2006.

G.W. Bush, Decision Points (St. Ives: Virgin Books, 2010), 169.

BBC News, ‘Profile: Abu Zubaydah’, April 2, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/199907462.stm (accessed 10 December 2010).

E. MacAskill, ‘Obama Tries to Allay CIA Fears of Torture Prosecutions’, The Guardian, 21 April, 2009.

Bush, Decision Points, 169.

See R. Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), especially pages 99–101 and 115–118. See also P. Finn and J. Warrick, ‘Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots: Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say’, The Washington Post, 29 March, 2009.

P. Sands, ‘The Al Qahtani Debacle’, http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05162008/sandsessay.html (accessed 10 December 2010).

ICRC Report on the Treatment of 14 ‘High Value Detainees’.

Bush, Decision Points, 171.

Ibid.

D. Rose, ‘Tortured Reasoning’, Vanity Fair, December 16, 2008.

Bush, Decision Points, 171.

R. Norton-Taylor and Ian Black, ‘British Deny George Bush's Claim that Torture Helped Foil Terrorist Plots’, The Guardian, 9 November, 2010; H. Mulholland, ‘David Cameron Challenges George Bush's Claim Over Waterboarding’, The Guardian, 11 November, 2010.

See L. Wilkerson, ‘Some Truths about Guantánamo Bay’, The Washington Note, March 17, 2009.

CIA Inspector General Special Review, ‘Counterterrorism, Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001–October 2003)’, 7 May, 2004, para. 16, http://media.npr.org/documents/2009/aug/ig_cia_report.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

Ibid., para. 217.

Ibid., paras 211, 220, 250.

E. MacAskill, ‘US Attorney General Poised for Criminal Investigations into Reported CIA Abuses’, The Guardian, 25 August, 2009.

First report dated July 13, 2004, ‘KSM: Prominent Source on AQ’; second report dated June 3, 2005, ‘Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War against AQ’, http://www.judicialwatch.org/files/documents/2009/cia-ksm-docs08242009.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

T. Noah, ‘Cheney Refuted’, Slate, 25 August, 2009.

OPR Report, ‘Investigation into the Office of Legal Counsel's Memoranda Concerning Issues Relating to the CIA's Agency Use of EITs on Suspected Terrorists’, June 29, 2009, 212, note 168, http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/OPRFinalReport090729.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

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Statement of President Barak Obama on the Release of the OLC Memos, April 16, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/statement-of-president-barack-obama-on-release-of-olc-memos (accessed 10 December 2010).

J.J. Paust, ‘The Absolute Prohibition on Torture and Necessary and Appropriate Sanctions’, Valparaiso Law Review 23 (2009): 1575.

Ibid., 1546.

See P. Sands, Torture Team: Uncovering War Crimes in the Land of the Free (London: Penguin, 2008) for a detailed account of lawyers' involvement.

See generally J. Raddack, ‘Tortured Legal Ethics: The Role of the Government Advisor in the War on Terrorism’, University of Colorado Law Review 1 (2006).

See S. Gilliers, ‘Tortured Reasoning’, American Lawyer, 26 July, 2004, 65.

Paust, ‘The Absolute Prohibition on Torture’, 1545.

C. Finkelstein ‘When Governments Break the Law: The Case for Prosecution’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review 158 (2010): 201, http://www.pennumbra.com/debates/debate.php?did=29 (accessed 10 December 2010).

Ibid., 204.

E. MacAskill, ‘Reprimand for Lawyers who Backed Torture at Guantànamo’, The Guardian, 20 February, 2010. This report disregards the recommendations of an earlier report by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility that both Yoo and Bybee were guilty of ‘professional misconduct’ and that they should be referred to the state disciplinary authorities for possible sanctions and further action.

Plum, Margarrell and Wierda, Prosecuting Abuses of Detainees, note 347.

Ibid., note 446.

UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, (1984) Article 2 (3), http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/39/a39ro46.htm (accessed 10 December 2010), Torture Convention.

Plum, Margarrell and Wierda, Prosecuting Abuses of Detainees, note 443.

CIA Inspector General Special Review, para. 231.

Ibid., para. 232.

Ibid., para. 253.

S. Cohen, States of Denial (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 228–9.

P. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions (London: Routledge, 2001), 12–13.

Plum, Margarrell and Wierda, Prosecuting Abuses of Detainees.

B. Ackerman, We the People (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 84.

P. Leahy, ‘The Case for a Truth Commission’, Time, February 19, 2009; M. MCauliff and J.G. Meek, ‘House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ups Pressure for “Truth Panel on Torture”’, Daily News Washington Bureau, 23 April, 2009.

Cohen, States of Denial, 225.

Letter from ACLU to the Attorney General, http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/ACLU_letter_to_Attorney_General_Holder_Urging_Investigation_of_President_Bush_0.pdf (accessed 10 December 2010).

Jason Ralph in Law, War and the State of American Exception (forthcoming Oxford University Press) shows that the OLC advised EITs could be deemed ‘necessary’ and that HVDs could be harmed in self defence even when the threat was not imminent. There was an attempt to expand the concept of necessity beyond necessary to prevent an imminent attack to ‘necessary’ to obtain information on terrorist attack planning or Al Qaida leadership.

A.R. Duff, Punishment, Communication, and Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); A. von Hirsch, Censure and Sanctions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

J. Feinberg, ‘The Expressive Function of Punishment’, in Doing and Deserving (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 98.

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W. Wringe, ‘Why Punish War Crimes: Victor's Justice and Expressive Justifications for Punishment’, Law and Philosophy 25 (2006): 181.

J.E. Mendez, ‘Accountability for Past Abuses’, Human Rights Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1997): 2255–82.

Aryeh Neier, ‘What Should Be Done About the Guilty’, New York Review of Books, February 1, 1990, 34.