New York Times

David Johnston

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.

The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.

When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider.

With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the C.I.A. It is politically awkward, too, for Mr. Holder because President Obama has said that he would rather move forward than get bogged down in the issue at the expense of his own agenda.

The advice from the Office of Professional Responsibility strengthens Mr. Holder’s hand.

The recommendation to review the closed cases, in effect renewing the inquiries, centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department report is to be made public after classified information is deleted from it.

The cases represent about half of those that were initially investigated and referred to the Justice Department by the C.I.A.’s inspector general, but were later closed. It is not known which cases might be reopened.

Mr. Holder was said to have reacted with disgust earlier this year when he first read accounts of abusive treatment of detainees in a classified version of the inspector general’s report and other materials.

In examples that have just come to light, the C.I.A. report describes how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill. It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a prisoner with imminent death.

Mr. Holder, who questioned the thoroughness of previous inquiries by the Justice Department, is expected to announce within days his decision on whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a new investigation; in legal circles, it is believed to be highly likely that he will go forward with a fresh criminal inquiry.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Sunday that the Justice Department recommendation to reopen the cases had not been sent to the intelligence agency. He added: “Decisions on whether or not to pursue action in court were made after careful consideration by career prosecutors at the Justice Department. The C.I.A. itself brought these matters — facts and allegations alike — to the department’s attention.”

The report by the Justice Department’s ethics office has been under preparation for more than five years, and its critique of legal work on interrogations provoked bitter complaints from Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey as he was leaving office as the Bush administration’s final attorney general.

The Justice Department’s report, the most important since Mr. Holder took office, was submitted by Mary Patrice Brown, a veteran Washington federal prosecutor picked by Mr. Holder to lead the Office of Professional Responsibility earlier this year after its longtime chief, H. Marshall Jarrett, moved to another job in the Justice Department.

There has never been any public explanation of why the Justice Department decided not to bring charges in nearly two dozen abuse cases known to be referred to a team of federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., and in some instances not even the details of the cases have been made public.

Former government lawyers said that while some detainees died and others suffered serious abuses, prosecutors decided they would be unlikely to prevail because of problems with mishandled evidence and, in some cases, the inability to locate witnesses or even those said to be the victims.

A few of the cases are well known, like that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in C.I.A. custody at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after he was first captured by a team of Navy Seals. Prosecutors said he probably received his fatal injuries during his capture, but lawyers for the Seals denied it.

Over the years, some Democratic lawmakers sought more details about the cases and why the Justice Department took no action. They received summaries of the number of cases under scrutiny but few facts about the episodes or the department’s decisions not to prosecute.

The cases do not center on allegations of abuse by C.I.A. officers who conducted the forceful interrogations of high-level Qaeda suspects at secret sites, although it is not out of the question that a new investigation would also examine their conduct.

That could mean a look at the case in which C.I.A. officers threatened one prisoner with a handgun and a power drill if he did not cooperate. The detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was suspected as the master plotter behind the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole.

All civilian employees of the government, including those at the C.I.A., were required to comply with guidelines for interrogations detailed in a series of legal opinions written by the Justice Department. Those opinions, since abandoned by the Obama administration, were the central focus of the Justice Department’s internal inquiry.

 It has been known that the Justice Department ethics report had criticized the authors of the legal opinions and, in some cases, would recommend referrals to local bar associations for discipline.

But the internal inquiry also examined how the opinions were carried out and how referrals of possible violations were made — a process that led ethics investigators to find misconduct serious enough to warrant renewed criminal investigation.

The Economist

Torture still casts a long shadow in the battle between spies and terrorists

JACK BAUER famously does whatever it takes to save America from disaster, be that disaster nuclear, biological or computer attack. Week after week, the hero of “24” acts brutally, and endures brutality, for the greater good. It is a sign of the times that this year’s season opened with Bauer being hauled before a congressional committee to face the charge of committing torture. He was unrepentant.

This television character, who first appeared in 2001, has been oddly at the heart of the arguments over the conduct of America’s “war on terrorism”. Critics in the American army have complained that he encourages young soldiers to abuse prisoners. Supporters, such as Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice, praised him for the episode in which he saved Los Angeles from nuclear attack, even though it meant staging the mock execution of a family to get a Middle Eastern villain to talk. “Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so,” said the judge.

In contrast with Europeans, who strongly reject the use of torture, the American public is pretty evenly divided about its use to extract information from terrorists. But President Barack Obama, for one, is clear. No sooner had he been sworn into office than he banned torture, rescinded legal opinions allowing simulated drowning and other harsh methods, ordered all American agencies to comply with the army’s field manual on interrogation, announced he would close the prison at Guantánamo Bay within a year and ordered a series of policy reviews on detention and interrogation. “From Europe to the Pacific”, Mr Obama said in May, “we’ve been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law.” Dick Cheney, George Bush’s vice-president, sneered at such talk as “recklessness cloaked in righteousness”.

Many people thought that Mr Obama’s election would finally settle the controversies about counter-terrorism’s “dark side” (as Mr Cheney once put it); a darkness that concealed secret prisons, abusive interrogation and “rendition” to countries that practise torture. The distorted DIY legal framework that treated suspected terrorists as neither criminals nor prisoners-of-war, leaving them in an unprotected grey zone between civil and military law, would, many liberals hoped, be put right.

In April, against the wishes of current and former CIA directors, Mr Obama released four secret memos from the Department of Justice, written in 2002 and updated in 2005, that made legal the CIA’s use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques such as the use of the “waterboard” (simulated drowning), sleep deprivation, “walling” (hurling a prisoner against a partition wall), “stress positions” and strange practices like placing a “high-value prisoner” in a cramped box with an insect to exploit his phobia about bugs. It revealed that one prisoner, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the operational head of the September 11th 2001 attacks on America, was waterboarded 183 times.

Mr Obama said that he did not want to prosecute those who operated within these rules. He knows that if he takes action against interrogators he could be accused of seeking scapegoats; if he goes after the CIA chiefs he would be charged with undermining America’s security; and if he investigates leaders of the Bush administration he would look as if he were conducting a witch-hunt against his political rivals. “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past,” he argued.

Yet the past casts a long shadow. Some of Mr Obama’s supporters want a “truth commission” to establish what happened and, perhaps, recommend prosecutions. Congress is incensed that the CIA did not tell it of a secret programme (which may have had to do with the assassination of terrorists), apparently under orders from Mr Cheney, bringing the former vice-president a step closer to formal investigation. The attorney-general, Eric Holder, is thought to be about to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate those interrogators who exceeded the already lax limits set by the so-called “torture memos”.

Even before this, CIA officials had been hiring lawyers in anticipation of trouble. Some of Mr Obama’s favourite spooks have been unable to take up senior appointments because of their association, sometimes only peripheral, with the interrogation programme. John Brennan, a veteran CIA figure, was withdrawn from consideration as the agency’s director and was given a job in the White House instead. Philip Mudd, a respected intelligence man currently on secondment to the FBI, pulled out of his nomination to the senior intelligence post in the Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration may have chosen these men but it put little effort into backing its choices.

The big chill

How will all this affect future intelligence operations? There is a distinct chill. Some reckon that the CIA and other agencies face their worst crisis since the post-Watergate inquiries in the 1970s uncovered evidence of spying on Americans and plots to assassinate foreign leaders. “There is undoubtedly some nervousness,” says one senior source. “It does not stop you taking action, but it makes you think twice and talk to your lawyer.”

Britain’s close relations with America are causing it similar problems. Its intelligence agencies are being dragged into the legal limelight, not for torturing suspects but for allegedly colluding in their maltreatment by others—whether they are Americans, Pakistanis or Moroccans. One member of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, is under police investigation.

Increasingly lawyers are being brought in to scrutinise British intelligence before it can be passed on. Will handing over the name of a suspect to America lead to him being killed by an unmanned aircraft in Pakistan? Will sharing a telephone number with, say, Egypt’s spies, lead to the arrest and torture of somebody who should instead be merely watched? Will submitting questions to be asked of a man held in a foreign prison mean that British agents will be held responsible for his treatment?

Agents have become warier of questioning detainees abroad for fear that they will be blamed for any abuse they may have suffered. The number of requests by officials in MI6 (Britain’s foreign intelligence service) for the legal cover known as “Article 7”, in which the foreign secretary approves actions that are illegal in Britain, has shot up.

Many of the woes of British agencies are embodied in the case of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian asylum-seeker in Britain, who gave up his drugs habit after rediscovering Islam. He went to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to see an Islamic state at work. There he underwent some form of military training—to help the resistance in Chechnya, he says, not to fight the Americans. He was arrested trying to leave Pakistan in 2002 on a forged passport. He was beaten in prison, where he was seen by members of the FBI and MI5. He was then taken by the Americans to Morocco, where he says he was tortured by a questioner called Marwan, who took a sharp blade to his chest and penis while asking questions that had plainly been fed to him by MI5.

The British authorities say that once Mr Mohamed had left Pakistan, they did not know his whereabouts or conditions of detention; all questions were submitted through the Americans. Much of America’s programme of secret detention and interrogation was formally hidden from allies. The top-secret “torture memos” were classified “NOFORN” (no foreign nationals). But stories of prisoners being abused by the Americans were already circulating in 2002. Indeed some British officials had expressed concern at what they saw.

It was under torture, Mr Mohamed says, that he admitted to meeting Osama bin Laden and to taking part in plots including the detonation of a dirty bomb. This is what he would be accused of when he got to Guantánamo Bay in 2004, via a secret prison in Afghanistan. But, like many others, Mr Mohamed was released in February this year without charge.

By then Mr Mohamed’s lawyers, among them Clive Stafford Smith, founder of a legal charity called Reprieve, had been in full swing on both sides of the Atlantic. They sued the British government to release documents that might prove Mr Mohamed’s innocence, obtaining a High Court judgment that was critical of MI5 and led to the police investigation of one of its officials, known only as “Witness B”. In a parallel case in America, Mr Mohamed and other Guantánamo inmates are suing Jeppensen DataPlan, a subsidiary of Boeing, which allegedly provided aircraft for the CIA’s rendition programme.

Mr Mohamed’s release has not stopped the litigation in either America or Britain. Both governments argue that the lawsuits should be thrown out because state secrets cannot be divulged. Indeed, the Obama administration has warned Britain that intelligence-sharing would be jeopardised if secret information provided by the CIA were to be revealed in British courts. Similarly, officials in Britain are alarmed by what may be disclosed in America.

Waterboarding the agencies

These days it is the intelligence agencies that find themselves under interrogation. Each snippet they provide produces requests for more information. And the courts, suspicious of what the agencies may be hiding, are demanding ever more disclosure. One source of information has been the succession of freedom-of-information requests for official documents, including the “torture memos”, by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Legal campaigners are waging an information-gathering effort that earns the grudging respect of intelligence operatives. “They are chasing the paper trail and winning,” says one. “They are chipping away at state-secret privilege [the doctrine that courts can dismiss lawsuits if classified information will be released]. They could disclose an awful lot of information—names of interrogators and medical personnel. If secrets start seeping out, countries that have been sharing information may be disinclined to do so.”

The controversies show the extent to which torture and other forms of harsh interrogation—even though they may have been abandoned—cloud the legitimate work of counter-terrorism. American sources say that in the latter years of the Bush administration, European agencies, worried that they might be caught up in America’s abusive practices, became reticent about sharing intelligence. Today, America’s partners may hold back out of fear that America will not be able to protect their information. Officials lament that the machinery of Western intelligence-sharing is becoming “gritted up”—though information about “life-threatening” plots is still swapped briskly.

Intelligence-sharing is vital. America, with its vast resources, has become the main repository of information on global terrorism. Though Britain has well-regarded intelligence services, it obtains more than half its reports on terrorism from other agencies, principally American. And about half of America’s intelligence reports on al-Qaeda until 2006, says a former senior official, came from detainees.

The Justice Department’s memos were prompted by the arrest in 2002 of Abu Zubaydah, a man with close links to al-Qaeda. The CIA wanted clearance to exert greater pressure on the first of its “high-value detainees”—even though FBI investigators would later claim that Mr Zubaydah was already talking freely.

Degrees of pain

The memos gave the CIA licence to use “enhanced” techniques derived from American training advice to pilots and other personnel on how to withstand torture if they should fall into enemy hands. They are shocking for their bureaucratic punctiliousness. They parse the degrees of pain that would constitute forbidden torture (“an intensity akin to the pain accompanying serious physical injury”). They set out in incongruous detail the limits of abuse.

A prisoner could be deprived of sleep, but for no more than 180 hours before being allowed to rest for eight. He could be stripped naked but only if the room was warmer than 68°F (20°C). He could be doused in water but it had to be potable. He could be waterboarded with cold (saline) water poured onto his face but each application should not last more than 40 seconds, there should be no more than six applications per session, no session could last more than two hours and there could be only two sessions in 24 hours.

The ACLU’s next target is a comprehensive and still largely secret internal CIA report written in 2004 by John Helgerson, then the agency’s inspector-general. This is believed to be particularly damning, providing evidence of abuse that went well beyond the permitted guidelines. Compared with the antiseptic legal memos, writes Jane Mayer, the author of a book called “The Dark Side”, the Helgerson report is a “Technicolor horror show”, including accounts of people who died in custody. A version of the report, so heavily redacted with black deletion marks as to be barely comprehensible, was released in 2008. A more complete version is expected in the coming weeks, although the Obama administration has asked for delays.

Crucially, the report is critical of the value of the information obtained through harsh interrogation. It apparently concludes that there is no evidence that such intelligence prevented any imminent attacks. But this argument was strongly contested by the Bush administration.

Michael Hayden, the CIA’s director from 2006 until earlier this year, wrote in April that enhanced interrogation had led the agency from one big fish to another. Abu Zubaydah, he says, was forced to give information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh (one of the planners of the September 11th attacks); he, in turn, helped lead to the capture of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (which, the memos claimed, foiled a “second wave” plot to crash an aircraft into Los Angeles). Mr Hayden said that of the thousands of people captured as “unlawful combatants”, fewer than 100 were held under the CIA’s interrogation programme and fewer than one-third of those were subjected to the “enhanced” techniques set out in the memos. Just three people were waterboarded. This, however, ignores all manner of abuses committed in military prisons.

That there was no follow-on attack on America after September 11th was thanks in large measure, argues Mr Cheney, to the Bush administration’s policies, including the enhanced techniques. Though he denounced the release of the memos that allowed these methods, he now wants further documents to be published that would, he says, demonstrate their success.

People familiar with the inner workings of intelligence suggest a more ambiguous story. Intelligence, they argue, is about piecing together fragments of information and building up spider diagrams of connections between suspects. “Intelligence is grains of sand; you don’t usually get the whole beach,” says one veteran.

It is true that in 2001, a time when the CIA and other agencies were woefully ignorant of al-Qaeda’s methods, the prisoners captured after the overthrow of the Taliban were the first rich source of information to help “map the enemy”, as one intelligence source puts it. But, says a former counter-terrorism official, the most valuable information from Mr Zubaydah’s capture came not from his interrogation but from his address book. With Mr Mohammed, says another analyst, the most important factor in stopping further attacks on America was not what the terrorist said under duress, but that he had been captured in the first place.

Intelligence officials maintain that detainees under interrogation provided as many, perhaps more, specks of information as other sources of intelligence on terrorism, including signals and agents. The question that nobody can answer is how much of this could have been obtained without torture.

Bleak choices

The danger for Mr Obama, as he seeks to overhaul the intelligence system, is that a fresh attack on the American mainland would immediately expose him to the accusation of being soft on terrorism. In May Congress revolted against any attempt to move detainees from Guantánamo to American soil before a plan for the disposal of its 229 prisoners had been drawn up. Yet three task-forces examining the matter, including future policy on detainees, have delayed issuing their reports because of the complexity of the problem.

Mr Obama has decided to keep the reviled military commissions, albeit with reforms. And he may yet seek a form of indefinite detention for some prisoners, with judicial and congressional oversight. Lurking in the background are the lesser-known problems of America’s prison at Bagram, its main base in Afghanistan, where detainees are being held with much less scrutiny than those at Guantánamo.

Holding terrorism suspects has become a huge headache for America. One fear is that if, in future, it tracks down important al-Qaeda figures, it may prefer one of two bleak options: either turn them over to countries with far fewer qualms—or just drop a bomb on them. Jack Bauer would be delighted.

New York Times

Mark Danner

On a bright sunny day two years ago, President George W. Bush strode into the East Room of the White House and informed the world that the United States had created a dark and secret universe to hold and interrogate captured terrorists.

“In addition to the terrorists held at Guantánamo,” the president said, “a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

At these places, Mr. Bush said, “the C.I.A. used an alternative set of procedures.” He added: “These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful.” This speech will stand, I believe, as George W. Bush’s most important: perhaps the only historic speech he ever gave. In his fervent defense of his government’s “alternative set of procedures” and his equally fervent insistence that they were “lawful,” he set out before the country America’s dark moral epic of torture, in the coils of whose contradictions we find ourselves entangled still.

At the same time, perhaps unwittingly, Mr. Bush made it possible that day for those on whom the alternative set of procedures were performed eventually to speak. For he announced that he would send 14 “high-value detainees” from dark into twilight: they would be transferred from the overseas “black sites” to Guantánamo. There, while awaiting trial, the International Committee of the Red Cross would be “advised of their detention, and will have the opportunity to meet with them.”

A few weeks later, from Oct. 6 to 11 and then from Dec. 4 to 14, 2006, Red Cross officials — whose duty it is to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and to supervise treatment of prisoners of war — traveled to Guantánamo and began interviewing the prisoners.

Their stated goal was to produce a report that would “provide a description of the treatment and material conditions of detention of the 14 during the period they were held in the C.I.A. detention program,” periods ranging “from 16 months to almost four and a half years.”

As the Red Cross interviewers informed the detainees, their report was not intended to be released to the public but, “to the extent that each detainee agreed for it to be transmitted to the authorities,” to be given in strictest secrecy to officials of the government agency that had been in charge of holding them — in this case the Central Intelligence Agency, to whose acting general counsel, John Rizzo, the report was sent on Feb. 14, 2007.

The result is a document — labeled “confidential” and clearly intended only for the eyes of those senior American officials — that tells a story of what happened to each of the 14 detainees inside the black sites.

A short time ago, this document came into my hands and I have set out the stories it tells in a longer article in The New York Review of Books. Because these stories were taken down confidentially in patient interviews by professionals from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and not intended for public consumption, they have an unusual claim to authenticity.

Indeed, since the detainees were kept strictly apart and isolated, both at the black sites and at Guantánamo, the striking similarity in their stories would seem to make fabrication extremely unlikely. As its authors state in their introduction, “The I.C.R.C. wishes to underscore that the consistency of the detailed allegations provided separately by each of the 14 adds particular weight to the information provided below.”

Beginning with the chapter headings on its contents page — “suffocation by water,” “prolonged stress standing,” “beatings by use of a collar,” “confinement in a box” — the document makes compelling and chilling reading. The stories recounted in its fewer than 50 pages lead inexorably to this unequivocal conclusion, which, given its source, has the power of a legal determination: “The allegations of ill treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill treatment to which they were subjected while held in the C.I.A. program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

•

Perhaps one should start with the story of the first man to whom, according to news reports, the president’s “alternative set of procedures” were applied:

“I woke up, naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room. The room measured approximately 4 meters by 4 meters. The room had three solid walls, with the fourth wall consisting of metal bars separating it from a larger room. I am not sure how long I remained in the bed. After some time, I think it was several days, but can’t remember exactly, I was transferred to a chair where I was kept, shackled by hands and feet for what I think was the next two to three weeks. During this time I developed blisters on the underside of my legs due to the constant sitting. I was only allowed to get up from the chair to go [to] the toilet, which consisted of a bucket.

“I was given no solid food during the first two or three weeks, while sitting on the chair. I was only given Ensure and water to drink. At first the Ensure made me vomit, but this became less with time.

“The cell and room were air-conditioned and were very cold. Very loud, shouting-type music was constantly playing. It kept repeating about every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day. Sometimes the music stopped and was replaced by a loud hissing or crackling noise.

“The guards were American, but wore masks to conceal their faces. My interrogators did not wear masks.”

So begins the story of Abu Zubaydah, a senior member of Al Qaeda, captured in a raid in Pakistan in March 2002. The arrest of an active terrorist with actionable information was a coup for the United States.

After being treated for his wounds — he had been shot in the stomach, leg and groin during his capture — Abu Zubaydah was brought to one of the black sites, probably in Thailand, and placed in that white room.

It is important to note that Abu Zubaydah was not alone with his interrogators, that everyone in that white room — guards, interrogators, doctor — was in fact linked directly, and almost constantly, to senior intelligence officials on the other side of the world. “It wasn’t up to individual interrogators to decide, ‘Well, I’m going to slap him. Or I’m going to shake him,’” said John Kiriakou, a C.I.A. officer who helped capture Abu Zubaydah, in an interview with ABC News.

Every one of the steps taken with regard to Abu Zubaydah “had to have the approval of the deputy director for operations. So before you laid a hand on him, you had to send in the cable saying, ‘He’s uncooperative. Request permission to do X.’”

He went on: “The cable traffic back and forth was extremely specific…. No one wanted to get in trouble by going overboard.”

Shortly after Abu Zubaydah was captured, C.I.A. officers briefed the National Security Council’s principals committee, including Vice President Dick Cheney, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, in detail on the interrogation plans for the prisoner. As the interrogations proceeded, so did the briefings, with George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, bringing to senior officials almost daily reports of the techniques applied.

At the time, the spring and summer of 2002, Justice Department officials, led by John Yoo, were working on a memorandum, now known informally as “the torture memo,” which claimed that for an “alternative procedure” to be considered torture, and thus illegal, it would have to cause pain of the sort “that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure, or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body function will likely result.” The memo was approved in August 2002, thus serving as a legal “green light” for interrogators to apply the most aggressive techniques to Abu Zubaydah:

“I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck; they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.”

The prisoner was then put in a coffin-like black box, about 4 feet by 3 feet and 6 feet high, “for what I think was about one and a half to two hours.” He added: The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside…. They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury.”

After this beating, Abu Zubaydah was placed in a small box approximately three feet tall. “They placed a cloth or cover over the box to cut out all light and restrict my air supply. As it was not high enough even to sit upright, I had to crouch down. It was very difficult because of my wounds. The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in the leg and stomach became very painful. I think this occurred about three months after my last operation. It was always cold in the room, but when the cover was placed over the box it made it hot and sweaty inside. The wound on my leg began to open and started to bleed. I don’t know how long I remained in the small box; I think I may have slept or maybe fainted.

“I was then dragged from the small box, unable to walk properly, and put on what looked like a hospital bed, and strapped down very tightly with belts. A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds was very painful. I vomited.

“The bed was then again lowered to horizontal position and the same torture carried out again with the black cloth over my face and water poured on from a bottle. On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless.”

After being placed again in the tall box, Abu Zubaydah “was then taken out and again a towel was wrapped around my neck and I was smashed into the wall with the plywood covering and repeatedly slapped in the face by the same two interrogators as before.

“I was then made to sit on the floor with a black hood over my head until the next session of torture began. The room was always kept very cold.

This went on for approximately one week.”

•

Walid bin Attash, a Saudi involved with planning the attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998 and on the Navy destroyer Cole in 2000, was captured in Pakistan on April 29, 2003:

“On arrival at the place of detention in Afghanistan I was stripped naked. I remained naked for the next two weeks…. I was kept in a standing position, feet flat on the floor, but with my arms above my head and fixed with handcuffs and a chain to a metal bar running across the width of the cell. The cell was dark with no light, artificial or natural.”

This forced standing, with arms shackled above the head, seems to have become standard procedure. It proved especially painful for Mr. bin Attash, who had lost a leg fighting in Afghanistan:

“After some time being held in this position my stump began to hurt so I removed my artificial leg to relieve the pain. Of course my good leg then began to ache and soon started to give way so that I was left hanging with all my weight on my wrists.”

Cold water was used on Mr. bin Attash in combination with beatings and the use of a plastic collar, which seems to have been a refinement of the towel that had been looped around Abu Zubaydah’s neck:

“On a daily basis during the first two weeks a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room. It was also placed around my neck when being taken out of my cell for interrogation and was used to lead me along the corridor. It was also used to slam me against the walls of the corridor during such movements.

“Also on a daily basis during the first two weeks I was made to lie on a plastic sheet placed on the floor which would then be lifted at the edges. Cold water was then poured onto my body with buckets…. I would be kept wrapped inside the sheet with the cold water for several minutes. I would then be taken for interrogation.”

•

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the key planner of the 9/11 attacks, was captured in Pakistan on March 1, 2003.

After three days in what he believes was a prison in Afghanistan, Mr. Mohammed was put in a tracksuit, blindfold, hood and headphones, and shackled and placed aboard a plane. He quickly fell asleep — “the first proper sleep in over five days” — and remains unsure of how long the journey took. On arrival, however, he realized he had come a long way:

“I could see at one point there was snow on the ground. Everybody was wearing black, with masks and army boots, like Planet X people. I think the country was Poland. I think this because on one occasion a water bottle was brought to me without the label removed. It had [an] e-mail address ending in ‘.pl.’”

He was stripped and put in a small cell. “I was kept for one month in the cell in a standing position with my hands cuffed and shackled above my head and my feet cuffed and shackled to a point in the floor,” he told the Red Cross.

“Of course during this month I fell asleep on some occasions while still being held in this position. This resulted in all my weight being applied to the handcuffs around my wrist, resulting in open and bleeding wounds. [Scars consistent with this allegation were visible on both wrists as well as on both ankles.] Both my feet became very swollen after one month of almost continual standing.”

For interrogation, Mr. Mohammed was taken to a different room. The sessions lasted for as long as eight hours and as short as four.

“If I was perceived not to be cooperating I would be put against a wall and punched and slapped in the body, head and face. A thick flexible plastic collar would also be placed around my neck so that it could then be held at the two ends by a guard who would use it to slam me repeatedly against the wall. The beatings were combined with the use of cold water, which was poured over me using a hose-pipe.”

As with Abu Zubaydah, the harshest sessions involved the “alternative set of procedures” used in sequence and in combination, one technique intensifying the effects of the others:

“The beatings became worse and I had cold water directed at me from a hose-pipe by guards while I was still in my cell. The worst day was when I was beaten for about half an hour by one of the interrogators. My head was banged against the wall so hard that it started to bleed. Cold water was poured over my head. This was then repeated with other interrogators. Finally I was taken for a session of water boarding. The torture on that day was finally stopped by the intervention of the doctor.”

Reading the Red Cross report, one becomes somewhat inured to the “alternative set of procedures” as they are described: the cold and repeated violence grow numbing. Against this background, the descriptions of daily life of the detainees in the black sites, in which interrogation seems merely a periodic heightening of consistently imposed brutality, become more striking.

Here again is Mr. Mohammed:

“After each session of torture I was put into a cell where I was allowed to lie on the floor and could sleep for a few minutes. However, due to shackles on my ankles and wrists I was never able to sleep very well…. The toilet consisted of a bucket in the cell, which I could use on request” — he was shackled standing, his hands affixed to the ceiling — “but I was not allowed to clean myself after toilet during the first month…. I wasn’t given any clothes for the first month. Artificial light was on 24 hours a day, but I never saw sunlight.”

•

Abu Zubaydah, Walid bin Attash, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — these men almost certainly have blood on their hands. There is strong reason to believe that they had critical parts in planning and organizing terrorist operations that caused the deaths of thousands of people. So in all likelihood did the other “high-value detainees” whose treatment while secretly confined by the United States is described in the Red Cross report.

From everything we know, many or all of these men deserve to be tried and punished — to be “brought to justice,” as President Bush vowed they would be. The fact that judges, military or civilian, throw out cases of prisoners who have been tortured — and have already done so at Guantánamo — means it is highly unlikely that they will be brought to justice anytime soon.

For the men who have committed great crimes, this seems to mark perhaps the most important and consequential sense in which “torture doesn’t work.” The use of torture deprives the society whose laws have been so egregiously violated of the possibility of rendering justice. Torture destroys justice. Torture in effect relinquishes this sacred right in exchange for speculative benefits whose value is, at the least, much disputed.

As I write, it is impossible to know definitively what benefits — in intelligence, in national security, in disrupting Al Qaeda — the president’s approval of use of an “alternative set of procedures” might have brought to the United States. Only a thorough investigation, which we are now promised, much belatedly, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, can determine that.

What we can say with certainty, in the wake of the Red Cross report, is that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush administration, including the president himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact. We can also say that the decision to torture, in a political war with militant Islam, harmed American interests by destroying the democratic and Constitutional reputation of the United States, undermining its liberal sympathizers in the Muslim world and helping materially in the recruitment of young Muslims to the extremist cause. By deciding to torture, we freely chose to embrace the caricature they had made of us. The consequences of this choice, legal, political and moral, now confront us. Time and elections are not enough to make them go away.

Mark Danner, a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and Bard College, is the author of “Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror.” This essay is drawn from a longer article in the new issue of The New York Review of Books, available at www.nybooks.com.

The Trial

1937

Franz Kafka

Every day over the following week, K. expected another summons to arrive, he could not believe that his rejection of any more hearings had been taken literally, and when the expected summons really had not come by Saturday evening he took it to mean that he was expected, without being told, to appear at the same place at the same time. So on Sunday, he set out once more in the same direction, going without hesitation up the steps and through the corridors; some of the people remembered him and greeted him from their doorways, but he no longer needed to ask anyone the way and soon arrived at the right door. It was opened as soon as he knocked and, paying no attention to the woman he had seen last time who was standing at the doorway, he was about to go straight into the adjoining room when she said to him “There’s no session today”. “What do you mean; no session?” he asked, unable to believe it. But the woman persuaded him by opening the door to the next room. It was indeed empty, and looked even more dismal empty than it had the previous Sunday. On the podium stood the table exactly as it had been before with a few books laying on it. “Can I have a look at those books?” asked K., not because he was especially curious but so that he would not have come for nothing. “No,” said the woman as she re-closed the door, “that’s not allowed. Those books belong to the examining judge.” “I see,” said K., and nodded, “those books must be law books, and that’s how this court does things, not only to try people who are innocent but even to try them without letting them know what’s going on.” “I expect you’re right,” said the woman, who had not understood exactly what he meant. “I’d better go away again, then,” said K. “Should I give a message to the examining judge?” asked the woman. “Do you know him, then?” asked K. “Of course I know him,” said the woman, “my husband is the court usher.” It was only now that K. noticed that the room, which before had held nothing but a wash-tub, had been fitted out as a living room. The woman saw how surprised he was and said, “Yes, we’re allowed to live here as we like, only we have to clear the room out when the court’s in session. There’s lots of disadvantages to my husband’s job.” “It’s not so much the room that surprises me,” said K., looking at her crossly, “it’s your being married that shocks me.” “Are you thinking about what happened last time the court was in session, when I disturbed what you were saying?” asked the woman. “Of course,” said K., “it’s in the past now and I’ve nearly forgotten about it, but at the time it made me furious. And now you tell me yourself that you are a married woman.” “It wasn’t any disadvantage for you to have your speech interrupted. The way they talked about you after you’d gone was really bad.” “That could well be,” said K., turning away, “but it does not excuse you.” “There’s no-one I know who’d hold it against me,” said the woman. “Him, who put his arms around me, he’s been chasing after me for a long time. I might not be very attractive for most people, but I am for him. I’ve got no protection from him, even my husband has had to get used to it; if he wants to keep his job he’s got to put up with it as that man’s a student and he’ll almost certainly be very powerful later on. He’s always after me, he’d only just left when you arrived.” “That fits in with everything else,” said K., “I’m not surprised.” “Do you want to make things a bit better here?” the woman asked slowly, watching him as if she were saying something that could be as dangerous for K. as for herself. “That’s what I thought when I heard you speak, I really liked what you said. Mind you, I only heard part of it, I missed the beginning of it and at the end I was lying on the floor with the student – it’s so horrible here,” she said after a pause, and took hold of K.’s hand. “Do you believe you really will be able to make things better?” K. smiled and twisted his hand round a little in her soft hands. “It’s really not my job to make things better here, as you put it,” he said, “and if you said that to the examining judge he would laugh at you or punish you for it. I really would not have become involved in this matter if I could have helped it, and I would have lost no sleep worrying about how this court needs to be made better. But because I’m told that I have been arrested – and I am under arrest – it forces me to take some action, and to do so for my own sake. However, if I can be of some service to you in the process I will, of course, be glad to do so. And I will be glad to do so not only for the sake of charity but also because you can be of some help to me.” “How could I help you, then?” said the woman. “You could, for example, show me the books on the table there.” “Yes, certainly,” the woman cried, and pulled K. along behind her as she rushed to them. The books were old and well worn, the cover of one of them had nearly broken through in its middle, and it was held together with a few threads. “Everything is so dirty here,” said K., shaking his head, and before he could pick the books up the woman wiped some of the dust off with her apron. K. took hold of the book that lay on top and threw it open, an indecent picture appeared. A man and a woman sat naked on a sofa, the base intent of whoever drew it was easy to see but he had been so grossly lacking in skill that all that anyone could really make out were the man and the woman who dominated the picture with their bodies, sitting in overly upright postures that created a false perspective and made it difficult for them to approach each other. K. didn’t thumb through that book any more, but just threw open the next one at its title page, it was a novel with the title, What Grete Suffered from her Husband, Hans. “So this is the sort of law book they study here,” said K., “this is the sort of person sitting in judgement over me.” “I can help you,” said the woman, “would you like me to?” “Could you really do that without placing yourself in danger? You did say earlier on that your husband is wholly dependent on his superiors.” “I still want to help you,” said the woman, “come over here, we’ve got to talk about it. Don’t say any more about what danger I’m in, I only fear danger where I want to fear it. Come over here.” She pointed to the podium and invited him to sit down on the step with her. “You’ve got lovely dark eyes,” she said after they had sat down, looking up into K.’s face, “people say I’ve got nice eyes too, but yours are much nicer. It was the first thing I noticed when you first came here. That’s even why I came in here, into the assembly room, afterwards, I’d never normally do that, I’m not really even allowed to.” So that’s what all this is about, thought K., she’s offering herself to me, she’s as degenerate as everything else around here, she’s had enough of the court officials, which is understandable I suppose, and so she approaches any stranger and makes compliments about his eyes. With that, K. stood up in silence as if he had spoken his thoughts out loud and thus explained his action to the woman. “I don’t think you can be of any assistance to me,” he said, “to be of any real assistance you would need to be in contact with high officials. But I’m sure you only know the lower employees, and there are crowds of them milling about here. I’m sure you’re very familiar with them and could achieve a great deal through them, I’ve no doubt of that, but the most that could be done through them would have no bearing at all on the final outcome of the trial. You, on the other hand, would lose some of your friends as a result, and I have no wish of that. Carry on with these people in the same way as you have been, as it does seem to me to be something you cannot do without. I have no regrets in saying this as, in return for your compliment to me, I also find you rather attractive, especially when you look at me as sadly as you are now, although you really have no reason to do so. You belong to the people I have to combat, and you’re very comfortable among them, you’re even in love with the student, or if you don’t love him you do at least prefer him to your husband. It’s easy to see that from what you’ve been saying.” “No!” she shouted, remained sitting where she was and grasped K.’s hand, which he failed to pull away fast enough. “You can’t go away now, you can’t go away when you’ve misjudged me like that! Are you really capable of going away now? Am I really so worthless that you won’t even do me the favour of staying a little bit longer?” “You misunderstand me,” said K., sitting back down, “if it’s really important to you for me to stay here then I’ll be glad to do so, I have plenty of time, I came here thinking there would be a trial taking place. All I meant with what I said just now was to ask you not to do anything on my behalf in the proceedings against me. But even that is nothing for you to worry about when you consider that there’s nothing hanging on the outcome of this trial, and that, whatever the verdict, I will just laugh at it. And that’s even presupposing it ever even reaches any conclusion, which I very much doubt. I think it’s much more likely that the court officials will be too lazy, too forgetful, or even to fearful ever to continue with these proceedings and that they will soon be abandoned if they haven’t been abandoned already. It’s even possible that they will pretend to be carrying on with the trial in the hope of receiving a large bribe, although I can tell you now that that will be quite in vain as I pay bribes to no-one. Perhaps one favour you could do me would be to tell the examining judge, or anyone else who likes to spread important news, that I will never be induced to pay any sort of bribe through any stratagem of theirs – and I’m sure they have many stratagems at their disposal. There is no prospect of that, you can tell them that quite openly. And what’s more, I expect they have already noticed themselves, or even if they haven’t, this affair is really not so important to me as they think. Those gentlemen would only save some work for themselves, or at least some unpleasantness for me, which, however, I am glad to endure if I know that each piece of unpleasantness for me is a blow against them. And I will make quite sure it is a blow against them. Do you actually know the judge?” “Course I do,” said the woman, “he was the first one I thought of when I offered to help you. I didn’t know he’s only a minor official, but if you say so it must be true. Mind you, I still think the report he gives to his superiors must have some influence. And he writes so many reports. You say these officials are lazy, but they’re certainly not all lazy, especially this examining judge, he writes ever such a lot. Last Sunday, for instance, that session went on till the evening. Everyone had gone, but the examining judge, he stayed in the hall, I had to bring him a lamp in, all I had was a little kitchen lamp but he was very satisfied with it and started to write straight away. Meantime my husband arrived, he always has the day off on Sundays, we got the furniture back in and got our room sorted out and then a few of the neighbours came, we sat and talked for a bit by a candle, in short, we forgot all about the examining judge and went to bed. All of a sudden in the night, it must have been quite late in the night, I wakes up, next to the bed, there’s the examining judge shading the lamp with his hand so that there’s no light from it falls on my husband, he didn’t need to be as careful as that, the way my husband sleeps the light wouldn’t have woken him up anyway. I was quite shocked and nearly screamed, but the judge was very friendly, warned me I should be careful, he whispered to me he’s been writing all this time, and now he’s brought me the lamp back, and he’ll never forget how I looked when he found me there asleep. What I mean, with all this, I just wanted to tell you how the examining judge really does write lots of reports, especially about you as questioning you was definitely one of the main things on the agenda that Sunday. If he writes reports as long as that they must be of some importance. And besides all that, you can see from what happened that the examining judge is after me, and it’s right now, when he’s first begun to notice me, that I can have a lot of influence on him. And I’ve got other proof I mean a lot to him, too. Yesterday, he sent that student to me, the one he really trusts and who he works with, he sent him with a present for me, silk stockings. He said it was because I clear up in the courtroom but that’s only a pretence, that job’s no more than what I’m supposed to do, it’s what my husband gets paid for. Nice stockings, they are, look,” – she stretched out her leg, drew her skirt up to her knee and looked, herself, at the stocking – “they are nice stockings, but they’re too good for me, really.”

She suddenly interrupted herself and lay her hand on K.’s as if she wanted to calm him down, and whispered, “Be quiet, Berthold is watching us.” K. slowly looked up. In the doorway to the courtroom stood a young man, he was short, his legs were not quite straight, and he continually moved his finger round in a short, thin, red beard with which he hoped to make himself look dignified. K. looked at him with some curiosity, he was the first student he had ever met of the unfamiliar discipline of jurisprudence, face to face at least, a man who would even most likely attain high office one day. The student, in contrast, seemed to take no notice of K. at all, he merely withdrew his finger from his beard long enough to beckon to the woman and went over to the window, the woman leant over to K. and whispered, “Don’t be cross with me, please don’t, and please don’t think ill of me either, I’ve got to go to him now, to this horrible man, just look at his bent legs. But I’ll come straight back and then I’ll go with you if you’ll take me, I’ll go wherever you want, you can do whatever you like with me, I’ll be happy if I can be away from here for as long as possible, it’d be best if I could get away from here for good.” She stroked K.’s hand once more, jumped up and ran over to the window. Before he realised it, K. grasped for her hand but failed to catch it. He really was attracted to the woman, and even after thinking hard about it could find no good reason why he should not give in to her allure. It briefly crossed his mind that the woman meant to entrap him on behalf of the court, but that was an objection he had no difficulty in fending off. In what way could she entrap him? Was he not still free, so free that he could crush the entire court whenever he wanted, as least where it concerned him? Could he not have that much confidence in himself? And her offer of help sounded sincere, and maybe it wasn’t quite worthless. And maybe there was no better revenge against the examining judge and his cronies than to take this woman from him and have her for himself. Maybe then, after much hard work writing dishonest reports about K., the judge would go to the woman’s bed late one night and find it empty. And it would be empty because she belonged to K., because this woman at the window, this lush, supple, warm body in its sombre clothes of rough, heavy material belonged to him, totally to him and to him alone. Once he had settled his thoughts towards the woman in this way, he began to find the quiet conversation at the window was taking too long, he rapped on the podium with his knuckles, and then even with his fist. The student briefly looked away from the woman to glance at K. over his shoulder but did allow himself to be disturbed, in fact he even pressed himself close to the woman and put his arms around her. She dropped her head down low as if listening to him carefully, as she did so he kissed her right on the neck, hardly even interrupting what he was saying. K. saw this as confirmation of the tyranny the student held over the woman and which she had already complained about, he stood up and walked up and down the room. Glancing sideways at the student, he wondered what would be the quickest possible way to get rid of him, and so it was not unwelcome to him when the student, clearly disturbed by K.’s to-ing and fro-ing which K. had now developed into a stamping up and down, said to him, “You don’t have to stay here, you know, if you’re getting impatient. You could have gone earlier, no-one would have missed you. In fact you should have gone, you should have left as quickly as possible as soon as I got here.” This comment could have caused all possible rage to break out between them, but K. also bore in mind that this was a prospective court official speaking to a disfavoured defendant, and he might well have been taking pride in speaking in this way. K. remained standing quite close to him and said with a smile, “You’re quite right, I am impatient, but the easiest way to settle this impatience would be if you left us. On the other hand, if you’ve come here to study – you are a student, I hear – I’ll be quite happy to leave the room to you and go away with the woman. I’m sure you’ll still have a lot of study to do before you’re made into a judge. It’s true that I’m still not all that familiar with your branch of jurisprudence but I take it it involves a lot more than speaking roughly – and I see you have no shame in doing that extremely well.” “He shouldn’t have been allowed to move about so freely,” said the student, as if he wanted to give the woman an explanation for K.’s insults, “that was a mistake. I’ve told the examining judge so. He should at least have been detained in his room between hearings. Sometimes it’s impossible to understand what the judge thinks he’s doing.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” said K., then he reached his hand out towards the woman and said, “come with me.” “So that’s it,” said the student, “oh no, you’re not going to get her,” and with a strength you would not have expected from him, he glanced tenderly at her, lifted her up on one arm and, his back bent under the weight, ran with her to the door. In this way he showed, unmistakeably, that he was to some extent afraid of K., but he nonetheless dared to provoke him still further by stroking and squeezing the woman’s arm with his free hand. K. ran the few steps up to him, but when he had reached him and was about to take hold of him and, if necessary, throttle him, the woman said, “It’s no good, it’s the examining judge who’s sent for me, I daren’t go with you, this little bastard…” and here she ran her hand over the student’s face, “this little bastard won’t let me.” “And you don’t want to be set free!” shouted K., laying his hand on the student’s shoulder, who then snapped at it with his teeth. “No!” shouted the woman, pushing K. away with both hands, “no, no don’t do that, what d’you think you’re doing!? That’d be the end of me. Let go of him, please just let go of him.

He’s only carrying out the judge’s orders, he’s carrying me to him.” “Let him take you then, and I want to see nothing more of you,” said K., enraged by his disappointment and giving the student a thump in the back so that he briefly stumbled and then, glad that he had not fallen, immediately jumped up all the higher with his burden. K. followed them slowly. He realised that this was the first unambiguous setback he had suffered from these people. It was of course nothing to worry about, he accepted the setback only because he was looking for a fight. If he stayed at home and carried on with his normal life he would be a thousand times superior to these people and could get any of them out of his way just with a kick. And he imagined the most laughable scene possible as an example of this, if this contemptible student, this inflated child, this knock-kneed redbeard, if he were kneeling at Elsa’s bed wringing his hands and begging for forgiveness. K. so enjoyed imagining this scene that he decided to take the student along to Elsa with him if ever he should get the opportunity.

K. was curious to see where the woman would be taken and he hurried over to the door, the student was not likely to carry her through the streets on his arm. It turned out that the journey was far shorter. Directly opposite the flat there was a narrow flight of wooden steps which probably led up to the attic, they turned as they went so that it was not possible to see where they ended. The student carried the woman up these steps, and after the exertions of running with her he was soon groaning and moving very slowly. The woman waved down at K. and by raising and lowering her shoulders she tried to show that she was an innocent party in this abduction, although the gesture did not show a lot of regret. K. watched her without expression like a stranger, he wanted to show neither that he was disappointed nor that he would easily get over his disappointment.

The two of them had disappeared, but K. remained standing in the doorway. He had to accept that the woman had not only cheated him but that she had also lied to him when she said she was being taken to the examining judge. The examining judge certainly wouldn’t be sitting and waiting in the attic. The wooden stairs would explain nothing to him however long he stared at them. Then K. noticed a small piece of paper next to them, went across to it and read, in a childish and unpractised hand, “Entrance to the Court Offices”. Were the court offices here, in the attic of this tenement, then? If that was how they were accommodated it did not attract much respect, and it was some comfort for the accused to realise how little money this court had at its disposal if it had to locate its offices in a place where the tenants of the building, who were themselves among the poorest of people, would throw their unneeded junk. On the other hand, it was possible that the officials had enough money but that they squandered it on themselves rather than use it for the court’s purposes. Going by K.’s experience of them so far, that even seemed probable, except that if the court were allowed to decay in that way it would not just humiliate the accused but also give him more encouragement than if the court were simply in a state of poverty. K. also now understood that the court was ashamed to summon those it accused to the attic of this building for the initial hearing, and why it preferred to impose upon them in their own homes. What a position it was that K. found himself in, compared with the judge sitting up in the attic! K., at the bank, had a big office with an ante-room, and had an enormous window through which he could look down at the activity in the square. It was true, though, that he had no secondary income from bribes and fraud, and he couldn’t tell a servant to bring him a woman up to the office on his arm. K., however, was quite willing to do without such things, in this life at least. K. was still looking at the notice when a man came up the stairs, looked through the open door into the living room where it was also possible to see the courtroom, and finally asked K. whether he had just seen a woman there. “You’re the court usher, aren’t you?” asked K. “That’s right,” said the man, “oh, yes, you’re defendant K., I recognise you now as well. Nice to see you here.” And he offered K. his hand, which was far from what K. had expected. And when K. said nothing, he added, “There’s no court session planned for today, though.” “I know that,” said K. as he looked at the usher’s civilian coat which, beside its ordinary buttons, displayed two gilded ones as the only sign of his office and seemed to have been taken from an old army officer’s coat. “I was speaking with your wife a little while ago. She is no longer here. The student has carried her off to the examining judge.” “Listen to this,” said the usher, “they’re always carrying her away from me. It’s Sunday today, and it’s not part of my job to do any work today, but they send me off with some message which isn’t even necessary just to get me away from here. What they do is they send me off not too far away so that I can still hope to get back on time if I really hurry. So off I go running as fast as I can, shout the message through the crack in the door of the office I’ve been sent to, so out of breath they’ll hardly be able to understand it, run back here again, but the student’s been even faster than I have – well he’s got less far to go, he’s only got to run down the steps. If I wasn’t so dependent on them I’d have squashed the student against the wall here a long time ago. Right here, next to the sign. I’m always dreaming of doing that. Just here, just above the floor, that’s where he’s crushed onto the wall, his arms stretched out, his fingers spread apart, his crooked legs twisted round into a circle and blood squirted out all around him. It’s only ever been a dream so far, though.” “Is there nothing else you do?” asked K. with a smile. “Nothing that I know of,” said the usher. “And it’s going to get even worse now, up till now he’s only been carrying her off for himself, now he’s started carrying her off for the judge and all, just like I’d always said he would.” “Does your wife, then, not share some of the responsibility?” asked K. He had to force himself as he asked this question, as he, too, felt so jealous now. “Course she does,” said the usher, “it’s more her fault than theirs. It was her who attached herself to him. All he did, he just chases after any woman. There’s five flats in this block alone where he’s been thrown out after working his way in there. And my wife is the best looking woman in the whole building, but it’s me who’s not even allowed to defend himself.” “If that’s how things are, then there’s nothing that can be done,” said K. “Well why not?” asked the usher. “He’s a coward that student, if he wants to lay a finger on my wife all you’d have to do is give him such a good hiding he’d never dare do it again. But I’m not allowed to do that, and nobody else is going to do me the favour as they’re all afraid of his power. The only one who could do it is a man like you.” “What, how could I do it?” asked K. in astonishment.

“Well you’re facing a charge, aren’t you,” said the usher. “Yes, but that’s all the more reason for me to be afraid. Even if he has no influence on the outcome of the trial he probably has some on the initial examination.” “Yes, exactly,” said the usher, as if K.’s view had been just as correct as his own. “Only we don’t usually get any trials heard here with no hope at all.” “I am not of the same opinion”, said K., “although that ought not to prevent me from dealing with the student if the opportunity arises.” “I would be very grateful to you,” said the usher of the court, somewhat formally, not really seeming to believe that his highest wish could be fulfilled. “Perhaps,” continued K., “perhaps there are some other officials of yours here, perhaps all of them, who would deserve the same.” “Oh yes, yes,” said the usher, as if this was a matter of course. Then he looked at K. trustingly which, despite all his friendliness, he had not done until then, and added, “they’re always rebelling.” But the conversation seemed to have become a little uncomfortable for him, as he broke it off by saying, “now I have to report to the office. Would you like to come with me?” “There’s nothing for me to do there,” said K.

“You’d be able to have a look at it. No-one will take any notice of you.” “Is it worth seeing then?” asked K. hesitatingly, although he felt very keen to go with him. “Well,” said the usher, “I thought you’d be interested in it.” “Alright then,” said K. finally, “I’ll come with you.” And, quicker than the usher himself, he ran up the steps. At the entrance he nearly fell over, as behind the door there was another step. “They don’t show much concern for the public,” he said. “They don’t show any concern at all,” said the usher, “just look at the waiting room here.” It consisted of a long corridor from which roughly made doors led out to the separate departments of the attic. There was no direct source of light but it was not entirely dark as many of the departments, instead of solid walls, had just wooden bars reaching up to the ceiling to separate them from the corridor. The light made its way in through them, and it was also possible to see individual officials through them as they sat writing at their desks or stood up at the wooden frameworks and watched the people on the corridor through the gaps. There were only a few people in the corridor, probably because it was Sunday. They were not very impressive. They sat, equally spaced, on two rows of long wooden benches which had been placed along both sides of the corridor. All of them were carelessly dressed although the expressions on their faces, their bearing, the style of their beards and many details which were hard to identify showed that they belonged to the upper classes. There were no coat hooks for them to use, and so they had placed their hats under the bench, each probably having followed the example of the others. When those who were sitting nearest the door saw K. and the usher of the court they stood up to greet them, and when the others saw that, they also thought they had to greet them, so that as the two of them went by all the people there stood up. None of them stood properly upright, their backs were bowed, their knees bent, they stood like beggars on the street. K. waited for the usher, who was following just behind him. “They must all be very dispirited,” he said. “Yes,” said the usher, “they are the accused, everyone you see here has been accused.” “Really!” said K. “They’re colleagues of mine then.” And he turned to the nearest one, a tall, thin man with hair that was nearly grey. “What is it you are waiting for here?” asked K., politely, but the man was startled at being spoken to unexpectedly, which was all the more pitiful to see because the man clearly had some experience of the world and elsewhere would certainly have been able to show his superiority and would not have easily given up the advantage he had acquired. Here, though, he did not know what answer to give to such a simple question and looked round at the others as if they were under some obligation to help him, and as if no-one could expect any answer from him without this help. Then the usher of the court stepped forward to him and, in order to calm him down and raise his spirits, said, “The gentleman here’s only asking what it is you’re waiting for. You can give him an answer.” The voice of the usher was probably familiar to him, and had a better effect than K.’s. “I’m … I’m waiting …” he began, and then came to a halt. He had clearly chosen this beginning so that he could give a precise answer to the question, but now he didn’t know how to continue. Some of the others waiting had come closer and stood round the group, the usher of the court said to them, “Get out the way, keep the gangway free.” They moved back slightly, but not as far as where they had been sitting before. In the meantime, the man whom K. had first approached had pulled himself together and even answered him with a smile.

“A month ago I made some applications for evidence to be heard in my case, and I’m waiting for it to be settled.” “You certainly seem to be going to a lot of effort,” said K. “Yes,” said the man, “it is my affair after all.” “Not everyone thinks the same way as you do,” said K. “I’ve been indicted as well but I swear on my soul that I’ve neither submitted evidence nor done anything else of the sort. Do you really think that’s necessary?” “I don’t really know, exactly,” said the man, once more totally unsure of himself; he clearly thought K. was joking with him and therefore probably thought it best to repeat his earlier answer in order to avoid making any new mistakes. With K. looking at him impatiently, he just said, “as far as I’m concerned, I’ve applied to have this evidence heard.” “Perhaps you don’t believe I’ve been indicted?” asked K. “Oh, please, I certainly do,” said the man, stepping slightly to one side, but there was more anxiety in his answer than belief. “You don’t believe me then?” asked K., and took hold of his arm, unconsciously prompted by the man’s humble demeanour, and as if he wanted to force him to believe him. But he did not want to hurt the man and had only taken hold of him very lightly. Nonetheless, the man cried out as if K. had grasped him not with two fingers but with red hot tongs. Shouting in this ridiculous way finally made K. tired of him, if he didn’t believe he was indicted then so much the better; maybe he even thought K. was a judge. And before leaving, he held him a lot harder, shoved him back onto the bench and walked on. “These defendants are so sensitive, most of them,” said the usher of the court. Almost all of those who had been waiting had now assembled around the man who, by now, had stopped shouting and they seemed to be asking him lots of precise questions about the incident. K. was approached by a security guard, identifiable mainly by his sword, of which the scabbard seemed to be made of aluminium. This greatly surprised K., and he reached out for it with his hand. The guard had come because of the shouting and asked what had been happening. The usher of the court said a few words to try and calm him down but the guard explained that he had to look into it himself, saluted, and hurried on, walking with very short steps, probably because of gout.

K. didn’t concern himself long with the guard or these people, especially as he saw a turning off the corridor, about half way along it on the right hand side, where there was no door to stop him going that way. He asked the usher whether that was the right way to go, the usher nodded, and that is the way that K. went. The usher remained always one or two steps behind K, which he found irritating as in a place like this it could give the impression that he was being driven along by someone who had arrested him, so he frequently waited for the usher to catch up, but the usher always remained behind him. In order to put an end to his discomfort, K. finally said, “Now that I’ve seen what it looks like here, I’d like to go.” “You haven’t seen everything yet,” said the usher ingenuously.

“I don’t want to see everything,” said K., who was also feeling very tired, “I want to go, what is the way to the exit?” “You haven’t got lost, have you?” asked the usher in amazement, “you go down this way to the corner, then right down the corridor straight ahead as far as the door.” “Come with me,” said K., “show me the way, I’ll miss it, there are so many different ways here.” “It’s the only way there is,” said the usher, who had now started to sound quite reproachful, “I can’t go back with you again, I’ve got to hand in my report, and I’ve already lost a lot of time because of you as it is.” “Come with me!” K. repeated, now somewhat sharper as if he had finally caught the usher out in a lie. “Don’t shout like that,” whispered the usher, “there’s offices all round us here. If you don’t want to go back by yourself come on a bit further with me or else wait here till I’ve sorted out my report, then I’ll be glad to go back with you again.” “No, no,” said K., “I will not wait and you must come with me now.” K. had still not looked round at anything at all in the room where he found himself, and it was only when one of the many wooden doors all around him opened that he noticed it. A young woman, probably summoned by the loudness of K.’s voice, entered and asked, “What is it the gentleman wants?” In the darkness behind her there was also a man approaching. K. looked at the usher. He had, after all, said that no-one would take any notice of K., and now there were two people coming, it only needed a few and everyone in the office would become aware of him and asking for explanations as to why he was there. The only understandable and acceptable thing to say was that he was accused of something and wanted to know the date of his next hearing, but this was an explanation he did not want to give, especially as it was not true – he had only come out of curiosity. Or else, an explanation even less usable, he could say that he wanted to ascertain that the court was as revolting on the inside as it was on the outside. And it did seem that he had been quite right in this supposition, he had no wish to intrude any deeper, he was disturbed enough by what he had seen already, he was not in the right frame of mind just then to face a high official such as might appear from behind any door, and he wanted to go, either with the usher of the court or, if needs be, alone.

But he must have seemed very odd standing there in silence, and the young woman and the usher were indeed looking at him as if they thought he would go through some major metamorphosis any second which they didn’t want to miss seeing. And in the doorway stood the man whom K. had noticed in the background earlier, he held firmly on to the beam above the low door swinging a little on the tips of his feet as if becoming impatient as he watched. But the young woman was the first to recognise that K.’s behaviour was caused by his feeling slightly unwell, she brought a chair and asked, “Would you not like to sit down?” K. sat down immediately and, in order to keep his place better, put his elbows on the armrests. “You’re a little bit dizzy, aren’t you?” she asked him. Her face was now close in front of him, it bore the severe expression that many young women have just when they’re in the bloom of their youth. “It’s nothing for you to worry about,” she said, “that’s nothing unusual here, almost everyone gets an attack like that the first time they come here. This is your first time is it? Yes, it’s nothing unusual then. The sun burns down on the roof and the hot wood makes the air so thick and heavy. It makes this place rather unsuitable for offices, whatever other advantages it might offer. But the air is almost impossible to breathe on days when there’s a lot of business, and that’s almost every day. And when you think that there’s a lot of washing put out to dry here as well – and we can’t stop the tenants doing that – it’s not surprising you started to feel unwell. But you get used to the air alright in the end. When you’re here for the second or third time you’ll hardly notice how oppressive the air is. Are you feeling any better now?” K. made no answer, he felt too embarrassed at being put at the mercy of these people by his sudden weakness, and learning the reason for feeling ill made him feel not better but a little worse. The girl noticed it straight away, and to make the air fresher for K., she took a window pole that was leaning against the wall and pushed open a small hatch directly above K.’s head that led to the outside. But so much soot fell in that the girl had to immediately close the hatch again and clean the soot off K.’s hands with her handkerchief, as K. was too tired to do that for himself. He would have liked just to sit quietly where he was until he had enough strength to leave, and the less fuss people made about him the sooner that would be. But then the girl said, “You can’t stay here, we’re in people’s way here …” K. looked at her as if to ask whose way they were impeding. “If you like, I can take you to the sick room,” and turning to the man in the doorway said, “please help me”. The man immediately came over to them, but K. did not want to go to the sick room, that was just what he wanted to avoid, being led further from place to place, the further he went the more difficult it must become. So he said, “I am able to walk now,” and stood up, shaking after becoming used to sitting so comfortably. But then he was unable to stay upright. “I can’t manage it,” he said shaking his head, and sat down again with a sigh. He remembered the usher who, despite everything, would have been able to lead him out of there but who seemed to have gone long before. K. looked out between the man and the young woman who were standing in front of him but was unable to find the usher. “I think,” said the man, who was elegantly dressed and whose appearance was made especially impressive with a grey waistcoat that had two long, sharply tailored points, “the gentleman is feeling unwell because of the atmosphere here, so the best thing, and what he would most prefer, would be not to take him to the sick room but get him out of the offices altogether.” “That’s right,” exclaimed K., with such joy that he nearly interrupted what the man was saying, “I’m sure that’ll make me feel better straight away, I’m really not that weak, all I need is a little support under my arms, I won’t cause you much trouble, it’s not such a long way anyway, lead me to the door and then I’ll sit on the stairs for a while and soon recover, as I don’t suffer from attacks like this at all, I’m surprised at it myself. I also work in an office and I’m quite used to office air, but here it seems to be too strong, you’ve said so yourselves. So please, be so kind as to help me on my way a little, I’m feeling dizzy, you see, and it’ll make me ill if I stand up by myself.” And with that he raised his shoulders to make it easier for the two of them to take him by the arms.

The man, however, didn’t follow this suggestion but just stood there with his hands in his trouser pockets and laughed out loud. “There, you see,” he said to the girl, “I was quite right. The gentleman is only unwell here, and not in general.” The young woman smiled too, but lightly tapped the man’s arm with the tips of her fingers as if he had allowed himself too much fun with K. “So what do you think, then?” said the man, still laughing, “I really do want to lead the gentleman out of here.” “That’s alright, then,” said the girl, briefly inclining her charming head. “Don’t worry too much about him laughing,” said the girl to K., who had become unhappy once more and stared quietly in front of himself as if needing no further explanation. “This gentleman – may I introduce you?” – (the man gave his permission with a wave of the hand) – “so, this gentleman’s job is to give out information. He gives all the information they need to people who are waiting, as our court and its offices are not very well known among the public he gets asked for quite a lot. He has an answer for every question, you can try him out if you feel like it. But that’s not his only distinction, his other distinction is his elegance of dress. We, that’s to say all of us who work in the offices here, we decided that the information-giver would have to be elegantly dressed as he continually has to deal with the litigants and he’s the first one they meet, so he needs to give a dignified first impression. The rest of us I’m afraid, as you can see just by looking at me, dress very badly and old-fashioned; and there’s not much point in spending much on clothes anyway, as we hardly ever leave the offices, we even sleep here. But, as I said, we decided that the information-giver would have to have nice clothes. As the management here is rather peculiar in this respect, and they would get them for us, we had a collection – some of the litigants contributed too – and bought him these lovely clothes and some others besides. So everything would be ready for him to give a good impression, except that he spoils it again by laughing and frightening people.” “That’s how it is,” said the man, mocking her, “but I don’t understand why it is that you’re explaining all our intimate facts to the gentleman, or rather why it is that you’re pressing them on him, as I’m sure he’s not all interested. Just look at him sitting there, it’s clear he’s occupied with his own affairs.” K. just did not feel like contradicting him.. The girl’s intention may have been good, perhaps she was under instructions to distract him or to give him the chance to collect himself, but the attempt had not worked. “I had to explain to him why you were laughing,” said the girl. “I suppose it was insulting.” “I think he would forgive even worse insults if I finally took him outside.” K. said nothing, did not even look up, he tolerated the two of them negotiating over him like an object, that was even what suited him best. But suddenly he felt the information-giver’s hand on one arm and the young woman’s hand on the other. “Up you get then, weakling,” said the information-giver. “Thank you both very much,” said K., pleasantly surprised, as he slowly rose and personally guided these unfamiliar hands to the places where he most needed support. As they approached the corridor, the girl said quietly into K.’s ear, “I must seem to think it’s very important to show the information-giver in a good light, but you shouldn’t doubt what I say, I just want to say the truth. He isn’t hard-hearted. It’s not really his job to help litigants outside if they’re unwell but he’s doing it anyway, as you can see. I don’t suppose any of us is hard-hearted, perhaps we’d all like to be helpful, but working for the court offices it’s easy for us to give the impression we are hard-hearted and don’t want to help anyone. It makes me quite sad.” “Would you not like to sit down here a while?” asked the information-giver, there were already in the corridor and just in front of the defendant whom K. had spoken to earlier. K. felt almost ashamed to be seen by him, earlier he had stood so upright in front of him and now he had to be supported by two others, his hat was held up by the information-giver balanced on outstretched fingers, his hair was dishevelled and hung down onto the sweat on his forehead. But the defendant seemed to notice nothing of what was going on and just stood there humbly, as if wanting to apologise to the information-giver for being there. The information-giver looked past him. “I know,” he said, “that my case can’t be settled today, not yet, but I’ve come in anyway, I thought, I thought I could wait here anyway, it’s Sunday today, I’ve got plenty of time, and I’m not disturbing anyone here.” “There’s no need to be so apologetic,” said the information-giver, “it’s very commendable for you to be so attentive. You are taking up space here when you don’t need to but as long as you don’t get in my way I will do nothing to stop you following the progress of your case as closely as you like. When one has seen so many people who shamefully neglect their cases one learns to show patience with people like you. Do sit down.” “He’s very good with the litigants,” whispered the girl. K. nodded, but started to move off again when the information-giver repeated, “Would you not like to sit down here a while?” “No,” said K., “I don’t want to rest.” He had said that as decisively as he could, but in fact it would have done him a lot of good to sit down. It was as if he were suffering sea-sickness. He felt as if he were on a ship in a rough sea, as if the water were hitting against the wooden walls, a thundering from the depths of the corridor as if the torrent were crashing over it, as if the corridor were swaying and the waiting litigants on each side of it rising and sinking. It made the calmness of the girl and the man leading him all the more incomprehensible. He was at their mercy, if they let go of him he would fall like a board. Their little eyes glanced here and there, K. could feel the evenness of their steps but could not do the same, as from step to step he was virtually being carried. He finally noticed they were speaking to him but he did not understand them, all he heard was a noise that filled all the space and through which there seemed to be an unchanging higher note sounding, like a siren. “Louder,” he whispered with his head sunk low, ashamed at having to ask them to speak louder when he knew they had spoken loudly enough, even if it had been, for him, incomprehensible. At last, a draught of cool air blew in his face as if a gap had been torn out in the wall in front of him, and next to him he heard someone say, “First he says he wants to go, and then you can tell him a hundred times that this is the way out and he doesn’t move.” K. became aware that he was standing in front of the way out, and that the young woman had opened the door. It seemed to him that all his strength returned to him at once, and to get a foretaste of freedom he stepped straight on to one of the stairs and took his leave there of his companions, who bowed to him.

“Thank you very much,” he repeated, shook their hands once more and did not let go until he thought he saw that they found it hard to bear the comparatively fresh air from the stairway after being so long used to the air in the offices. They were hardly able to reply, and the young woman might even have fallen over if K. had not shut the door extremely fast. K. then stood still for a while, combed his hair with the help of a pocket mirror, picked up his hat from the next stair – the information-giver must have thrown it down there – and then he ran down the steps so fresh and in such long leaps that the contrast with his previous state nearly frightened him. His normally sturdy state of health had never prepared him for surprises such as this. Did his body want to revolt and cause him a new trial as he was bearing the old one with such little effort? He did not quite reject the idea that he should see a doctor the next time he had the chance, but whatever he did and this was something on which he could advise himself – he wanted to spend all Sunday mornings in future better than he had spent this one.

New York Times

Steven Erlanger

PARIS — A United Nations human rights official, investigating practices at Guantánamo Bay, has concluded that evidence obtained from the interrogations there is tainted and that foreign law enforcement and intelligence officials who took part in those interrogations violated their legal obligation to reject the use of torture and arbitrary detention.

The official, Martin Scheinin, is the special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, an unpaid position created in 2005 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

“When evidence is obtained through cruel and inhumane treatment, we will be faced with situations where the courts decide they don’t have proper evidence,” Mr. Scheinin said in a telephone interview. “There may be suspicions of terrorism, but evidence is tainted, so courts have only one option, to drop the case. They should have thought about that from the beginning, but didn’t.”

Mr. Scheinin, who visited the detention center at Guantánamo in December 2007, published a report on Friday criticizing foreign governments that took part in the Guantánamo interrogations or condoned them while using the intelligence obtained. The document, first reported in The Washington Post on Friday, is nonbinding. It will be discussed with member states at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 10.

The United States military has allowed intelligence and law enforcement officials from more than a dozen countries to interrogate Guantánamo inmates, Mr. Scheinin said. Those countries — including France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain and Jordan — and many other agencies have provided questions for American interrogators to ask. Some detainees “were interrogated under torture in other countries before reaching Guantánamo,” said Mr. Scheinin, citing Western agents who questioned detainees in Pakistan.

While President Obama signed an executive order in January to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year, the Pentagon has regularly said that prisoners are treated in accordance with international law and are not tortured. But the detainees in general were kept without being charged or tried.

“Guantánamo is not primarily for investigation, but for the gathering of intelligence,” Mr. Scheinin said.

The harshest part of the report accuses Western states of aiding or being complicit in torture. “The active participation by a state through the sending of interrogators or questions, or even the mere presence of intelligence personnel at an interview with a person who is being held in places where he is tortured or subject to other inhuman treatment, can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture,” Mr. Scheinin says in his report. “States must introduce safeguards preventing intelligence agencies from making use of such intelligence.”

He cited the prospect of Guantánamo’s closing as “the pendulum swinging back,” but said national governments should investigate their involvement to make better rules and strengthen oversight of intelligence agencies.

a or a schoolboy the back lighting enables one to pick out from the central tower the little captive silhouettes in the ring of cells in short the principle of the dungeon is reversed daylight and the overseer’s gaze capture the more effectively than darkness which afforded after all a sort of protection there is no need for arms physical violence material constraints just a gaze an inspecting gaze a gaze which each individual under its weight will end by interiorisation to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual thus exercising this surveillance over and against himself a superb formula power exercised continuously and for what turns out to be minimal cost mirror with memory memory without a mirror if instead of being hanged by the neck you’re thrown inside for not giving up hope in the world your country and people like a stone at the bottom of a well four o’clock no you no six seven tomorrow the day after and maybe who knows I love my country I have swung on its plane trees I have stayed in its prisons nailed to the sky this is the price and the promise of citizenship for as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the and of the people upon which this nation relies these things are true they have been the quiet force of throughout our infernal possessing now neither the quality nor the quantity of humanity labyrinth of thoughts empty labyrinths madness as a domain of knowledge at each stage of his imprisonment he had known or seemed to know whereabouts he was in the windowless building possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure the cells where the guards had beaten him were below ground level the room where he had been interrogated by was high up near the roof this place was many metres underground as deep down as it was possible to go (con)naissance extraordinary rendition I have seen hell labyrinth of blindness and is god innocent innocuous innocent malignant malicious I never borrowed a kettle from you blind eyewitness I returned it to you intact the kettle was already broken when I got it from you under the snow and lava a swimming pool with no bottom let flowing water bring to you the king is but an earthen bowl on the potter’s shelf and victories are told on the ruined walls of the king of kings I carved your name on my watchband with my fingernail where I am you know imprison in prison inprison I don’t have a pearl-handled jackknife they won’t give us anything sharp two gentlemen meet on a train and one is struck by the extraordinary package being carried by the other he asks his companion what is in that unusual package you are carrying there prisoner a prisoner B screen memory the other man replies that is a macguffin what is a macguffin asks the first man the second says a macguffin is a device used for killing leopards in the scottish highlands naturally the first man says but there are no leopards in the scottish highlands well says the second then that’s not a macguffin is it world’s embrace blind witness omnipresent omniscient a prison where the walls are made of glass the guards are watching the inmates, the inmates are watching the guards a dark room single bright lamp in the middle a chair underneath interrogation/inter-rogation/interrelation dis-closure carrying the sky entropy what does solitude taste like pure presence is fetish in a wilderness of mirrors what do you look at subversive mirror simpl(ifi)e(d) drinking emptiness symbol of wholeness I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh because its wounds are not upon the surface and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear therefore the more I denounce it as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay art ceases to be based on ritual and begins to be based on another practice politics the worst thing in the world said varies from individual to individual it may be burial alive or death by fire or by drowning or by impalement or fifty other deaths there are cases where it is some quite trivial thing not even fatal dark moments, such as everyone has when you think you’ve achieved nothing at all when it seems that the only trials to come to a good end are those that were determined to have a good end from the start and would do so without any help while all the others are lost despite all the running to and fro, all the effort, all the little, apparent successes that gave such joy

New York Times

Sheryl Gay Stolberg

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — President Bush said Wednesday that 14 high-profile terror suspects held secretly until now by the Central Intelligence Agency — including the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks — had been transferred to the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to face military tribunals if Congress approves.

The suspects include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, thought to be the Sept. 11 mastermind, and other close associates of Osama bin Laden. Mr. Bush said he had decided to “bring them into the open” after years in which the C.I.A. held them without charges in undisclosed sites abroad, in a program the White House had not previously acknowledged.

The announcement, in the East Room of the White House, was the first time the president had discussed the secret C.I.A. program, and he made clear that he had fully authorized it. Mr. Bush defended the treatment the suspects had received but would not say where the so-called “high-value terrorist detainees” had been held or what techniques had been used to extract information from them.

The transfer of the high-level suspects to Guantánamo Bay effectively suspended the extraordinary program, in which the intelligence agency became the jailer and interrogator of suspects counterterrorism officials considered the world’s most wanted Islamic extremists.

The government says the 14 terror suspects include some of the most senior members of Al Qaeda captured by the United States since 2001, including those responsible for the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Most of the detainees have been interviewed extensively and are believed to have little remaining intelligence value.

With the transfer of the suspects to Guantánamo, which is run by the Defense Department, the International Committee of the Red Cross will monitor their treatment, Mr. Bush said. He used the East Room appearance to urge Congress to authorize new military commissions to put terror suspects on trial, replacing rules established by the administration but struck down in June by the Supreme Court.

“As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, can face justice,” Mr. Bush said, to an audience that included family members of the victims. He added, “To start the process for bringing them to trial, we must bring them out into the open.”

To that end, the president sent Congress legislation proposing new rules for the commissions and detailing specific standards for the humane treatment of detainees. Yet the proposal hews closely to the old commission model, and it retains several provisions the court found troublesome, including language that permits defendants to be excluded from their own trials.

At the same time, the Pentagon released a new Army Field Manual that lays out permissible interrogation techniques and specifically bans eight methods that have come up in abuse cases. Among the techniques banned is water-boarding, in which a wet rag is forced down a bound prisoner’s throat to cause gagging; intelligence officials have said Mr. Mohammed was subjected to that treatment while in C.I.A. custody.

Although the C.I.A. has faced criticism over the use of harsh techniques, one senior intelligence official said detainees had not been mistreated. They were given dental and vision care as well as the Koran, prayer rugs and clocks to schedule prayers, the official said. They were also given reading material, DVD’s and access to exercise equipment.

Administration officials said the timing of Mr. Bush’s decision to bring the terror suspects to trial was driven not by politics but by the need to respond to the Supreme Court’s decision and the fact that the suspects were no longer regarded as sources of valuable intelligence.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans reacted warily. But even those who criticized the proposal said it was imperative for Congress to pass legislation setting up tribunals soon.

“I do not believe it is necessary to have a trial where the accused cannot see the evidence against them,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a former military prosecutor who has played a central role in the debate. But Mr. Graham said he believed his differences with the White House “can be overcome.”

Mr. Bush’s speech was the third in a series he is delivering on the war on terror in the days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it carried potential political benefits for a White House that is intent on maintaining Republican control of Congress this November.

The address helped put a face on the enemy, reminding Americans that while Osama bin Laden — to whom Mr. Bush referred repeatedly in a speech on Tuesday — is still at large, many terrorists have been captured. Five years after the attacks, Mr. Bush gave the families of Sept. 11 victims something to cheer about, and those in the audience did, as he announced he wanted to put the suspects on trial.

By moving the high-profile suspects to Guantánamo just two months before the midterm elections, the administration is putting intense pressure on lawmakers to act before adjourning to campaign. If Democrats try to thwart legislation to try senior members of Al Qaeda, they will risk being labeled weak on national security, a label they can ill afford in an election that may turn on the question of which party is better suited to keep Americans safe.

“This is certainly a logical and very sound step both substantively and politically,” said David Rivkin, who served in the White House counsel’s office under the first President Bush and is sympathetic to this administration’s approach. “It’s reminding the country and the world of the folks we are fighting against. Nobody can say these are just pitiful foot soldiers; these are pretty senior guys.”

The C.I.A. program, though officially a secret, has been the subject of numerous news reports in recent months. By speaking publicly about it for the first time, Mr. Bush hopes to build support for it on Capitol Hill, and in the public.

The White House released biographies of the 14 suspects and details of the accusations against them. They include such well-known Qaeda operatives as Abu Zubaydah, who the administration said was trying to organize a terrorist attack in Israel at the time of his capture, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who the authorities say helped facilitate the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite the new information, human rights organizations were critical of Mr. Bush’s announcement.

“It’s wonderful that at last the United States has acknowledged that these detention sites exist,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. But Mr. Cox described the program as “a form of torture,” and said the United States should suspend it.

In his speech, Mr. Bush fiercely resisted that characterization. “I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world,” he said. “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it — and I will not authorize it.”

A senior intelligence official said there had been fewer than 100 detainees in the C.I.A. program since its inception shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Beyond the 14, the remainder have either been turned over to the Defense Department as so-called unlawful enemy combatants, returned to their countries of origin or sent to nations that have legal proceedings against them.

The official described the C.I.A. detainees as the government’s “single largest source of insight into Al Qaeda,” saying they accounted for 50 percent of everything the authorities had learned about the terrorist network. But, he said, “Some of these people have been held for a considerable period of time, and their intelligence value has aged off.”

Mr. Bush said the C.I.A. would not relinquish its capability to detain and question terrorism suspects, and the senior intelligence official said the administration intended that the program would continue. But agency officials — who feared employees might be subject to lawsuits or criminal prosecution — welcomed the hand-off of the detainees and the prospect that the C.I.A.’s role would be limited in future cases.

“I am confident that this will be greeted with relief by agency employees,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel for the C.I.A. “Many of them were uncomfortable with their role as jailers.”

Military justice experts say that if Congress passes the legislation, trials of some terror suspects at Guantánamo could begin relatively quickly, in three to four months. But the trials of the 14 high-value suspects, who are held in a special high-security facility separate from other detainees, might not begin for at least a year, because the government would have to build its case .

One expert who has been critical of the administration’s plan, Eugene R. Fidell, predicted that the proposal would attract a lawsuit.

“Going the way they have done this is in fact quite unfair to the very families of 9/11 victims who President Bush had at his meeting today,” Mr. Fidell said, “because those people need closure and in fact what he’s done is guarantee further protracted delay because of the inevitable litigation.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats were also critical. Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Bush should have disclosed the program years ago and called his speech “the opening salvo in the fall campaign.”

David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting for this article.