I am sending the following letter to my Representative in Congress. I will send similar letters to my Senators Lugar and Bayh. I am still working to develop contacts close enough to Governor Bill Richardson that I can send this information to him with some realistic hope that he will bring it into the political conversation. I don't know if it will be politically useful for him in his bid for the Democratic nomination - but I hope he can put it to good use.
I will append in the comments some of the text from the FBI reports and later from the Seton Hall documents. Simply put, this is an unbelievable outrage and if we are to maintain even the slightest pretense of civilization, not to mention virtue or moral courage, we must put a stop to this. My letter to Representative Carson follows. I will drop it in the mail tomorrow morning.
Honorable Julia Carson, Member of Congress
Julia M. Carson Government Center
300 East Fall Creek Pkwy N Dr, #300
Indianapolis IN 46205
Dear Representative Carson:
I am deeply concerned about the treatment of foreign prisoners in our custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and other places around the world. While watching CSPAN, I saw a lawyer who represented some of these prisoners reading from a released FBI document that described the torture of these prisoners witnessed by an FBI field agent.
If our government can treat any humans in this way, it is only a heartbeat away from using torture on our own citizens. When I heard of people from foreign countries chained in a fetal position, soaked in their own urine and subjected to loud rap music and extreme temperatures for hours, I was deeply sickened to think that my government could do this. There is simply no justification or excuse for this kind of barbarity.
I am sending you a few of these documents. Your staff can obtain these and more from the defense team at Spriggs and Hollingsworth, law partners in Washington DC, and thereby feel more comfortable about their authenticity. The lawyer I received these from is George Brent Mickum, IV, Partner (bmickum@spriggs.com).
Everyone else in the world knows we are doing this. There is no denying it. Our own FBI agents are writing about it in official documents. This is an outrage that no Christian people can tolerate. Please do something.
Thank you for your long and outstanding service to the people of Indiana and the United States.
rbs
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I am transcribing part of one of the FBI documents that Brent Mickum sent me. I haven’t figured out a way to make the .pdf file easily accessible from my blog, so for the moment I am offering to e-mail this and all other documents that Brent sent me to anyone who requests them.
This document looks like it was faxed a few times before being scanned and saved as a .pdf. There are a lot of redactions, including the name of the FBI agent and the office of origin. It looks like an official government document and I have heard not only Brent Mickum but also the current president of Amnesty International USA reading from it on CSPAN. I do not doubt its authenticity. Text follows. I am not correcting the spelling or grammar:
As requested, here is a brief summary of what I observed at GTMO
On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained and and foot in a fetal position on the floor, with no chair, food, or water Most times they had urinated or defacated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 - 24 hours or more On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold When I asked the MP’s what was going on, I was told that interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved On another occassion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees The detainee was almost unconcious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night On another occassion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely lout rap music was being played inthe room, and had been since the day before with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor
Any questions, feel free to call or ask via email [redacted]
[next document]
From: [redacted]
To: Bald, Gary, BATTLE, FRANKIE, CUMMINGS, ARTHUR, ...
Date: Fri, Dec 5, 2003 9:53 AM
Subject: Fwd: Impersonating FBI at GTMO
Frank [redacted]
I am forwarding this EC up the CTD chain of command. MLDU requested this information be documented to protect the FBI. MLDU has had a long standing and documented position against use of some of DID’s interrogation practices, however, we were not aware of these latest techniques until recently.
Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that [redacted] These same interrogation teams then [redacted] The detainee was also told by this interrogation team [long redaction]
These tactis have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee.
If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done by the “FBI” interrogators. The FBI will be left holding the bag before the public.
SSA [redacted]
CTD/MLDU
{I have a lot more - will e-mail it to you at request or you can get them from the defense team at Spriggs & Hollingsworth, DC}
rbs
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