Old Stories with New Lives

Here's another good piece.

Rather: Former detainee says torture still going on at Gitmo

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Raw Story
Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor who now hosts a news magazine on cable channel HDNet, has done a documentary on a former Guantanamo prisoner who says he was tortured for years before being released two weeks ago.

Lakhdar Boumediene has charged that he was interrogated for sixteen straight nights in 2003 and that he was force-fed through a nasal tube for over two years after he went on a hunger strike. He also described to Rather’s interviewer how he was made to run with shackles on his legs until they were bloody in order to soften him up.

According to the New York Observer, Rather describes the interview as “packed with details about Mr. Boumediene’s alleged torture — from intravenous needles being jammed into his arms to stories of soldiers snapping photos of the inmate’s painful transport to the detention center.”

However, Boumediene’s most controversial claim is that torture is still going on despite the change in administrations. “Nothing change in Guantanamo,” he told the interviewer. “They torture me in the Obama time more than Bush.”

“How credible do you find his allegations?” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked Rather on Tuesday.

“When you’re in his presence, when you see the interview, he seems believable,” Rather replied. He added, however, that the admiral who’s been in charge of Guantanamo for the last year “says, ‘Listen, this is untrue. These things are not still going on.’”

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Rather also pointed out that when Boumediene says he was tortured recently, he is not referring to interrogation but to the force-feeding, which he believes was deliberately made “as painful and uncomfortable as possible.” Boumediene also believes that once the guards knew he had been ordered released for lack of evidence, some of them were looking for an opportunity to “take their last shots.”

Rather insisted, however, that we have to take Boumediene’s central point seriously, that “the US government has lied about the depths of the torture, how much it happened, and the fact — from his viewpoint — that some of it’s still going on.”

Maddow also asked Rather whether he thinks the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is effectively taking Guantanamo’s place.

Rather acknowledged that “there is a school of thought” which believes that to be the case. “We don’t know much about what goes on there,” he explained, pointing out that prisoners have been brought to Bagram from other countries and that “some of the contentions that were made about Guantanamo are starting to be made about Bagram. … The critical thing is, there is no transparency.”

Maddow concluded by asking Rather what he believes is motivating former Vice President Dick Cheney in his high-profile defense of torture. In response, Rather cited Cheney’s concern for the Bush administration’s legacy, his playing to the Republican base, and that “he really believes what he is saying.”

“The fourth thing,” Rather added, “and I could be wrong about this, I think he really detests President Obama, his policies, and everything he stands for.”

Rather noted that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said “nothing … and for that matter, neither has President Bush, which indicates that they clearly think that the tactics that Vice President Cheney is using are not the right ones.” Rather admitted, however, that “whether one likes it or not, I think he’s had some effect.”

This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast June 2, 2009