Rational Grounds

Let's take the Washington Post first. The headline claims that the tactics used at Abu Ghraib were first used at Gitmo - not news to me, but I suppose someone who hadn't been paying attention might be surprised. Is the headline backed up by the story?

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Sounds about right to me. They do good follow-up as well, putting it in context and reminding us why this is important:

The report's findings are the strongest indication yet that the abusive practices seen in photographs at Abu Ghraib were not the invention of a small group of thrill-seeking military police officers. [...]

The investigation also supports the idea that soldiers believed that placing hoods on detainees, forcing them to appear nude in front of women and sexually humiliating them were approved interrogation techniques for use on detainees. [...]

[Gen. Geoffrey] Miller [CO at Gitmo] traveled to Iraq in September 2003 to assist in Abu Ghraib's startup, and he later sent in "Tiger Teams" of Guantanamo Bay interrogators and analysts as advisers and trainers. Within weeks of his departure from Abu Ghraib, military working dogs were being used in interrogations, and naked detainees were humiliated and abused by military police soldiers working the night shift. [...]

The investigation at Guantanamo Bay looked into 26 allegations by FBI personnel that military interrogators had mistreated detainees. It found that almost all the tactics were "authorized" interrogation methods and by definition were not abusive.

Investigators found only three instances of substantiated abuse, including short-shackling detainees to the floor in awkward positions, the use of duct tape to keep a detainee quiet, and a threat by military interrogators to kill a detainee and his family.

That last excerpt makes a strange distinction. From my reading, it sounds like most of the FBI allegations of abuse were discounted not because the tactics weren't used or weren't "abusive" in our sense of the term, but because they were "authorized" and thus not abusive by definition. If someone can show that I'm misinterpreting, I'd love to hear from you.

Turning now to the New York Times coverage, recall their headline: "Report Discredits F.B.I. Claims of Abuse at Guantánamo Bay." Is that backed up?

A high-level military investigation into complaints by F.B.I. agents about the abuse of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, concluded in a report released Wednesday that their treatment was sometimes degrading but did not qualify as inhumane or as torture.

Right, right. Clearly, the FBI is way off-base...

In the messages, the agents complained that they had seen abusive, possibly illegal behavior by military interrogators. They spoke of "torture techniques" and described detainees forced into uncomfortable positions for 18 to 24 hours at a time or left to soil themselves.

General Schmidt told the committee that his investigation could not substantiate some of the F.B.I. accusations. His report said that some of the practices that evoked criticism among the F.B.I. agents were approved interrogation techniques, like stripping detainees, forcing one to wear women's lingerie and wiping red ink on a detainee and telling him it was menstrual blood.

Um. Well, that seems much more questionable. First off, we have some of the allegations backed up, not discredited. Depending on what "could not substantiate" means (a polite way of saying, "You're wrong," or a straightforward way of saying, "We couldn't determine one way or another?") the headline is either misleading or blatantly wrong. Can we get some clarification on those other allegations?

General Schmidt said that an accusation by an F.B.I. agent that detainees were deprived of food and water as part of an interrogation regimen could not be substantiated. He said the agent was difficult to find and was therefore not questioned by his staff. Similarly, he said that about 10 former interrogators could not be questioned as they were no longer in the military and declined to answer questions voluntarily.

The report also said investigators could not corroborate an incident recounted by an F.B.I. agent who said she saw a detainee shackled to the floor for hours, soiling himself and pulling out his hair.

Ah, okay - "can't determine one way or another." The FBI allegations aren't discredited by this report, they're partially substantiated. So the New York Times is basically full of shit, headline-wise.

Remember boys and girls, just because you looked at a newspaper today doesn't mean you're informed. Read the Whole Thing.