The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib [Hardcover]

Karen J. Greenberg (Editor), Joshua L. Dratel (Editor), Anthony Lewis (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0521853249 | ISBN-13: 978-0521853248 | Edition: First Edition

The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Bush administration officials and top military brass continue to maintain that the well-documented abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib were the isolated actions of a few rogue guards. Not so, say the editors of this book. Greenberg is the executive director of the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, and Dratel is a prominent defense attorney currently assisting in the defense of detainees at the Guantanamo base in Cuba. As their introductory essays make clear, they believe the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the claimed abuses at Guantanamo are the direct result of administration policies. They do not prove their case conclusively, but their compilation of administration documents is still riveting, chilling, and infuriating. They clearly reveal that, at the highest levels, the Bush administration sought legal justification to circumvent both the Geneva Convention and other international accepted norms regarding the interrogation and treatment of military detainees. We have top Justice Department officials claiming "non-state actors" are not protected by the Geneva Convention. We have Department of Defense officials approving "non-injurious physical contact," which, of course, opens the door to a wide variety of abusive and degrading practices. This vitally important book reminds us that the pursuit of intelligence by "unorthodox" means is a dangerous and slippery slope. Jay Freeman
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Review

"The book is necessary, if grueling, reading for anyone interested in understanding these wartime prison abuses." -Register-Guard

"It will chill your bones." -Village Voice

"The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib thoroughly documents repeated and shocking perversions of justice. The torture of prisoners became standard practice as the internationally accepted tenets of the Geneva Convention were bypassed and ignored. This is not a collection of complex legalese but pages where a clear episodic story unfolds free of bias and spin. The documents and their authors speak for themselves; key individuals approved torture as a coercive interrogation technique while others, namely Secretary of State Colin Powell, strongly opposed it. This is required reading for everyone concerned with fairness, justice, and difficult choices made under the pressures of our post 9/11 world." -Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union

"The Torture Papers may well be the most important and damning set of documents exposing U.S. government lawlessness ever published. Each page tells the story of U.S. leaders consciously willing to ignore the fundamental protections that guarantee all of us our humanity. I fear for our future. Read these pages and weep for our country, the rule of law and victims of torture everywhere." -Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights

"The minutely detailed chronological narrative embodied in this volume..possesses an awful and powerful cumulative weight.[...]The book is necessary, if grueling, reading for anyone interested in understanding the back story to those terrible photos from Saddam Hussein's former prison, and abuses at other American detention facilities." -New York Times Book Review

"This vitally important book reminds us that the pursuit of intelligence by "unorthodox" means is a dangerous and slippery slope." - Booklist (starred review)

"This is a commendable, timely, and useful collection of key documents. The material goes far in helping us to understand the logic and advice that led to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. From awful advice spring awful events." - Philippe Sands QC is a practising barrister in the Matrix Chambers and a professor of international law at University College London. He is the author of Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules.

"Not since the Pentagon Papers have we seen such an important set of classified documents as the memoranda, reports and orders on detention and interrogation that began emerging into public view in the United States. Cambridge University Press is serving an important need in providing these papers in one authoritative and well-organized collection." - Mary Ellen O'Connell, William B. Saxbe Designated Professor of Law & Fellow of the Mershon Center for International Security, The Ohio State University

"With this superb collection of documents, we can begin to see the contours of our new post 9-11 world: from the reinterpretation of laws and treaties that once seemed immutable, to the pressure on soldiers and CIA officers in the field to set aside old rules in the hunt for useable intelligence. The papers speak for themselves and readers can decide whether the trade-offs are worth it or not." - Dana Priest, National Security Reporter, The Washington Post.

" The Torture Papers then, is no historical artifact. It's why we do what we're (still) doing. It's a monument to denial, arrogance and hypocrisy. It's why they hate us. " - Ted Rall, San Diego Union-Tribune

"Let us hope this book will have a wide readership and will embolden our supine mass media to engage in more research and expose the machinations of the far-right Republicans and their allies." -Political Affairs, Thomas Riggins

"...this should interest the new secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the indispensable 1,249-page thoroughly documented "The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib" (Cambridge University Press) adds that our State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices "have expressly characterized as 'torture' or 'other abuse' tying detainees in painful positions; incommunicado detention; depriving detainees of sleep ... long periods of imprisonment in darkened rooms ... and instilling detainees with the false belief that they are about to be killed."
--Nat Hentoff, WorldNetDaily Commentary

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1284 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; First Edition edition (January 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521853249
• ISBN-13: 978-0521853248
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 2.8 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The slide into a rightist nightmare February 3, 2005

By John C. Landon

Format:Hardcover

This exceedingly important book documents the incremental slide into justifying the use of torture by the United States government and is a shocking depiction of just how easily and swiftly the downfall can occur. The various lawyers are shown being pumped for the legal grounds, in case of exposure. The assault on the Geneva Convention is depicted, and it seems the figures involved can't grasp the ominous implications, and don't want to. Their minds are made up. The dates of the various key memos begin shortly after 9/11 and show the onset and then its downhill all the way. It seems that with this administration it was an accident waiting to happen, and the excuse of 9/11 triggered a monster lurking in the predispositions of the Bush regime. This is a massive tome of nearly a thousand pages large size, but is extremely well done, and clear for all its detail. The record now speaks for itself and we have ample proof of the mindset of the Bush gang in action.

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A recorded history of sadism, incompetence, and cowardice March 12, 2005

By Dr. Lee D. Carlson HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The editors of this book have done a fine job, and the publisher should be commended for bringing this sizable collection to print. Due to the size of the book, long periods of time would be required to read all of the memorandums in it. A great deal of information can be gained however from the perusal of even a small number of these memorandums. They give an inside view of the workings of a collection of individuals who are far from the combat sands of Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose goal is to make sure that they will be insulated from any legal consequences of their actions and recommendations. Joshua L. Dratel, one of the editors of the book, states this clearly when he asserts that the implicit message in the memoranda is that the policy makers who wrote them actually detest the American system of justice and find it impractical as a tool for fighting terrorism. This reviewer is in full agreement with Dratel's commentary. Indeed, the memoranda definitely support the notion that its authors consider it axiomatic that the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, and other bodies of law are impotent in the face of international terrorism. They have let the events of 9/11 lower considerably their confidence in rational, legal procedures for the resolution of conflicts. Dratel states it concisely and correctly when he states that the events of 9/11 `cannot serve as a license - for our government in its policies, or for ourselves in our personal approach to grave problems - to suspend our constitutional heritage, our core values as a nation, or the behavioral standards that mark a civilized and humane society....'

Some insight, however limited, can be gained from Memo 11, which is one of the memorandums that Bush put forward regarding the treatment of detainees and the prisoner-of-war status of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. After reading Memo 11, the question immediately arises: Why did the memorandums and discussion continue even after Memo 11 (the Bush memorandum to the Vice President, et al)? After all, in this memo, Bush explicitly states that the Geneva provisions do not legally cover Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But Bush emphasizes that even though he accepts the legal conclusions of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice regarding the inapplicability of the Geneva convention to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and that he therefore has the "authority under the Constitution" to suspend Geneva, he nevertheless decides to "decline to exercise that authority." However, Bush is careful to note that he "reserves the right" to exercise this authority in future conflicts. In addition, he orders that detainees be treated humanely, according to the principles of Geneva, "including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment." Thus it appears that any further legal argumentation by anyone in the administration regarding the use of torture should be viewed as purely academic. But as this book clearly shows, there was still much discussion on these matters after Memo 11 was sent (February 7, 2002). The need for further discussion is not clear even after reading the memorandums that were sent between various individuals after Memo 11.

Torture has been practiced by many different individuals, political and religious groups, and regimes throughout history. Whether it is the Catholic Church in the Inquisition, the Chinese government under Mao ZeDong, or American military personnel in Iraq, the practice of torture is not exclusive to "leftist" or "rightist" political groups. The use of torture though to gain information is an implicit admission of the inability to collect real intelligence, either because of laziness or incompetence. Those individuals who practice torture for this reason no doubt understand this. They fully understand that torture is useless in gaining helpful information from prisoners. Therefore their decision to engage in the torture of prisoners is no doubt a result of their sadistic nature, which can be brought out not only in the theatre of war but also under the protection of religious and governmental institutions. These institutions, despicable and contemptible as they are, deserve every legal penalty available against them. Of course, legal penalties presuppose the existence of institutions that have the legal authority to carry them out. Considering the status and jurisdiction of international law in the last few years, the number of these institutions is in rapid decline, leaving the practical application of torture open to any country that desires to carry it out. Read more ›

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Valuable Compilation March 2, 2005

By C. Williamson

Format:Hardcover

Karen Greenberg, Joshua Dratel and the Cambridge University Press have produced a valuable resource for anyone interested in the controversy surrounding the United States' detention and interrogation of terrorists, suspected terrorists and other combatants in the War on Terror.

The introduction by Anthony Lewis and essays by Ms. Greenberg and Mr. Dratel argue that the memorandums, legal briefs, reports and interviews compiled in this volume conclusively prove President Bush and his administration systematically sought to circumvent US and international laws, conventions and treaties, with the ultimate goal of actively sanctioning and engaging in activities that any reasonable person would view as torture. As stated in the preface, "...this volume document[s] the systematic attempt...to authorize the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law..." While strictly true, this statement is also misleading. It's clear that some of the interrogation techniques extensively documented and admitted by the military and administration violate some "international" laws, such as human rights conventions adopted by the member states of the European Union. That these techniques violate international treaties and conventions to which the US is signatory is somewhat less clear. This book provides no new information to bring that debate to a close, although the documents will reinforce the opinions of those driven by ideology to the presumption of guilt.

Messrs. Lewis' and Dratel's essays are direct and somewhat vitriolic in their criticism. Mr. Lewis labels the US prosecution of the War on Terror as "the cause of evil", firmly establishing the ideological prism through which he views the torture controversy. Mr.... Dratel, who is representing detainees at Guantanamo, makes the arguments you would expect from a lawyer attempting to paint his client in the best light (and, by extension, their antagonist in the worst light). He makes an interesting point when he refers to the "[un-American]...antipathy and distrust of our civilian and military justice system..." Clearly, many in the Bush administration share a concern that the courts could be abused to the detriment of US national security, and are wary of the judiciary encroaching into what they feel is the realm of the executive, although whether you feel such scepticism is "un-American" will depend largely on your political leanings. Ms. Greenberg is more circumspect in her language, if no less direct in her criticism. There are flaws in the arguments of all three essays, including extensive innuendo, assumptions, and quotes taken out of context. However, the essays are thankfully brief, and the reader has the benefit of access to the source material in the same volume.

The extensive compilation of documents related to the controversial interrogation techniques approved for use by the Bush administration makes this book a truly valuable resource. Here you'll find the tortured legalese of the infamous Bybee memo, the Gonzales memos, Secretary Rumsfeld's direction to combatant commanders on the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, the transcripts of MGen Tugaba's interrogation of the main players at Abu Ghraib and his ensuing report on the abuses, the Schlesinger report and reports on treatment of detainees from the ICRC and other humanitarian groups. Even though, with a little searching, all these resources can be found for free on the internet, the editors have done an outstanding job in compiling them into an easily readable format. The documents are provided in a chronological order that lays out, in a way individual news reports can't, how American leaders wrestled with fighting a new type of war that couldn't be neatly reconciled with existing conventions and treaties governing the conduct of armed conflict. The information is presented for the reader to study and draw their own conclusions. Anyone interested in the cause of justice and human rights, especially an American concerned that injustice may have been committed in their name, owes it to themself to become familiar with this record.

This book does not present, except in the legal memos from within the administration, any arguments that Pres Bush's decision not to apply the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War to the Taliban and Al Qaeda shouldn't be considered controversial, either by precedent or a common sense reading of the convention. Despite the title, you also won't find a clear chain of causation between the administration's decisions and what went on at the prison, unless you've already decided Pres Bush bears ultimate culpability for the travesty. However, you will get to see BGen Karpinski, the brigade commander at Abu Ghraib, throwing barbs up and down her chain of command in her deposition to MGen Tugaba. It's left to the reader to decide where the breakdown in command occurred. Read more ›

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT RESOURCE FOR ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO UNDERSTAND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION August 2, 2007

By Paco Rivero

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

THE TORTURE PAPERS contains 1,242 eye-popping pages of documents--memos, legal opinions, reports, interrogation transcripts, etc.--gathered and conveniently ordered in one handy volume. The government documents show, among other things, that what happened at Abu Ghraib was not the result of a few bad apples on the nightshift, as the Pentagon has maintained, but was a result of the Bush administration's own operational rationale (i.e., by direction of the civilians installed by Bush/Cheney at the Pentagon and Justice Department). The reasoning behind both the war and the manner in which it was conducted is all laid out in amazing detail in the official documents. They themselves have provided the "smoking gun." It's all here folks, in their own words, if you take the time to read it. Unfortunately, even Democrats in Congress don't take the time, which is shamefully obvious in the congressional hearings.

Despite the extensive documentary evidence collected in this book, the Bush administration maintains that "we don't torture." Journalists don't seem to be able to cut through to the main issue, rarely--if ever--confronting Bush with the most damning documents. Moreover, journalists pose inadequate questions that fail to clarify. Just yesterday I watched Larry King interviewing Dick Cheney. Larry King brought up the subject of torture. Cheney claimed that they don't torture. Larry pressed Cheney a little and Cheney admitted that they use certain techniques, but never said what those interrogation techniques were. That was that.

But philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein emphasize how different people mean vastly different things by the same words. Just because you share a word in common doesn't mean you're thinking the same thing by it.... To sort out controversies, it's imperative that key terms be clarified. What does torture mean? To clarify the issue of whether we torture or not, journalists first need to establish what torture is. When Bush or Cheney claim that they don't use torture, the journalist must ask them what their working DEFINITION is: How do they define torture? There is probably a vast difference between what they mean by torture and what most Americans consider to be torture. The next step a journalist/interviewer must take is to ask whether specific acts constitute torture. Bush people might refuse to answer, saying that they don't comment about specific techniques, but it is in itself significant when they refuse to acknowledge that a specific technique, such as waterboarding or beatings, constitutes torture. Whenever SPECIFIC techniques are discussed, it makes them uncomfortable, which is exactly what the journalists should strive for on this topic.

It is often said that the President and his people have effectively "redefined" torture, or changed the law. Actually, what they did is REINTERPRET the law, which is vague in determining what torture is. As the documents in the book show, Bush's lawyers claim that only actions that result in organ failure or death constitute torture. If that is your definition, then the pulling out of fingernails is not torture. Thus, by simply reinterpreting the term, they can technically deny that they employ torture, but all the while they can be putting heads underwater and pulling out fingernails. The fact that the law can be so easily reinterpreted points to a severe shortcoming in the law itself, in how it is written (too much ambiguity). In any case, journalists must do a better job of establishing what the administration's working definitions of key terms are. If the Press simply did that, as well as use more documentary evidence (such as the plethora found in this book), so much more light, so much less confusion, obfuscation, and ambiguity, would result, taking the national dialogue up to a whole different level. Until then, we have books such as THE TOTURE PAPERS that gather the primary evidence on how the Bush administration has operated. Until the law is changed and made clearer in how it defines torture, Civil Rights lawyers will have an uphill battle fighting on this front, although in my opinion there's plenty of grounds for impeachment. It's a shame, in my opinion, that the Dems did not choose to bring Bush or Cheney to justice, since their actions now stand as precedent. But thanks to their own documents, at least history will record the amorality of the Bush administration in damning detail.

UPDATE: On 10/17/07, at a White House press conference, a journalist asked President Bush how he defined torture, a straightforward question. Bush's response? His definition, Bush said, was the legal definition. Then he called on another journalist, running away from the question. Bush's answer was a clever, if cynical, dodge, since the ambiguity resides in how Bush's laywers INTERPRET the legal definition of torture. As we noted, the definition of torture in the U.S. Code is intentionally vague, opening the way for the Bush administration's re-interpretation. How Bush and his legal team interpret torture is found in Memo 14, "Standards of Conduct for Interrogation" (August 1, 2002), on page 172 of THE TORTURE PAPERS. 18 U.S.C, Sections 2340-2340A, states that for an act to constitute torture it must cause "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." But the law, at least this section of it, doesn't define "severe" or specify what acts do (or don't) constitute torture. The Bush people pounce on this vagueness and define "severe pain" by turning to another area of the law: statutes governing health care benefits which define what constitutes an "emergency medical condition for the purpose of providing health benefits." This area of the law defines "severe pain" as something that places the "health of the individual . . . (i) in serious jeopardy" or causes "(ii) serious impairment to bodily functions, or (iii) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part." They apply this definition to their interpretation of torture and conclude that for an interrogation technique to constitute torture, it "must rise to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function." (They go on to similarly interpret "severe mental pain or suffering.") Using this perverse definition, a definition that takes "severe" to mean organ failure and/or death, interrogation techniques that have traditionally been considered torture such as the pulling out of nails or the temporary cutting off of the air supply to a person's lungs are no longer considered torture. Moreover, the memo observes that "certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within Section 2340A's proscription against torture." Notice how their definition of torture sanctions virtually all that transpired at Abu Ghraib. Yet they blamed Abu Ghraib on "a few bad apples." In any case, when Bush claims that he defines torture the way the law defines it, he leaves unsaid just how his lawyers are interpreting the law. The adage is true: the devil is in the details. Instead of asking Bush how he defines torture, probably a better way is to ask Bush and his people to clarify how they define the phrase "severe pain" in the law. The interviewer can even anticipate the answer by directly citing what I cited above. Read more ›