By the Order of the Black Colonels

An ex-CIA director has been accused of organizing “torture centers” in occupied Iraq.

David Petraeus, the former head of the CIA and commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, was one of the creators of “torture prisons” in Baghdad. There they beat confessions out of prisoners using the most barbaric methods, including pulling out nails and beating the groin. Petraeus did not personally give out these orders, but two colonels under his command engaged in these methods. The British newspaper The Guardian broke this story after an investigation.

According to the publication, Petraeus did not personally give orders on who to torture or how. His head colonels, James Steele and James Coffman, performed these actions and reported all of the successes of their “work” to their chief. Despite the fact that Steele and Coffman did not torture those arrested with their own hands, both have confessed that they were often present during interrogations using torture. One of the main tasks of the torture centers was to crush the growing resistance.

British journalists were able to talk to workers at Iraqi torture centers. According to General Muntadhera al-Samari, who worked at one of these prisons for a year, workers at the centers did not limit themselves at all: They used currents, they pulled out fingernails, they beat prisoners in the groin.

Petraeus himself has yet to comment on the results of the investigation.

It has long been known that the U.S. military uses torture. In early February, former Pentagon chief Leon Panetta confirmed that during the operation to assassinate “Terrorist No. 1,” Osama bin Laden, torture was used. Panetta also frankly admitted that “getting bin Laden” could have been done without the use of torture.

Skinning a Lot of Scalps

Political scientists have concluded that American society completely accepts torture as an interrogation method for terrorists.

“In America, and in a lot of other countries that are against torture, there is an understanding that in exceptional situations such methods are allowed. For example, a situation when a terrorist who is planning a bombing has been arrested,” one political scientist, Sergey Markov, told this paper. “Utilizing conventional methods, it can be difficult to get information; sometimes it is almost impossible. Intelligence agencies cannot wait until 100 people die. They have to use torture during critical moments.”

As Markov, who was an expert at Freedom House in the 1990s, noted, only the human rights movement categorically opposes torture; these groups are generally suspicious of any governments who permit the use of torture. These groups say that torture is not effective and violates human rights.

Markov said that in general, public opinion in the U.S. is not focused on this subject.

“The subject of torture generally worries human rights groups, political scientists and the security forces who have to make such decisions. This subject does not worry the general public,” Markov said. “Furthermore, it should be noted that Americans are fairly tough people. Their nation was formed during battles with Native Americans. A lot of blood was spilled and a lot of scalps were skinned.” According to the expert, Americans are convinced that what is good has to be done with fists, in contrast to Europeans.

“The American citizen believes that police should protect society using any means necessary, and if someone is arrested, then the police know what to do. In Russia, the opinion opposing torture gained a wide following in large part because of Stalin’s time, when many innocent people suffered. In the U.S., Americans think that torture will only be used against villains and never against ordinary citizens,” concluded Markov.

Torture with Christian Metal

The subject of torture became widely discussed when Barack Obama came to power after George W. Bush. Obama immediately promised to disband illegal military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, force the CIA to comply with existing rules on interrogation and close secret prisons.

Obama’s decision became significant when he declassified CIA documents concerning torture at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and several prisons in Afghanistan.

Based on this data, the Senate Committee on Intelligence released a report in spring of 2009 that said that torture of prisoners had been approved at the highest level during the Bush administration. Four special circulars were released detailing the use of torture during interrogations.

It also became known that Condoleezza Rice, in her role as National Security Adviser in 2002, together with future Attorney General John Ashcroft, met in the White House with the CIA to discuss the subject of torture, including waterboarding. In the Bush White House, such methods of information gathering were called “alternative interrogation techniques.”

As a result, CIA Director George Tenet received approval by the Justice Department to use these torture methods. For example, suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one year alone.

Only in 2005, the CIA voluntarily stopped using waterboarding techniques. The Justice Department attempted to explain that the CIA’s brutal interrogation methods did not amount to torture because they did not cause serious physical or mental harm and because the methods were only used against terrorists.

Obama quickly adjusted his tone on torture in speeches. The head of state defended the CIA, saying that intelligence officers were simply following the Justice Department’s instructions. In April 2009, the president promised that CIA officers using “harsh interrogation tactics” during the Bush administration would not be prosecuted if their actions corresponded with the Justice Department’s instructions at the time. This paper had previously reported that as recently as January, the American group Human Rights Watch accused Obama of hypocrisy for this reversal of opinion.

According to some reports, interrogation methods used in prisons strove to break the will of the detainee by violating his senses or beating him in ways that would not leave visible marks on his body.

The International Red Cross’s report, based on the testimony of former prisoners, specifically mentioned waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, noise torture and imprisonment in very confined spaces. Some prisoners were forced to stand naked for prolonged periods of time, wearing only a dog collar; they were given only liquid diets and doused with cold water.

In February, new details emerged about torture with sound in U.S. prisons. U.S. Navy Special Forces, who played a role in the elimination of Osama bin Laden, forced detainees to listen to heavy metal music, particularly Metallica, for hours at deafeningly high volume — in order to “soften up” the detainees. When Metallica learned about this, they wrote a letter to the Pentagon asking them to never use their music again. As this paper wrote, now prisoners must listen to the Christian metal group Demon Hunter. This same torture was used in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

We will note that a scandal was uncovered also in the Baghdad prison Abu Ghraib, but this scandal was related to “not permitted” torture — when prison guards, on their own initiative, tortured prisoners.

Even after Bush left office, he continued to argue in support of torture. He has said that these methods of extracting confessions are legitimate. “I can say one thing — using these methods saved lives,” Bush said, stressing that he would still make that decision today if he were in office.

*Translator’s Note: “Black Colonels” is a Soviet term used to refer to the Greek military junta that ruled from 1967-1974.