Human Rights First report on detainee deaths

I guess my last post restores my reputation for long-windedness.

This one is a shorter post about a complicated issue. The Human Rights First group has released their new report: Command's Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan by Hina Shamsi; Deborah Pearlstein , ed. February 2006 (released 02/22/06). There is also a press release, an Executive Summary and an Overview.

This excerpt from the Executive Summary is a reminder of why this issue is not going away - it goes to the heart of the functioning of the US military command structure:

Since August 2002, nearly 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global “war on terror.” According to the U.S. military’s own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. In close to half the deaths Human Rights First surveyed, the cause of death remains officially undetermined or unannounced. Overall, eight people in U.S. custody were tortured to death.

Despite these numbers, four years since the first known death in U.S. custody, only 12 detainee deaths have resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official. ... While the CIA has been implicated in several deaths, not one CIA agent has faced a criminal charge. Crucially, among the worst cases in this list – those of detainees tortured to death – only half have resulted in punishment; the steepest sentence for anyone involved in a torture-related death: five months in jail.

... [T]wo patterns clearly emerge and are documented in Command's Responsibility: (1) because of investigative and evidentiary failures, accountability for wrongdoing has been limited at best, and almost non-existent for command; and (2) commanders have played a key role in undermining chances for full accountability. ... Commanders have failed both to provide troops clear guidance, and to take crimes seriously by insisting on vigorous investigations. And command responsibility itself – the law that requires commanders to be held liable for the unlawful acts of their subordinates about which they knew or should have known – has been all but forgotten. (my emphasis)