Yes, the tactics initiated at Guantanamo spread to Iraq but they weren't windborne. General Jeffrey Miller was the disease vector who was re-assigned to Iraq and who exported the torture to the new detention facilities there. He now lounges in retirement leisure on his General's pension.
http://forwardamerica.blogspot.com/Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Abusing Detainees
<snip>It soon became apparent that a pattern of abuse had existed in Afghanistan and at the Guantanimo detention facility. In Bagram, Afghanistan two men died due to repeated beatings in December 2002. At first, the military tried to sweep the matter under the rug, but eventually seven soldiers were charged with abuses. The investigation continued for two years, but documents were somehow lost, key people not interviewed, and evidence was mishandled. Finally, in October 2004, it appeared that twenty others might be charged for offenses ranging from lying to unintentional manslaughter. A year later, a regiment of the 173 Airborne burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, a clear violation of Islamic custom. Across the globe at Guantanimo, authorities were looking into charges that soldiers had degraded the corpse of a prisoner.
It became known that commandos, probably acting under operation “Copper Green,” seized people in Afghanistan and placed them in “the Pit” and other detention centers, where they were subjected to various forms of abuse, including sexual. They had learned that sex, especially homosexual sex, was especially taboo among Muslims. It was thought that sexual degradation and photographing people in compromising sexual situations would produce information and even recruit prisoners to become informers. The prisoners would do whatever was necessary to prevent the photographs from being shown to their families. These techniques would also be employed in Iraq, and interrogation methods designed to play upon Islamic sensibilities were to be widely reported in Afghanistan, Guantanimo, and Iraq.
One of the Military Intelligence units involved in Bagram abuses was transferred to Iraq, where they continued to ply their skills. Months after the first revelation,, reports began to surface that some prisoners who were released from Guantanimo were claiming that they had been tortured by “prostitutes.” At Guantanimo, under the command of General Geoffrey Miller, interrogators played upon the detainees sexual sensitivities. A whole range of unspeakable techniques was used on Mohammed al Kahtani. This was the first indication that the pattern of abuse existed in Afghanistan and Guantanimo before we had military prisons in Iraq. Evidence surfaced that women questioned these men at Guantanimo in late night sessions that included the use of fake menstrual blood. Female interrogators wore Tight T-shirts, engaged in sexual touching, and paraded in miniskirts, and left bras and thong underwear hanging in the room. This often reduced the detainees to uncontrollable crying. One woman in a tight shirt rubbed her breasts against the back of a praying internee and then mocked him because he had an erection. A class action suite brought the Center for Rights has brought some complaints by detainees. One named Ahmed, was held for five months and tortured in various ways including being frequently bound, stripped, exposed to extreme cold, and kicked and beaten. He was also kicked in his genitals. Ahmed also had to watch his father being tortured. His savings were confiscated and his house destroyed.
Four months of extreme abuses at Abu Ghraib seemed to begin after the Guantanimo Camp X-Ray commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller was ordered to visit the site. Rumsfeld sent him there with oral orders to “Gitmoize” the camp. He was sent to “Gitmoize” the facility, and he told its commander Reserve Brigadier General Janice Karpinski to turn over effective control of the prison to military intelligence. General Miller told the staff to “treat these prisoners like dogs” and said that the guards should soften up the detainees for the intelligence people. Even before his visit, the prison was a hellhole due to overcrowding and the failure of higher command to provide adequate supplies and staff. Karpinski was refused permission to release people who had been cleared. After Miller’s visit, the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade had control of the facility. When news of the torture came out, Karpinski was relieved of command, and the Bush administration later reduced her to colonel on charges that had nothing to do with Abu Gharib. She had no opportunity to defend herself.
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