Wikileaks Releases Sensitive Guantanamo Manual

James Hardine writes "Wired is reporting that a never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, via the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.org, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002. The 238-page document, "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures," is dated March 28, 2003. The disclosure highlights the internet's usefulness to whistle-blowers in anonymously propagating documents the government and others would rather conceal. The Pentagon has been resisting — since October 2003 — a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking the very same document. Anonymous open-government activists created Wikileaks in January, hoping to turn it into a clearinghouse for such disclosures. The site uses a Wikipedia-like system to enlist the public in authenticating and analyzing the documents it publishes. The Camp Delta document includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what "comfort items" such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes."

Comments

Prosecute them.

[bogaboga]

The folks at wikileaks.org http://wikileaks.org/ should be prosecuted for being party to endangering National Security.

Re:Prosecute them.

[coplate]

The folks at wikileaks should be heralded as heroes, and given millions of dollars.
We've spent about half a trillion dollars on this 'war', and we have nothing to show for it except negative opinions from our allies, and a show of weakening ourselves in a vicious cycle to our enemies.

Re:Prosecute them.

[WormholeFiend]

Well at least this time around, soldiers will have documented proof of the orders they are told to follow.

Re:Prosecute them.

[rueger]

Hmmph, surely if the folks at Gitmo are doing nothing wrong then they should have nothing to hide? Only wrongdoers demand secrecy.

Re:Prosecute them.

[A beautiful mind]

Negative opinion of your allies? What allies?

Re:Prosecute them.

[Shakrai]

Agreed. The person who leaked this document is a traitor in the mold of Hanoi Jane Fonda, John Walker Lindh, and whoever leaked the classified doucuments on the Wiretap program to the NY Times.

Actually, when I went to Wikileaks, I found the entire order of battle and equipment register for all of our forces in Iraq. What exactly was the motivation for leaking that and what higher purpose was served?

There's a moral difference between releasing a document related to human rights (which are obviously being abused at Gitmo) and releasing a document that serves no useful purpose other then giving somebody a complete picture of our forces in Iraq. Leave it to the right-wing trolls on /. to ignore the difference. I applaud them for releasing this document but question the motivation behind the other one.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Tridus]

No no no, see its only the general public who shouldn't have anything to hide.

Remember, if the Government wants to hide stuff, its "national security." If the Government also wants to illegally wiretap everybody, its "national security." If the Government wants to send you to Syria to be tortured or lock you up for years with no evidence, its "national security."

But if you question the Government, you're a threat to "national security."

Re:Prosecute them.

[spleen_blender]

Allow me.

The justice system is a mockery of its own title. Where is the justice for the illegally detained? It is morally unconscionable to believe we have the authority to exert our power against the people of the world in the ways we are. The tacit approval of torture by the government is a key indicator of how far from grace we have fallen.
There are mountains of evidence and personal testimonies from people who have been unjustly caught up in this whole debacle in which we are involved. Yet people like you still ignore the pleas for help and evidence of the destruction of the core principles upon which America was founded. I equate your viewpoint to that of creationists. You live in a world of self delusion which spawns further ignorance. That ignorance is exploited by the people who are causing this catastrophe as they invoke your name as the people who "support" their actions, justifying these actions as if they were approved by the sincere majority of Americans.

I'm sure you are an intelligent and thoughtful individual, but you need to open your eyes to the truth of how the war on terrorism and the drug war (by the way these are actually one and the same) are tearing apart not only America, but the world as a whole.

Re:Prosecute them.

[CmdrGravy]

Hell yeah ! And here's a few more:

+ No weapons of Mass Destruction ever found
+ No realistic plan at all to rebuild Iraq
+ More Iraqi deaths since occupation than under Saddam
+ Kurdish terrorists now attacking Turkey
+ The creation of huge Iraq sized terrorist training camp
+ American and UK forces too tied up in Iraq to effectively deal with problems in Afghanistan
+ American troops seen as evil due to their behaviour running various prisons
+ Trillions of dollars wasted to no good effect
+ Thousands of American deaths and countless more severely injured
+ Iraq poised for a civil war the second the US pulls out
+ Iran and other enemies of freedom reaping the benefits of an overstretched US military
+ Constantly rising oil prices

- Females were attending school anyway, perhaps you were thinking of Afghanistan ?
- Mass graves are still being filled from the daily death toll of suicide bombs and terrorist attacks

Re:Prosecute them.

[hibiki_r]

It seemed to me like sarcasm.

Chances are the comment had a lot to do with how the current government says that extra surveillance on Americans is necessary to fight terrorism, and that we should trust them to not misuse the information they get. He's just using their own flawed argument against them.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Anonymous Coward]

and we have nothing to show for it

But there have been no more terrorist attacks on the US during that time. I know it's hard to prove that it's because we went to war, but it's just as hard to prove that it is not. The economy is better, the military is stronger and the world respects our word (all of this in contrast to the Clinton administration).

I know all this truth offends your liberal bias, but it's still truth even if you don't like it.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Shakrai]

Mass Graves aren't being filled

Sorry, this will sound cold, but so what? Last time I checked we had a military to protect the United States "against all enemies, foreign and domestic", not to intervene in the internal affairs of other states. And if our intention was that noble, then why haven't we intervened in any of the African genocides?

Females are attending School

That would make a better point in an argument about Afghanistan and not Iraq as it's my understanding that women were treated fairly well (by the standards of the Arab world) in Iraq. In any case, why the hell is it up to us to impose our moral viewpoint on other cultures?

The Rape Rooms Are Shut Down

And exactly how were the rape rooms a threat to our national security?

Saddam isn't paying $25,000 to families of Palestinian Suicide Bombers

Sounds like that's a problem for the Israelis. How are Palestinian suicide bombers a threat to the United States, again?

Uday and Qusay Hussien are dead

And they were a threat to the United States, why?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - Captured

Sorry, but this is where I lose my cool. STOP FUCKING TRYING TO LINK IRAQ TO 9/11 AND al-Qaeda. He was captured in Pakistan. What the fuck does that have to do with the Iraq war?

Chemical Ali - Captured

And he did what to the United States, exactly?

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: DEAD.

And he was a threat to us (prior to the invasion), how exactly?

I'm sorry, but I don't buy into this theory of an interventionist foreign policy. Iraq posed zero threat to the United States. You can't even use the argument that everybody thought he had WMDs, because he allowed the inspectors back in prior to the war and they would have eventually discovered that he didn't. There was no reason for us not to give them time to do their work unless we already decided to invade before Saddam agreed to allow them back in.

Beyond that, ever stop to think about what we could have done with the troops in Iraq if we had deployed them to Afghanistan? Perhaps we could have used our own forces during Tora Bora instead of outsourcing the job to the local strongmen? Perhaps our own forces would have managed to capture Bin Ladin instead of letting him slip away?

Funny how the defenders of the Iraq war are so quick to forget about Bush's "dead or alive" promise. I want the motherfucker that killed three thousand American civilians in cold blood. I could have given two shits about Saddam.

a liberal talking point.

Look, another person throwing the word "liberal" out there, as if it should be some sort of insult. *sigh*

Re:Prosecute them.

[dlapine]

What part of "It is unclassified, but designated "For Official Use Only." do you not understand?

By being unclassified, the release of this material is officially not "material that would cause "damage" or be "prejudicial" to national security if publicly available." See the wiki page on US classification levels- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information#Classification_levels

If it's not classified, it's not a threat to national security. Given the amount of useless info the Bush administration has classified (White house emails, papers documents and political strategies), one could easily make the case that even classification no longer implies the threat of danger to national security for some items.

Having held a clearance, one requiring special background investigation, in the military for 8 years, I will say that it's really important to protect some information. It's just as important to determine what information must have protection, and what information doesn't require it. What's interesting in this matter is that the document in question is marked Unclassified/For Official Use Only(U/FOUO). Check out this link http://www.ioss.gov/WhatDoesFOUOMean.html for an explanation. To summarize, U/FOUO simply means that the material is not releasable under the Freedom of Information Act.

So, this is material not intended to be available to the public, but not a threat to national security. That's simple enough to understand. Now that it has been released to the public, we can access whether the U/FOUO rating was justified. In general, operating instructions for military installations are not for public consumption, simply due to operational security concerns. On the other hand, this document relates to allegations concerning illegal behavior by members of the US Armed services, and their commanders, much in the same manner as those prosecuted for their actions at Abu Garib.

So here's the question- does the normal concern for operations security override the need to expose and investigate potential illegal activities? One could argue either way- but having seen the document in question, this looks more like a case of "let's not let the light of day into our questionable activities", rather than a genuine need to protect sensitive information.

No reasonable person would claim that this is a case of national security, as not even the government considers this material relevant to national security, but simply asks that the material be treated as such. Actually, that's fairly useful view into the government mind- "We have this information here, and it's vital to national security, so we will classify it and ask that all who handle it treat it that way. OK, so now we have this other information, which isn't vital to national security, but we're going to ask all who handle it to treat it that way too." It takes a certain mindset to think that way, and I don't have it.

Re:Prosecute them.

[A beautiful mind]

First of all, the 650 thousand number you claim is discredited. The most accurate approximation, done by the Iraq Body Count project, is only around 80,000.

Discredited by who? There is a difference between trying to discredit, trying to ignore and trying to wish it would go away and reality. The IBC is such a low number because they only count deaths that are reported in the media, in multiple news organizations. There has been a study that only around 10% or less violent deaths make it into the media in Iraq. It is not hard to imagine why. Journalists don't want to be killed either and they can't be everywhere all the time in a country torn apart by civil war.

I'm not "a leftie". I'm someone who values human life. I hope that this definition of some of my values does not offend your belief system.

If you define your side as the american soldiers versus iraqi civilians, then we have nothing in common and I have nothing more to say to you.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Daniel_Staal]

Actually, under Saddam women were allowed to work and wear whatever they wanted. Now they can't, for fear of the extremists.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Homr Zodyssey]

But there have been no more terrorist attacks on the US during that time.

• July 24, 2004 -- Tashkent -- Islamic Jihad Group of Uzbekistan suicide bomber attacks Embassy
• December 6, 2004 -- Jeddah -- al-Qaeda gunmen attack U.S. consulate
• March 2, 2006 -- Karachi -- Car bomb explodes outside Embassy
• March 3, 2006 -- Chapel Hill, NC -- Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drives an SUV onto a crowded part of UNC campus.
• September 12, 2006 -- Damascus -- Gunmen raid US Embassy
• August 30, 2006 -- San Fancisco Bay Area -- An Afghani Muslim hit 19 pedestrians, killing one, with his SUV.

US Embassies are considered US territory.

Re:Prosecute them.

[A beautiful mind]

There is the Lancet source.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Abcd1234]

Jane Fonda was a fucking treasonous cunt that deserved to be sent to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for what she did

I'm sorry, but *no one* deserves to be raped, and the very idea of using such a thing as punishment is disgusting and abhorent. But, I would like to believe you didn't actually intend to advocate such a thing.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Chris Burke]

First of all, the 650 thousand number you claim is discredited.

Just because whatever talking head you listen to said so doesn't make it true. The Lancet Medical Journal in which the survey was published is a highly respected peer-reviewed journal. It's going to take more to discredit the study than your sincere wish that it wasn't true.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Random BedHead Ed]

We can apply your depth of reasoning to anything that's happened between 9/11 and today, and it's all equally valid. Let's have fun with it:

• In 2002 the president signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Since that time there have been no further terrorist attacks in the United States, so SOX has prevented terrorism.
• In 2002 the president signed the Help America Vote Act. Since that time there have been no further terrorist attacks in the United States, so HAVA has prevented terrorism.
• In 2002 Spain switched from the Peseta to the Euro, joining the European Monetary Union (EMU). Since that time there have been no further terrorist attacks in the United States, so Spain's use of the common currency has prevented terrorism.
• In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq. Since that time there have been no further terrorist attacks in the United States, so the Iraq war has prevented terrorism. (Oh wait, that was your point. Sorry for the dupe, but hey, this is Slashdot.)
• In 2004 the Republic of Ireland banned smoking in work places, including in pubs. Since that time there have been no further terrorist attacks in the United States, so the smoking ban has prevented terrorism.
• In 2006 I visited Belgium. Since that time there have been no further terrorist attacks in the United States, so my travels prevented terrorism. You're welcome, America.

You can't really prove these things. But then again, you can't really disprove them, so it's about time the liberals finally accepted that they're all true.

Re:Prosecute them.

[Draknor]

Eerie....

I think trouble is...we all overestimated the intelligence and abilities of the American people. Most people, I guess, figured once they were rid of <president>, that they'd jump at the chance to unite, and form a rational, somewhat freedom enbracing government. I mean, considering the dictatorship they'd endured, you'd think, eh?

But, it turned out not to be the case. Apparently they are pretty much all fscked in the head over there....can't get past racial/religious differences (and for God's sake how can even they tell the difference between Democrat and Republican?, they really do all look like one people on tv)....so, they constantly bicker and have apparently NO leaders in the group that the country can rally around.

Given this, I really don't hold up much hope for them to get their act together no matter how long we stay and support them. I think at some point, we're gonna have to withdraw...step back, throw a couple of knives in the center....and then, after it is over with...we just have to deal with the 'winner'....

Re:Prosecute them.

[Abcd1234]

Stop being such a politically correct left-wing flower child and reading shit into my post that wasn't there.

Well, first off, no, I don't have fucking Office Space memorized. I have better things to do with my time than memorize lines from shitty movies.

Second off, whether you meant it or not, there *are* those who think that prison rape is perfectly fine, and I'm fucking sick of people tacitly condoning it by casually referring to "pound me in the ass" prisons, as if it's something justifiable, or in this case, funny. It's not. Find another goddamned joke. You're part of the fucking problem, whether you realize it or not.

How finding prison rape objectionable equates to "being such a politically correct left-wing flower child", I'll never know. I find that shit offensive, and frankly, you should too.

You have completely glossed over/missed the point of my post in favor of picking on a specific line that happens to be quite popular on /.

Actually, no, I misunderstood because I don't have that god damned movie memorized. In fact, for all the times I've seen that statement, this is first time (and I've been here a long time) that it's been pointed out that it is, in fact, a movie quote.

Besides, if I said "she should be sent to a prison and raped repeatedly", would you find that funny (well, you might, but perhaps that's the problem)? I doubt it. But, apparently a change of phrasing makes all the difference...

Re:Prosecute them.

[KutuluWare]

The economy is better, the military is stronger and the world respects our word.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about the USA. Clearly not.

Our economy is in the tank right now; the US dollar is dropping like a rock relative to other foreign currency. Hell, the USD is worth less than 1 CAD for the first time I can remember. We're so deep in debt to other countries that my grandkid's grandkids will probably still be paying it off, all to fund this retarded "war". At the end of the Clinton administration, we had not only a balanced budget, but a yearly surpluss that could (in theory, though I guess I'm not naieve enough to believe it would ever happen) be used to pay down our debt. That's long gone. And you may not have heard, but millions of people just lost their houses because they couldn't afford their mortgage payments.

Our military is stretched so thin we couldn't fend off an invasion from Bermuda, let alone an actual serious military threat. And our government knows it, so much so that they're coddling North Korea and Iran, two countries that are infinitely more dangerous a threat to us than Iraq could ever have been if Saddam had even wanted to.

And the rest of the world hates us. Not that this is new, but our "word" doesn't mean dick to anyone but us after that whole WMD/uranium/etc. fiasco.

--Mike

Re:Prosecute them.

[meringuoid]

You don't have a problem with people attempting to undermine the morale of our troops while boosting the morale of the enemy during wartime?

Not if what they're saying is true.

You know something?

[Penguinisto]

I'm almost willing to bet that the reality (assuming this is actually the real document) is going to let down a lot of people - Some folks of a certain ideological bent prolly read the summary and went "a-ha! now we can uncover all those BUSH crimes!" (Of course, to be fair, a lot of folks on the other side of that ideological fence will point to it and try and say the opposite... go figure).

No matter what the ideological slant you may take, I strongly suspect that the truth is going to be a lot more mundane - again, assuming this thing is not a fabrication in either one direction or the other.

(speakin' of which, how do you tell for certain that it's not just a fabrication, either for or against? It's something I've always wondered when it comes to public wikis - unless you can verify who submitted it --or it can be independently verified-- you'll never be quite sure of its veracity.)

/P

Re:You know something?

[EaglemanBSA]

This is the problem inherent in the wiki-mindset...then again, who's to say anything released by any corporate news agency is any better (maybe even worse)? Fact-checking and verification is a pretty complex problem that, in the end, will always break down to faith in one party or another.

Try that again

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Wikileaks actual article on the leak

Related article on the leak: "US violates chemical weapons convention"

Re:The Democratic System Certainly Has Its Flaws,

[king-manic]

... I'm pretty sure I'd rather have publically-elected and appointed officials be the final arbiters of government secrecy, and not self-appointed anonymous individuals. Sometimes for true liberty and justice you need someone other then the government controlling the information. To really have liberty you need to know what your Publically-elected and appointed officials are doing. Democracy doesn't work when the information is controlled by the government. If the government is the sole arbiter of information then you in fact no longer live in a democracy.

Schematics?!?

[tweek]

While I'm not a fan of this current administration or many of the things it has done and continues to do daily, who in their right mind would consider it SMART to release schematics to a fucking military installation?

Yeah this just happens to be a prison but how are you going to feel when someone releases the schematics to the air conditioning system at jrandom fort in your town and proceeds to gas and entire base of people?

I'm as big an opponent of fearmongering as there is. I hate the war on "terrorism" but for god's sake people, have some common sense.

Re:This is a torture manual?

[CmdrGravy]

If you look at the aftermath of the various EU terrorists attacks, then the response has been basically,"oh you naughty kids, don't do this again or I will have to scold you a second time". That doesn't exactly seem to work. It seemed to work well enough against the IRA in the end, before things began to get resolved the UK government tried all sorts of things like detention without trial, executing suspects in the street, special prisons etc none of which were particulary effective. What did work was creating an atmosphere where the terrorists could compromise and work things out politically rather than with the barrel of a gun.

Of course comparisons with the IRA don't fit 100% with the current spate of terrorism because on the one hand the IRA were much more organised and effective than the current jokers and on the other the current terrorists don't have seem to have a political wing or any sensible demands they want met or anyone to meet with to discuss them.

In my opinion we should take reasonable steps to prevent terrorism, use the current police powers to deal with those we catch and chalk up any actual terrorist "successes" to being an unvoidable fact of life and not get ourselves worked up into a foaming lather over what seem to be at the most a hundred or so deaths. This might sound heartless and disrespectful to the victims but at least as many people seem to die in train crashes as die from terrorism which compared to Europes annual number of deaths is a completely insignificant figure.

And we thought that only communists did that...

[localman]

I find this topic and the arguments around it fascinating. My grandfather was imprisoned in Poland under false pretenses for five years. He had to negotiate for toilet paper. He performed many hunger strikes to win things like reading material, one time starving himself for 28 days. Seeing this manual is fairly chilling for me.

Many times over the years when I'd talk with people about his experiences, they would reassure me that such a thing wouldn't happen in a healthy constitutional democracy like the US. The cruelty and Kafkaesque behavior of his captors was relegated to the sickness of communism to be sure.

At some point long ago I realized that wasn't the case, and that we were very much capable of similar evils. Some people wouldn't agree with me, but here we have the plain as day proof.

I'm sure a percentage of the people reading this post think "who cares if they're mistreating suspected terrorists?". To each of you that feel that way, I would say this: if we had this conversation about my grandfather and communism before 9/11, or perhaps if you read his book, you'd have condemned his captors to hell for being so awful.

I love this country dearly but I'm ashamed of much of what we're doing right now.

Also: if the manual reads to you as being "not so bad" remember that it is very different when you're on the other side of it. And remember that it's just a manual: the real day to day life there is bound to be far more questionable.

Re:And we thought that only communists did that...

[Chris Burke]

Many times over the years when I'd talk with people about his experiences, they would reassure me that such a thing wouldn't happen in a healthy constitutional democracy like the US. The cruelty and Kafkaesque behavior of his captors was relegated to the sickness of communism to be sure.

Yeah, that's what they told me in grade school, too... that we were better than the Communists because we didn't do that kind of thing.

Now they're saying that we're better than the Communists (or the terrorists or whatever) which is why it's okay that we do that kind of thing.

It went from "we're better because we act better", to "we're better... because we just are. So it doesn't matter how we act."

It makes me very sad too. :(

Re:That Doesn't Matter

[mapsjanhere]

Many of us are not aware how far reaching the precedents on war crimes and the "orders are no excuse" rule go. In the Nuremberg trial, the case was made that, even so the Navy never followed Hitler's order to execute all parachutists caught in Europe, they did turn over captured parachutists to the Army. And they should have known that the Army did execute them, so they are guilty just as if they'd done it themselves.
Every US soldier who sent a prisoner to Abu Grahib is guilty of war crimes under that precedent. We can only hope that we never loose a war and are actually put in front a tribunal. I bet Bush's biggest nightmare is a successor who signs the international war crimes tribunal treaty, and turns him over to The Hague. For irony, they could put him in Milosevic's cell.

God fucking learn something about Abu Ghraib.

[Chris Burke]

It is a lot of pages but so far this text seems to be pretty standard procedure for dealing with what the US claims are highly dangerous people. If the guidelines in this document are followed it is hard to see evidence of torture. Then again I thought abu ghraib was pathetic. If muslims talk just because a dog is barking at them, well, it is just pathetic. Read up on some real torture sessions, done against women and childeren and then come back. Being put into humiliating postions? Flushing a book? Oh yeah, that compares to electro shock, being beaten to death and seeing your fellows executed.

You don't know jack shit about Abu Ghraib. Men were beaten with table legs, and raped up the ass with broomsticks and chemical lights. Women were raped by guards. A man had his legs held open while an officer repeatedly kicked him in the crotch. You think it was pathetic because you don't know a damn thing about it. You only saw a couple photos of a guy with a hood on his head and thought "Oh that's nothing" and moved on with your life, even though you were told that there were even more pictures that were, and I quote, "much worse". Guess what? You bought into the media spin.

Do you think this guy was humilitated to death you dipshit?

A good place to start with actually informing yourself would be to google up the Taguba Report for a beginning of what went on.

Skimming the rest of your post, you make some decent points, I just get really pissed when people blow off Abu Ghraib because they think it's all just barking dogs and panties-hats. Well you're wrong. It was honest-to-god torture. People died from it. You don't die from dog barks.

Re:Too much emphasis on religion

[Chicken_Kickers]

Normally I don't use expletives on the Internets but Fuck you! I am a muslim and I find your suggestions barbaric to the extreme. Did you know that most of the detainees in Gitmo were randomly or falsely accused. Did you know that they have no chance of finding out what the accusation were and even if they did, they couldn't do anything about it? Would you agree to muslims forcing non-muslims to follow our own practices, since this is similar to what you are proposing? Praying and reading the Koran is the most BASIC requirement to a muslim, not as you say a reinforcement to fundamentalism. I had hoped that Slashdot is populated by brother geeks who are above making such hate comments. If you are an American, than good luck to you when your government decides that you are a threat to national safety. Sure you say, they won't go after you. But maybe you download porn and as we know, porn is immoral. Maybe you pirate music and as we know, piracy is hurting the economy. Maybe you smoke weed and as we know, the war on drugs is still on. Maybe you buy products not made by American companies and thus you are not patriotic. We no longer view your country as a beacon of democracy and equal opportunity. Your country is no longer the good guys and no longer have the moral authority to chastise third world dictatorships if people like you condone torture and imprisonment without trial.

Re:That Doesn't Matter

[Skrapion]

We can only hope that we never loose a war I bet I'm not the only grammar nerd thinking "The US looses wars like they're arrows."