US broke intl law by "torturing" prisoners: ICRC

A secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives in CIA prisons "constituted torture," The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing newly published excerpts from the 2007 document.

Although many of the details of alleged physical and psychological brutality inside CIA prisons overseas have been previously reported, the ICRC report is the most authoritative account and the first to use the word "torture" in a legal context, the Post said.

The report states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" and strongly implies that the United States violated international law prohibiting torture and maltreatment of prisoners, the newspaper reported.

"To death and back"

The ICRC report was based on its access to the CIA's 14 "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Using the detainee's own words, the report offers a disturbing view of the conditions at secret U.S.-run prisons where prisoners said they were taken "to the verge of death and back" by abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and waterboarding, or simulating drowning, the paper said.

The Post said a copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released on Sunday.

"It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words 'torture' and 'cruel and degrading,' " Danner told The Washington Post. "The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law," the paper quoted him as saying.

Detainee Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Walid Muhammad bin Attash, said that on a daily basis "a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room," the paper reported.

A collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room

Detainee

Attash said he was wrapped in a plastic sheet while cold water was "poured onto my body with buckets," the paper quoted the report as saying. "I would be wrapped inside the sheet with cold water for several minutes. Then I would be taken for interrogation," the paper added.

Danner told the paper that it was not possible that the detainees had fabricated or embellished their stories because "the accounts overlap in minute detail, even though the detainees were kept in isolation at different locations."

Amnesty International counterterrorism specialist, Geneve Mantri, was quoted by the paper as saying: "It's clear that senior officials were warned from the very beginning that the treatment that detainees were subjected to amounted to torture. This story goes even further and deeper than many us of suspected. The more details we find out, the more shocking this becomes."

It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words 'torture' and 'cruel and degrading,

Journalism professor

"Terrorist claims"

The Washington Post said at least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007.

The CIA declined to comment, the newspaper said. It quoted a U.S. official familiar with the ICRC document as saying: "It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves."

The anti-terrorism policies of the Bush administration drew worldwide condemnation as violations of human rights and international law.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has insisted that although the use of "coercive interrogation" tactics was used on captives detained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the measures complied with U.S. and international law.

Within hours of his inauguration U.S. President Barack Obama signed a bill to outlaw such practices.

It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves

US official