The abuse of terror suspects in U.S. military prisons at Guantánamo Naval Base and elsewhere was far more widespread, systematic and routine than the American people have been led to believe, primarily by the Pentagon. This conclusion is suggested by recently released government documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and four other groups.

`Executive order'

The disturbing descriptions of prisoner abuse span three years and involve multiple locations and many soldiers. Yet even in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, the U.S. military has insisted that such mistreatment was isolated and aberrant. Specifically, they said that Guantánamo detainees have been treated humanely, consistent with the Geneva Conventions.

The documents paint a more-unsettling picture. One memo from the FBI's top official in Iraq mentions an ''executive order'' authorizing harsh treatment of prisoners. E-mails from FBI agents who witnessed interrogations at Guantánamo describe the use of ''growling dogs,'' sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, humiliation and other techniques previously denied by the military. One agent protested that military interrogators masqueraded as FBI agents and used torture.

One FBI agent at Guantánamo wrote, ''I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more.'' A detainee in a cell with a temperature ''well over 100 degrees'' apparently had pulled his hair out during the night. Another agent saw a detainee wrapped in an Israeli flag subjected to loud music and strobe lights -- a description that eeriely parallels complaints in a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee last month.

Unnamed government sources deny that a presidential order ever authorized harsh treatment. Rather, the order referred to by the FBI's Iraq chief was signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 and revised months later after criticism about the unlawful techniques.

Unlawful acts

Can the Pentagon be believed? These practices and self-serving denials demand an in-depth congressional investigation. How widespread were these methods that were so objectionable that the FBI ordered its agents to steer clear of military interrogations using them? Who authorized the use of, in the words of one FBI agent, ''torture techniques''? Why resort to torture, which is notoriously unreliable, in the first place? Why have U.S. troops commit unlawful acts that degrade them as much as their prisoners?

The administration owes the American people the truth. Congress is the instrument to uncover it.

© 2004 Miami Herald

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