Senior Bush administration officials ignored warnings from the FBI over interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new US government report says.

The FBI clashed with the Pentagon and the CIA over techniques which included the use of dogs and sexual provocation, according to the US justice department report.

The justice department report released this week said the FBI and justice department raised concerns with the National Security Council and with officials at Guantanamo Bay.

It admits that FBI agents did “use techniques that would not normally be permitted in the United States or participate in interrogations during which such techniques were used by others”, but said they did so “in only a few instances”.


FBI role

The re
port adds that techniques used in Guantanamo and elsewhere included sleep disruption, prolonged shackling of hands and feet or wrapping a detainee’s head in duct tape.

A female interrogator also grabbed a detainee’s genitals to inflict pain.


“Ultimately, neither the FBI nor the DOJ had a significant impact on the practices of the military with respect to the detainees,” it said.

 ‘Borderline torture’


There were also strains over Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was held at Guantanamo Bay, and has been described as the alleged “20th hijacker” in the September 11 attacks on the US.

The report quotes an FBI agent as objecting to Abu Zubaydah’s treatment as “borderline torture”.





Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has said that efforts to close the Guantanamo camp were “stuck” as many of the remaining prisoners’ home countries had refused to accept their return or could release them and that there were further difficulties over transferring them to US prisons.

Trial boycott


But Mohammed Kamin refused to participate, telling the judge he felt “helpless” and joining a growing number of detainees boycotting their tribunals.



“The trials are yours, the courts are yours. How can I trust you? I don’t expect anything good from you,” Kamin said through a Pashto translator.

“I am helpless. You have the force.”
