PDA

View Full Version : Brutality toward detainees started at U.S. bases in Afghanistan



thedrifter
06-16-08, 06:34 AM
Brutality toward detainees started at U.S. bases in Afghanistan <br />
By Tom Lasseter - tlasseter@mcclatchydc.com <br />
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, June 16, 2008 <br />
<br />
Second of four parts <br />
<br />
KABUL,...

thedrifter
06-16-08, 06:35 AM
HOW THIS STORY WAS REPORTED
Early in 2007, as the Bush administration indicated that it intended to release most of the detainees at the prison at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, McClatchy set out to track down as many of the freed prisoners as possible to help determine who they were, what had happened to them in the prisons the Bush administration set up in Afghanistan and Cuba and what had become of them.

For eight months, reporters Tom Lasseter and Matthew Schofield traveled to 11 countries – from Great Britain to Pakistan – and interviewed 66 former detainees. They also interviewed political and military officials in those countries to try to establish the detainees' backgrounds and check their stories.

Lasseter and Schofield also combed through unclassified transcripts of the men's tribunal hearings at Guantánamo, when available, and Lasseter interviewed former White House and Department of Defense officials, former guards and lawyers for prisoners who had them.

Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg helped conceive and organize the project. In Afghanistan, Dr. Hashim Shukoor provided invaluable assistance.

SUNDAY

In many cases, the United States got the wrong guys – including some who had worked for the Afghan government.

TODAY

Many of the detainees, especially those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, were brutalized.

TUESDAY

Guantánamo quickly became a school for terrorism.

WEDNESDAY

The Bush administration twisted the law to produce this outcome.