New Guantánamo intelligence upends old ‘worst of the worst’ assumptions

Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg interviewed Mark for this piece on the flawed intelligence that led to many Guantanamo Bay detainees to remain prisoners. Mark said that the early intelligence was ofter grossly wrong and often based on the sketchiest bit of intelligence.  Mark explained that the facts didn’t change, but evolved and could now be interpreted differently.

Event Date
2016-09-30
Pub/Org
Miami Herald

How Guantanamo Became America’s Interrogation ‘Battle Lab’

The public was told by Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials that Guantanamo was needed because the men who were sent there were the “worst of the worst,” the “sort of people who would chew through a hydraulics cable to bring a C-17 [transport plane] down.”

But according to a new report, there was an ulterior motive for setting up Guantanamo: It was the ideal long-term interrogation facility, a “battle lab” where detainees would be subjected to untested interrogation methods and “exploited” for their intelligence value in what turned out to be a massive “experiment.”

“Although the government continues to mislead the public by touting that [Guantanamo] houses the ‘worst of the worst,’ the facts revealed by the Center unveil a different, more disturbing story,” the report says, adding that Guantanamo “served as the heart of worldwide interrogation testing and training.”

Bush administration officials have long disputed such characterizations, and have said any mistreatment of detainees was the work of a “few bad apples.” However, one former top military official told the Armed Services Committee that Guantanamo was described to him a “battle lab.” Army Colonel Britt Mallow, the commander of the Criminal Investigative Task Force, said Guantanamo officials Major General Mike Dunleavy and Major General Geoffrey Miller used the term “battle lab,” meaning “interrogations and other procedures there were to some degree experimental, and their lessons would benefit [the Department of Defense] in other places.”

Event Date
2016-09-30
Pub/Org
Vice News

Former Federal Agents Urge Supreme Court to Hear Case Involving FBI Torture

HRF issued a release about Mark and two former FBI agents filed an amicus brief, urging the Supreme Court to hear a case about possible constitutional violations committed by FBI agents during an overseas counterterrorism operation.  Mark, Don Borelli and Joe Navarro, from the FBI said: “FBI agents are required to adhere to the Constitution whenever and wherever they carry out their work.”

Event Date
2016-07-14
Pub/Org
Human Rights First