A two-page FBI e-mail message refers to "a Presidential Executive Order" and contends President George W. Bush directly authorized interrogation techniques that included sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.," the ACLU said. (link)

In case there was any doubt that this one goes all the way to the top.

An FBI document suggests the president authorized inhumane interrogation methods against Iraqi detainees, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday.

The document is among those obtained from the government by the ACLU in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in New York.

A two-page FBI e-mail message refers to "a Presidential Executive Order" and contends President George W. Bush directly authorized interrogation techniques that included sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.," the ACLU said.

The FBI message was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander -- Baghdad" to senior FBI officials.

The techniques are "beyond the bounds of FBI practice but within the parameters of the executive order ... " The message said some FBI personnel witnessed the use of the techniques but did not participate.

"We frankly do not equate any of these things our personnel witnessed with the clearly unlawful and sickening abuse at Abu G (Abu Ghraib prison) that has come to light," the e-mail message said, adding later, "We assume the (headquarters) instruction does not include the reporting of these authorized interrogation techniques, and that the use of these techniques does not constitute 'abuse'."

The FBI message is accessible, along with other documents, at aclu.org/torturefoia/released/fbi.html.

In a statement, the ACLU urged the White House to confirm or deny the existence of the order referred to in the message and to release it immediately if it exists.

"The FBI agent was mistaken regarding the existence of an Executive Order on interrogation techniques. No such Executive Order exits or has ever existed," a senior administration official told United Press International.

"The Department of Defense determines the methods of interrogation of military detainees in the Iraq conflict. Any directions to the military regarding particular interrogation techniques emanated from within the Department of Defense.

"Again, the agent was mistaken. No such Executive Order exists or ever existed," the official said.

The ACLU also released other records Monday obtained in the suit, including an FBI e-mail message that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and an "Urgent Report" to the FBI director that raises concerns abuse of detainees is being covered up.

The ACLU said another e-mail message, dated December 2003, "describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantanamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using 'torture techniques' against a detainee. The message concludes 'If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the 'FBI' interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public."

The document also downplays the usefulness of the interrogation.

The FBI said in the message that no "intelligence of a threat neutralization nature" was garnered by the "FBI" interrogation and that the FBI's Criminal Investigation Task Force believed the Defense Department's actions have destroyed any chance of prosecuting the detainee.

The message's author writes that he or she is documenting the incident "in order to protect the FBI," the ACLU said.

The June 2004 "Urgent Report" addressed to FBI Director Robert Mueller is heavily "redacted" -- having had sections blacked out -- the ACLU said.

Portions of the document appear to describe an account given to the FBI's Sacramento Field Office by an agent who had "observed numerous physical abuse incidents of Iraqi civilian detainees," including "strangulation, beatings, (and) placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings," the ACLU said.

The document said the blacked-out informant "was providing this account to the FBI based on his knowledge that (blacked out) were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses."

The ACLU obtained the documents under a federal court order directing government agencies to comply with a year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

Another FBI agent's account of interrogations at Guantanamo contends detainees were shackled hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, the ACLU said. The detainees were kept in that position for 18 to 24 hours at a time and most had "urinated or defacated (sic)" on themselves, the ACLU quoted the document as saying.

An FBI agent also reports having seen a detainee left in an unventilated, non-air-conditioned room at a temperature "probably well over a hundred degrees," the ACLU said. "The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Another e-mail message said that an Army lawyer "worked hard to cwrite (sic) a legal justification for the type of interrogations they (the Army) want to conduct" at Guantanamo Bay, while yet another cites an FBI investigation into the alleged rape of a juvenile male detainee at Abu Ghraib.

The ACLU said it would continue to ask a federal judge for an order compelling the CIA to turn over records related to an internal investigation into detainee abuse.

Although it has received more than 9,000 documents from other agencies, the ACLU said, the CIA has so far refused to confirm or deny even the existence of many of the records that the ACLU and other plaintiffs have requested.

reference=http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041220-013140-6821r.htm