American Gulag

Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan's scorching description of Guantánamo as "the gulag of our times" has provoked a new White House line: Stories of torture and mistreatment of terror detainees are the fabrications of repatriated ex-prisoners who "hate America" and are trained to lie, as George W. Bush declared at a May 31 press conference. Up until now the Administration's response to its multifront human-rights scandal has been characterized by the defiant evasions of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Now, the line has shifted to outright deception. Fact: If the testimony of ex-prisoners figures significantly in the story, it's because the Administration has persistently blocked human rights investigators' access to current detainees at Bagram, Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Fact: AI's report is primarily based not on ex-prisoner interviews but on sources like the Pentagon's own Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations and court-martial testimony.

Torture in the US Gulag
The Nation Editorial