FBI: Harsh interrogation tactics producing "unreliable results"

Early in the Bush administration's detention of foreign terrorism suspects, &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/usa/2001/05/21/5533.html ' target=_blank>FBI agents told Pentagon officials that the military's harsh interrogation tactics in Cuba would produce "unreliable results", according to documents released Tuesday.

Another memo, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in June, said that a DIA officer had seen a military interrogator in Baghdad "punch a prisoner in the face to the point the individual needed medical attention."

The documents were turned over recently to the American Civil Liberties Union (&to=http:// english.pravda.ru/columnists/2002/08/30/35643.html ' target=_blank>ACLU) by the Defense Department to comply with a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Several civil liberties groups filed suit in New York seeking records of military interrogation techniques in Afghanistan, Cuba and Iraq, says USA Today.

According to the Boston Globe, the ACLU obtained the thousands of pages of memos, e-mails, and government reports after a legal battle with the Bush administration, which sought to keep them secret. The Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, and two veterans groups also joined in the lawsuit.

"The more the government is forced to reveal, the more we learn that individuals in US custody, many of whom have not been accused of wrongdoing, were tortured and abused," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "These documents tell a damning story of sanctioned government abuse -- a story that the government has tried to hide and may well come back to haunt our own troops captured in &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/387/9770_moslem.html ' target=_blank>Iraq."

The ACLU also said it would ask a judge to order more documents released and to restore redacted portions of documents that have already been made public.

DIA photos of the injuries were confiscated by the task force officers and it is unclear whether the man in question ever had medical aid.

Emails, meanwhile, showed a rift between the FBI and the Pentagon over questioning methods.