WASHINGTON -- The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged the U.S. military intentionally abused prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the New York Times said.
The report came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantanamo.
In July, the confidential report was distributed to lawyers at the White House, Pentagon and State Department and to the commander of the detention facility at Guantanamo, Gen. Jay Hood. The New York Times recently obtained a memorandum based on the report that quotes from it in detail.
The team said some doctors and other medical workers at Guantanamo participated in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."
The report said interrogators had devised a system to break the will of the prisoners at Guantanamo, who now number about 550, and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes (and) use of forced positions."
Asked about the accusations, a Pentagon spokesman provided a statement saying, "The United States operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo that is providing valuable information in the war on terrorism."
