Foreword
More than four years after images depicting of abuse of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prisoners by U.S. military personnel came to public attention, America’s use — and definition — of torture remains controversial. Internal memoranda within the George W. Bush Administration have led to ambiguities concerning whether U.S. intelligence agency personnel could legally use techniques such as waterboarding (simulated drowning) to illicit information from detainees at Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, congressional investigations are underway into the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of videotapes that reportedly depicted the use of disputed interrogation tactics.The primary source of international humanitarian law…
