FBI Reports Duct-Taping, 'Baptizing' at Guantanamo

An FBI memorandum that accompanied the documents emphasized that none of the incidents involved agency or Justice Department employees. It said the reports concerned personnel from other government agencies or outside contractors.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy director of the ACLU's National Security Program, said the new documents highlight the need for more focused and aggressive investigation of allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay. He questioned how aggressively the FBI pursued the allegations by its employees, because authorities conducted follow-up interviews in only nine of the 26 cases.

"More comprehensive investigation is needed, not only into the scope of abuses but into the root causes and policies that led to those incidents," Jaffer said.

Some previously reported tactics mentioned in the new documents include wrapping a prisoner in an Israeli flag, subjecting others to extreme heat and cold, and aggressively using strobe lights on others.

Such approaches were allowed under aggressive Pentagon detention policies in place at the time, and the new documents include several instances in which interrogators appear to cite such approval as justification for their actions.

But one FBI agent who visited Guantanamo Bay in the fall of 2003 described a tactic called the "frequent flyer program," in which detainees who were deemed uncooperative were placed on a list to be subjected to special sleep-deprivation tactics. The prisoners were moved frequently from cellblock to cellblock at intervals of two to four hours to interrupt their sleep, the agent said.

In September, the Pentagon adopted new interrogation rules, outlawing harsh techniques adopted at Guantanamo Bay, detention facilities in Iraq and other prisons overseas since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.