Documents turned over to Congress by the Bush Administration reveal that Guantanamo detainees were threatened with being forced to accompany Vice President Cheney on a hunting trip unless they cooperated with interrogators.
Congressional staff members who have seen the heavily redacted documents say that in several cases the threats appeared to work and that the detainees involved became more cooperative during interrogation sessions. Whether any useful information was obtained as a result is unknown.
The Democratic congressional aides, who asked not be identified, said it was unclear from the documents whether any alleged terrorists being held at the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba had actually be sent on a Cheney hunting trip.
“If these reports are true, they are a clear indication of the illegal psychological torture that Guantanamo detainees are subjected to on what appears to be a daily basis,” said Albert Reirdon, a spokesman for the human rights organization Human Rights Right Now.
He said that if any detainees were forced to hunt in close proximity to Cheney, it would be a “flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a very black mark, indeed, for the United States.”
The congressional aides said the documents indicated that the detainees were told they would be given a shotgun without any shells, forced to wear a hunting jacket with a giant bull’s-eye target and the slogan “Shoot One for the Gipper” on the back. The detainee hunting companions would have been forced to hunt 20 yards or so in front of the vice president.
Cheney’s bird hunting became a cause c�l�bre in early 2005 when he accidentally sprayed a hunting companion with bird shot during a hunting outing in south Texas. The companion survived the encounter.
Republican congressional aides who have seen the documents did not dispute their contents, but they questioned whether the hunting trip threats would have meant much to Guantanamo inmates.
“All of this excitement about these memos presumes that the inmates had heard about Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident,” said an aide, who asked not to be identified. “I think it’s a stretch that such news would reach them. But even if it had, these inmates would know that the vice president would never knowingly do them any harm.”