Human rights advocates have long suspected a link between interrogations in the "war on terror" and a secretive military survival school that trains elite U.S. troops to resist torture.

Jane Mayer explored the evidence of a connection between the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school at Fort Bragg, N. C., and real-world interrogators in a July 2005 piece for the New Yorker.

The Torture School curriculum and Mohammad al-Kahtani's torture records, obtained through an ACLU FOIA request, are another damning indictment against the Waterboarding Administration.  

How is this any different than what we knew?  The fact that SERE teaches "interrogation techniques" (what you and I would call torture) to be used on detainees is new and it's appalling.

From Salon.

Now Salon has the first hard proof of that connection, via one document buried among 1,000 pages obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Act. A March 22, 2005, sworn statement by the former chief of the Interrogation Control Element at Guantánamo said instructors from SERE also taught their methods to interrogators of the prisoners in Cuba.

"This is the missing link," declared Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. "It is proof that the SERE training was in fact used, for a time at least, as a basis for interrogations at Guantánamo."

"That is what I inferred had happened," agreed retired Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis. Xenakis:  "but I have never seen this documented anywhere." The sworn statement suggests that Fort Bragg was the incubator of the abuse that later migrated from Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib, and is further evidence of the systematic nature of torture in the war on terror.

In our names.

When soldiers are brought to the mock prison, already sleep-deprived and hungry from a week on the run, they are isolated in rows of small pens too small to fully recline or stand up. They are kept awake for days, moved about with bags on their heads, stripped naked and interrogated using techniques to provoke humiliation and shame.

"They had me remove my clothes" in the interrogation room, the Ranger said. A bag was put over his head, and a woman began speaking. " 'You are fat,'" he remembered her saying. "'You have the smallest dick I have ever seen.'" He called the experience "humiliating and degrading."

Instructors at the SERE school pour water over the hooded prisoners, creating the sensation of suffocation. "If you have ever had a bag on your head and somebody pours water on it," the Ranger recalled, "it is real hard to breathe."

Stress positions -- a term so often cited in investigations of wartime detainee abuse it has nearly entered common lexicon -- are often employed at SERE school.

Soldiers are forced into a squatting position with both palms facing up, or an excruciating half crouch with arms extended out straight, called the Iron Man. After a while, "Your legs go numb. Your knees go numb. Your feet tingle," the Ranger said. "It feels like fire. Eventually, you can't hold yourself up."

Mock prisoners at SERE school get kicked and slapped with an open hand. They are forced to "low crawl" through mud and dirt at the fake prison and get constant "PT," or physical training -- exercise -- to wear them out.  

In addition to sexual humiliation, psychological duress is a big part of the program and comes in a variety of flavors, including an overall assault on a soldier's values. Mock interrogators desecrated an American flag, stepped on a copy of the Constitution, and "kicked the Bible around," the Ranger said -- an echo of the abuse of the Koran alleged at Guantánamo. Soldiers were ridiculed for their lack of knowledge of the Constitution and U.S. history. "They begin to preach propaganda and attack your institutional base," the Ranger said. "Everything about SERE school is a mind fuck."

Those physical and mental techniques mirror the treatment of some detainees at Abu Ghraib. The shocking photos from Abu Ghraib show prisoners stripped naked, with bags on their heads and forced into stress positions, like crouching for long periods or holding heavy boxes.

From ElendilK at Rummy's Diaries, the transcripts of Mohammed al-Kahtani's testimony are eerily reminiscent of the Torture School and its sadistic curriculum.

Somewhat less is known about the details of the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo. But what is known -- including the statement of the interrogation chief and the interrogation logs of al-Kahtani -- reveal many striking parallels with what happened in Iraq.

"[But] for the lack of a camera, it would sure look like Abu Ghraib," said Lt. Gen. Schmidt, according to a transcript of a conversation he had with an Army inspector general who was conducting his own, separate review of the treatment of prisoners in Cuba.

On re-review of the Kahtani torture records, the missing pieces of the puzzle find shape.

Kahtani's sleep was often limited to four hours between his 18-to-20-hour interrogations. He was repeatedly humiliated: forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, accused of being a homosexual, forced to wear women's underwear and perform "dog tricks" on a leash -- treatment later found to be "degrading and abusive" in a military investigation. He was hooded.

Denied access to a latrine, Kahtani urinated in his pants and was frequently exercised. Kahtani had water poured on his head. His logs also show interrogators "ridiculing" him for being unfamiliar with parts of the Koran.

The parallels between the SERE course and Guantánamo are remarkable, with the important exception of duration. So great are the psychological burdens of that final week of captivity training at SERE school, graduates are given a week off afterward to recuperate while they are carefully monitored by military mental health professionals.

Kahtani was interrogated for up to 20 hours 48 times over eight weeks. As of April 2006, his name still appeared on a list released by the Department of Defense of prisoners who remain at Guantánamo.

Schmidt's report concludes that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantánamo, should be "admonished" and "held accountable" for Kahtani's treatment. Miller's commanding officer later rejected a punishment.

By then Miller and the SERE techniques had both already moved to Abu Ghraib. This despite the unnamed interrogation chief's cryptic comment in the sworn statement that both he and Maj. Gen. Miller "didn't believe the [SERE] techniques were appropriate."

Carol Darby, a spokeswoman at Fort Bragg, said that the sere program has not deviated from its original purpose. In an e-mail, she wrote, "sere training is not designed and it does not teach anyone how to interrogate individuals. Students who go through sere are taught methods to resist interrogation techniques that may be used against them; they are taught how to respond when they are on the receiving end of interrogation."

Yet many of the interrogation methods used in SERE training seem to have been applied at Guantánamo.

One component of the training program, called the "religious dilemma," parallels Guantánamo detainees' chronic complaints about Koran abuse. At SERE, trainees in the Level C course are given the choice of seeing a Bible desecrated or revealing secrets to interrogators.

"They are challenging your faith," the SERE affiliate explained. "The Holy Book is torn up. They say they'll stop if you talk. Sometimes they rip the Bible and throw it in the air." The goal is to make detainees react emotionally to the desecration. Some trainees who are devout Christians become profoundly disturbed during the exercise.

In May, an e-mail written by a graduate of the sere program was posted on Informed Comment, the blog of Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, who is critical of the Bush Administration. The e-mail, which was anonymous, asserted, "Gitmo must be being used as a `laboratory' for all these psychological manipulation techniques." Cole provided me with contact information for the sere graduate, and I spoke on the phone with him. He confirmed his identity, but said that he wished to remain anonymous, fearing that his comments about the program might have legal repercussions.

From Jane Mayer's original article in The New Yorker, January 2005.

"I'd be proud to let the media see anything in this camp," Colonel Mike Bumgarner, the commander of the Joint Detention Operations Group, the military unit that oversees the daily handling of detainees, said. "I'd gladly invite the world in to see our guards in action. I'm very proud of what they do. They treat the detainees humanely." He went on, "We have to be like the parents here. In loco parentis. That's how we look at it. It's like a big family."

As we reached the end of the cellblock, hysterical shouts, in broken English, erupted from a caged exercise area nearby. "Come here!" a man screamed. "See here! They are liars!" He was middle-aged, with a full beard and skinny bow legs, and wore an orange shirt and shorts. ("Privileged"--that is, coöperative--detainees wear white or beige uniforms.)

"No sleep!" he yelled. "No food! No medicine! No doctor! Everybody sick here!" A soldier near the detainee began ferociously signalling to the officials leading the tour to usher me out. As I was leaving, the detainee pointed to his own cellblock, which was off limits to journalists, and screamed, "They are liars! Liars! Liars!"

"His English is pretty good," one official joked wanly.

The media has been banned from Guantanamo since the June 10 suicides of three detainees.

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Many thanks to Em Dash and The Pony Express for help above and beyond the call with documents and sources.

• Guantanamo