09/17/06

Year by year: From Bush decree, to shocking photos, to rollback to Geneva

In American Hands-Timeline
By The Associated Press

The evolution of the U.S. wartime detention system:

2001
Oct. 7 - Afghanistan war begins.

2002
Jan. 16 -- Al-Qaida and Taliban suspects arrive at U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Feb. 7 -- President Bush signs order declaring Geneva Convention rights don't apply to Afghanistan detainees.

Nov. 27 -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issues order allowing harsh techniques at Guantanamo including forced nakedness, stress positions, use of dogs.

Dec. 26 -- Washington Post first reports abusive interrogations in secret CIA prisons.

2003
March 20 -- Iraq war begins.

September -- Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez authorizes interrogation plan including use of dogs and stress positions.

Nov. 1 -- Associated Press reports humiliating, abusive treatment and deaths of U.S. detainees in Iraq, based on interviews with freed prisoners.

Nov. 8 -- Now-infamous abuses are photographed at Abu Ghraib including forcing prisoners to perform or simulate sex acts.

2004
Jan. 13 -- Abu Ghraib military policeman Joseph Darby tips Army investigators to abuse.

March 3 -- Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, special investigator, forwards classified report to U.S. Baghdad command citing "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib.

March 20 _ First charges are announced against six Abu Ghraib soldiers.

April 28-30 -- CBS News and New Yorker magazine report on Abu Ghraib. Photos prompt global outrage.

June 22 -- Justice Department announces it is withdrawing 2002 memos narrowly defining torture.

Oct. 14 -- Army investigation implicates 28 soldiers in 2002 deaths of two Afghan detainees.

2005
Jan. 14 -- Spc. Charles Graner Jr. is sentenced to 10 years in prison, stiffest sentence in Abu Ghraib scandal.

2006
June 29 -- U.S. Supreme Court strikes down military tribunals planned for terror suspects. It also holds that Geneva's ban on degrading treatment applies to U.S. detainees.

July 11 -- White House says it will rescind section of Bush 2002 executive order saying terror suspects have no Geneva Convention protections.

Sept. 6 -- Pentagon issues new interrogation manual banning abusive techniques. Bush announces secret CIA prisons were emptied of 14 terror suspects, who are moved to Guantanamo.