The Israeli Torture Template

Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

Former Abu Ghraib guard says prisoners were treated even worse than was reported

Benjamin Thompson, a former guard at Abu Ghraib, said little changed at the detention center after shocking photos of U.S. guards engaged in torture were leaked to the media.

In February 2004, Benjamin Thompson was sent to Abu Ghraib to guard Iraqi prisoners. Two months after he arrived, photos of grinning American soldiers torturing and sexually abusing naked Iraqis were leaked to the world. Thompson saw nothing like that at Abu Ghraib. What he did see, he says, was worse.

Hallway of Abu Ghraib prison...