Iraq and Terrorism

Allies in the War on Terrorism

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One of the key contentions in different outlooks on the War on Terrorism centers around the suggestion that it is in every civilized nation’s best interest to control terrorism. This outlook is part of the intellectual framework that lets Kerry suggest that greatly helpful allies would have been available if only the President were better … Read more

Still More Missing Weapons

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Knight-Ridder has a new story out about looting of weapons depots in Iraq. It’s worth reading in its entirety. A few excerpts: “The more than 320 tons of missing Iraqi high explosives at center stage in the U.S. presidential election are only a fraction of the weapons-related material that’s disappeared in Iraq since the U.S.-led … Read more

Al Qaqaa Update

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ABC News, via Josh Marshall: “Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell. Experts who have studied the images say … Read more

Securing WMD Sites In Iraq

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Today’s Boston Globe has an editorial by Peter Galbraith on the kinds of failures that let WMD sites be looted after our invasion of Iraq. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Galbraith, he was one of the first people to publicize Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988, and wrote the … Read more

Uniting Iraq by Trying Hussein

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Regardless of who wins here next Tuesday, we’ll still have at least 2 1/2 months before elections in Iraq during which time plenty needs to be done to stablize that country. Security for the voting locations is a big concern, but there’s also the question of the Iraqis’ mindset. Will they unite behind the winners or will they pull back into camps that left to simmer will eventually boil over into a civil war? And what can the US do to promote the former outcome?

The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum suggests one thing that might help unite Iraqis is a very public, very open trial of Saddam Hussein. This may not happen easily though:

Clearly there are some in the new Iraqi leadership who would prefer not to hold a trial at all, or at least not one involving lawyers, presentation of evidence and national debate. While visiting the United States last month, Allawi several times stated his preference for a fast trial, and a fast execution, possibly as soon as this month. It’s not hard to guess why: A short trial would let a lot of senior Baathists off the hook, would consolidate former opponents of Hussein behind Allawi, and would dispense with the whole thorny problem of “guilt” altogether. Although it seems the American government has so far persuaded him not to go that route, Allawi has embroiled the ongoing investigations and preparation in controversy by effectively removing Salem Chalabi, the Iraqi exile lawyer who set up the tribunal last winter.

What Applebaum and others argue, however, is that not having the trial may be feeding the insurgency, as least by not providing a unifying alternative dialog:

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A Modest Proposal

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The American Prospect has just posted an article by Kenneth Baer, about a question I hadn’t considered before: what should George W. Bush do, professionally, if he loses the election? Moved, no doubt, by a burning desire to be of assistance, Baer has come up with the perfect answer: “like all confused job seekers, Bush … Read more

But Wait, There’s More…

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To me, one of the more puzzling bits of the media’s coverage of the administration’s preparations for war has always been their failure to follow up on an MSNBC report from last March that between June 2002 and the invasion of Iraq, the administration vetoed plans to strike al Zarqawi’s training camp in northern Iraq on three separate occasions. This report was especially troubling because of what MSNBC claimed were the administration’s reasons for not striking Zarqawi: “Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.” I mean, how exactly would one explain that decision to the family of Nicholas Berg? This story just begged for follow-up, and I have been puzzled as to why no news organizations seemed inclined to investigate it.

Now, however, the Wall Street Journal, that leftist propaganda machine, has filed a story about it. Since it’s behind a subscription wall, I’m going to excerpt some of it below the fold.

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Why This Defies Belief.

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To address a few of the questions that have been raised about the looting of hundreds of tons of high explosives: Is this just a normal screw-up?? I don’t think so. The fact that this site had been secured by the IAEA means that we knew exactly where it was and what it contained. In … Read more

The Need for Nuance

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Criticizing both the Bush and Kerry plans for Iraq, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi suggests a new way to approach the challenge we face. He suggests that we form a “Grand Alliance” with the European Union and focus on the Middle East’s three most inflammatory problems together: “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the mess in Iraq, and the challenge of a restless and potentially dangerous Iran.”

His “Grand Alliance” is offered in direct opposition to the “anti-Islamic alliance” he suggests we’re being led into, and somewhat against our best interests, inadvertently by the alienation Bush’s lack of diplomacy has brought us and perhaps intentionally by those with competing interests:

The notion of a new Holy Alliance is already being promoted by those with a special interest in entangling the United States in a prolonged conflict with Islam. Vladimir Putin’s endorsement of Mr. Bush immediately comes to mind; it also attracts some anti-Islamic Indian leaders hoping to prevent Pakistan from dominating Afghanistan; the Likud in Israel is also understandably tempted; even China might play along.

In particular, Brzezinski argues we’re faced with a civil war within Islam, pitting extremists against somewhat cowered moderates, but he warns against staying the course we’re on now, which increasingly sounds like a holy war:

The undiscriminating American rhetoric and actions increase the likelihood that the moderates will eventually unite with the jihadists in outraged anger and unite the world of Islam in a head-on collision with America.

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This Defies Belief.

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The Nelson Report, via Josh Marshall, reports that in April 2003, 350 tons of extremely high explosives were looted from a site in Iraq that had been secured by the IAEA prior to the invasion. This has only come out now because the administration kept it secret and pressured Iraq not to disclose the fact … Read more

“I don’t think it matters.”

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There’s a very interesting article in today’s Washington Post about the administration’s prosecution of the War on Terror. It makes a number of interesting points, most notably about what happened to our early cooperation with Iran, and provides some more substance to the idea that Iraq did draw resources away from the fight against al … Read more

All Trick and No Treat

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Dick Cheney is out scaring folks a bit early: We cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that Kerry is the wrong choice — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. —Dick Cheney, October 19, 2004 OK, so those weren’t his exact words, but close enough: Vice President … Read more

General Misunderstandings

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In today’s NY Times, General Tommy Franks criticized Senator John Kerry’s repeated assertion that Bush botched our best chance to get bin Laden at Tora Bora. Although he makes a good point that there’s no proof bin Laden was in Tora Bora at the time, he acknowledges that some intelligence sources thought he was. Where … Read more

Putin Takes Post as GOP Pundit

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Moscow’s champion of democracy and paragon of integrity, Czar Vladimir Putin has pushed Tony Blair off GWB’s lap so that he can curl up there and sniff the crotch of the leader of the free world. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that terrorists are aiming to derail U.S. President George W. Bush’s chances at … Read more

Bush rejects offer of troops for Iraq

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Via Kos ~~~~~~~ It’s stuff like this that makes you question this adminstration’s priorities in Iraq: President George W. Bush rebuffed a plan last month for a Muslim peacekeeping force that would have helped the United Nations organize elections in Iraq, according to Saudi and Iraqi officials. In typical, “The Buck Actually Stops?” Bush fashion, … Read more

More Torture.

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From Ha’aretz, via American Street: “The Central Intelligence Agency declined Wednesday to comment on a Haaretz report that it is holding 11 susepcted senior Al-Qaida members in Jordan, the BBC reported. Haaretz has learned from international intelligence sources that the CIA is running a top-secret interrogation facility in Jordan, where the detainees – considered Al-Qaida’s … Read more

Kerry Plan for Iraq Gets Boost

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Via Kos ~~~~~~~ According to a report in the Financial Times, Germany might now deploy troops into Iraq. Part of what’s helping change their minds is the Kerry “proposal that he would convene an international conference on Iraq including countries that opposed the war.” Germany would certainly attend, [Peter Struck, the German defense minister] said. … Read more

Words Fail Me.

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From the LA Times, via Atrios: Bush Administration Plans to Delay Major Assaults in Iraq By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer 7:45 PM PDT, October 10, 2004 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives … Read more

The Abu Ghraib RICO Case: Part III.

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This is the third installment of “what’s shakin’ in the Abu Ghraib RICO lawsuit.” Prior installments are here and here; prior posts on the subject are here and here.

In this installment: More torture allegations! Greedy plaintiffs’ attorneys! The decline and fall of the automatic spell check function! Fun with the hearsay rule! More on the “the government was involved so it must be OK” defense! And much, much more!

For those just joining us, a public interest group filed a class-action RICO lawsuit on behalf of about a thousand Abu Ghraib detainees, claiming that several civilian contractors and their employees conspired to torture, maim, sexually abuse, and otherwise mistreat prisoners. The allegations are disturbing, but the evidentiary support for them is a bit thin. Moreover, even if the allegations are proven, it’s not at all clear to me that the corporate defendants — the deep pockets in the case — should be held responsible.

So, with all caveats firmly in place, we join our story . . . .

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Driving bin Laden

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The high cost of oil, supported by America’s refusal to even entertain the idea of conserving energy, supported by fierce resistance to a gas tax which would curb demand, actually aids the terrorists. So argues Thomas Friedman in his column today: Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none … Read more

War, on Drugs

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Via an excellent Kos diary entry by ObWi constant reader wilfred ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’ll post a good chunk of it here, but there’s more at Kos: Today I got home early and flipped on the tube. Oprah was on and her show is about being 30 years old in different countries around the world. A very … Read more

A Better Tool Against the “Ideology of Hate”

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Let’s take the argument at face value for just a moment…the argument that fighting “terrorism” (by which today we mainly mean terrorist actions by Islamist extremists) requires taking the offensive against an “ideology of hate.” What would be the best way to fight this ideology of hate?

Stuck in the Cold War mentality and still misunderstanding that a state-centric solution stands little chance if the real problem is contained in radical misinterpretations/perversions of a worldwide religion that’s spreading all the time, Paul Wolfowitz et al. dreamt up the highly experimental dominoes approach…the idea that injecting “democracy” into the heart of the Middle East will act like a virus of sorts, spreading stabilization and spurring grass roots rebellions. If injecting that democracy requires war (and the deaths of innocent civilians that would mean), so be it. There are moral, as well as practical, objections that must be ignored to endorse this approach, but the idea is that eventually states dedicated to freedom will be less likely to both harbor terrorists or provide a breeding ground for the hatred that fuels them. The Bush Administration has essentially put all its eggs in this basket. Really, they have…if it fails, the global situation will most surely be less stable than it was before we invaded Iraq.

But what else…what other ways would there be to fight an ideology of hate? Less risky ways?

Because I opposed the invasion of Iraq, I get asked that question all the time. My answer remains to focus on the moderate Muslim countries and leaders that exist…elevate them, celebrate them, support and reward them. Make them shining examples of the good that democratic societies provide all people…make Muslims in other parts of the world want to immigrate there…this will have the extra benefit of encouraging these moderate countries to double their democratizing efforts. Follow Margaret Thatcher’s famous recipe for success: “Accentuate the Positive.”

At least if this fails you’re guaranteed that you won’t have actually made matters worse. Nor will you have costs thousands of innocent civilians their lives.

But…but…but…we can’t wait…we have to go kill them before they kill us…we can’t let the evidence that Wolfowitz was right be a mushroom cloud…we…er…flypaper…Niger…9/11…uh…look over there…a funny French person

Does that about cover the uncontrollable urge to reject this without due consideration?

OK, back to my point.

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The Abu Ghraib RICO lawsuit: The Defense

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(Part II of a series.) What do you say to a claim that you engaged in an international, illegal enterprise to torture, beat, rape, and murder Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison? (See these prior posts regarding the RICO and other claims against the Abu Ghraib civilian contractors.) Well, if you’re The Titan Corporation, … Read more

Guantanamo’s Evil Stepson

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(12th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Please read this very, very important Newsweek story. As I feared, Gonzales’ letter is not worth much.

Hastert’s spokesman John Feehery said that Homeland Security had requested the extraordinary rendition provision, but “for whatever reason the White House has decided they don’t want to take this on because they’re afraid of the political implications.”

It’s actually worse than I thought. It’s not just a legal justification to keep doing what they’ve been doing. It’s not justa way to get rid of the Maher Arar case. It still might have been a political ploy, but not only a political ploy. Torture outsourcing was going to be–still may be–the substitute for Guantanamo Bay after the Supreme Court decision:

He said the provision, mainly laid out in Section 3032 and 3033 , was designed as a way of addressing the problem created by last summer’s Supreme Court decision. The justices ruled that the administration couldn’t detain people indefinitely without trial or charges. As a result, the government has ordered the release of suspects such as Yaser Hamdi, a dual citizen of the United States and Saudi Arabia who was captured in Afghanistan and held for three years as an enemy combatant.

Now, Feehery said, “we’ve got a situation where we’ve got these people in the country who ought not to be in the country. We have to release them because of the Supreme Court case. So Homeland Security wanted this provision.”

The DOJ spokesman confirmed this:

Justice spokesman Mark Corallo also said it was Homeland Security’s call. “It’s their issue,” Corallo said. “They’re the immigration people now. Not us.”

The House is still pushing for the provision, and I’m sure the White House has no objection. They just need to keep a safe distance. They can’t be allowed to. The press must ask Bush about this directly.

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Five Suspects Deported From Malawi to Zimbabwe

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(10th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Summary
I just learned about this one a half hour ago. It’s been reported on even less than the other cases in the U.S. press (yoo hoo, U.S. press! Look alive!)–just one news brief and one editorial in Seattle newspapers over a year ago, and no one’s picked up on the Amnesty International report–so I’m posting it out of chronological sequence.

According to Amnesty International, Ibrahim Habaci and Arif Ulusam of Turkey, Faha al Balhi of Saudi Arabi, MUhmud Sardar Issa of the Sudan, and Khalifa Abdi Hassan of Kenya were arrested in Blantyre, Malawi, on June 22, 2003. The arrests were carried out by Malawian police and CIA agents. They were held in secret. Their families lawyers intervened with the High Court of Malawi, which ordered them to be brought before the court in 48 hours.

By then they’d been flown out of the country. On June 26, 2003, a Malawian government official wrote to Amnesty that:

the arrests were not done by the Malawi Police but by the National Intelligence Bureau and the USA Secret Agents who controlled the whole operation. From the time the arrests were made, the welfare of the detainees, their abode and itinerary for departure were no longer in the hands of the Malawian authorities. Thus as a country we did not have the means to stop or delay the operation…In Malawi we do not know where these people are but they are in hands of the Americans who them out of the country using a chartered aircraft. They should now being going through investigations at a location only known by the USA.”

The U.S. ambassador to Malawi denied that the U.S. was responsible for the deportations.

There was some question over where they were taken. According to the Seattle Times, the men were suspected of funneling money to Al Qaeda through Islamic charities, and had been flown to Botswana for interrogation. A Guardian article from August 2003 describes “reports that the Air Malawi plane chartered by the US stopped off in Zimbabwe on the way to a third country, possibly Djibouti or Uganda, where the men were questioned for a month.” Several other sources said that they were interrogated in Zimbabwe for a month.

It seems as if the last story is accurate, based on what one of the prisoner’s told his wife. Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has one of the worst human rights records on the planet, and severe and sometimes fatal torture is widespread there. But fortunately, for once, these men seem not to have been harmed. Ella Ulusam, Arif Usulam’s wife, told Xinhua New Service that her husband had called her from Istanbul,

informing her that they were kept for 29 days in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwean(sic), where US and Malawian intelligence officials cleared them of any al-Qaeda links.

“He told me apart from the trauma of being arrested at night with no reason, they were treated well and are all in good health, ” she said.

The Guardian confirms that the CIA and the Malawian government decided they were innocent:

Nothing more was heard until July 24 when lawyers heard that Fahad Ral Bahli had surfaced in Riyadh and the other four in Sudan, all free men. Hub-Eddin Abbakar, a colleague of the Sudanese suspect, said they had been handed over to their respective embassies in Khartoum after the CIA decided they were innocent.

The President of Malawi met with Ella Ulusam and another of the prisoner’s wives and apologized to them for their treatment. From Xinhua Net:

“The president was very apologetic,” said Ella during the Tuesday interview. “He just said he was sorry, it was not the Malawi government, it was all the Americans. That’s all he said.”

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Truth Cuts (Strings and other Things)

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I’ve been one of the loudest among those calling Allawi a puppet of the Bush Administration, so let me be among the loudest to commend him for painting a more realistic portrait of the situation in his country:

In his first speech before the interim national assembly here, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave a sobering account today of the threat posed by the insurgency, saying the country’s instability is a “source of worry for many people” and that the guerrillas represent “a challenge to our will.”

Dr. Allawi, who has tried hard to cast himself as a tough and confident leader since taking office in late June, asserted that general elections would go ahead in January as planned, but acknowledged that there were significant obstacles standing in the way of security and reconstruction. The nascent police force is underequipped and lacks the respect needed from the public to quell the insurgency, he said, and foreign businessmen have told him they fear investing in Iraq because of the rampant violence here.

Why the change? I’ll give him all benefit of doubt here…but before anyone even thinks about suggesting there’s not been any change…

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Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed

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(9th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Summary
At 1 am in the morning of October 23 or 24, 2001, in a dark, empty corner of the Karachi airport, Pakistan handed, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, over to U.S. officials. Mohammed was shackled and blindfolded. A Pakistani newspaper reported that he had been “missing since the start of October” from Karachi University, where he was studying microbiology.

Mohammed is Yemeni, and was a suspect in the U.S.S. Cole bombing.

The U.S. flew him to Amman, Jordan on a private Gulfstream jet (which you may hear more about in a subsequent post) with the registration number N379P.

He hasn’t been seen since. Amnesty International has asked the U.S. where he is and what his legal status is, but gotten no reply. According to the 2001 State Department human rights report for Jordan, prisoners there made allegations of “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”

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______ the Model

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At some point, usually when it’s done, the models are damned and the thing becomes the thing that it is. Until that time, though, Kieran of Crooked Timber is on the right track: The U.S.’s day-to-day problems in Iraq may end up resembling Northern Ireland rather than Vietnam: car bombings, political assassinations, a general effort … Read more

The Pain Cannot Go On: RICO and Abu Ghraib

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On June 9, 2004, a civil rights group, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of California. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of about a thousand Iraqis who had been imprisoned in Abu Ghraib. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Alien Tort Claims Act, assault and battery, sexual assault and battery, wrongful death, violations of the Fourth, Eigth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, among other things. And, most significantly, it alleges that a consortium of U.S companies and their employees violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) through their work in the Abu Ghraib prison. Over the next few days, ObWi will explore the extent and nature of the Abu Ghraib RICO allegations.

I’d say that the Abu Ghraib claims are shocking, if the term “shocking” wasn’t already so diluted by its association with Britney’s marriages, thirty-year-old National Guard pay stubs, and JacketGate, etc. A sixteen year-old boy “was [allegedly] prevented from eating, drinking water, sitting, or sleeping. He described being sexually abused by Americans who placed their fingers in his anus.” One man was purportedly told by American interrogators that if he didn’t talk, they’d “torture him and rape his sister.” Other men were purportedly tortured, threatened with death, or sexually humiliated. And, allegedly, some were murdered in cold blood by their American interrogators and guards.

These allegations are enough to fill anyone with rage. But don’t let your rage be blind. As we get into the details of the case, you may begin to raise real questions regarding the truth of some of these allegations. You may also see that blame for the nightmare of Abu Ghraib may not fall to the persons accused. And you will see, I hope, that there’s a reason why we have judges and juries in this country, and that things are usually not so black-and-white that you can pick up a newspaper, read a story, dispense justice, and get on with your day.

The only thing worse than a crime, after all, is to convict the wrong person for it.

(There’s more.)

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It’s the Number of Troops, Stupid!

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Again and again, from Generals to Pundits, folks who spend their lives studying such things insisted the biggest mistake we made in invading Iraq was not sending in enough troops. Now even Paul Bremer is concurring: The United States did not have enough troops in Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein and “paid a big price” … Read more

Torture Legalization: A Winning Strategy for YOUR Congressional Campaign!

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(8th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) I noted in my last post that if Congressman Markey’s amendment fails, and the language legalizing extraordinary rendition make into the final version of the 9/11 Commission bill, … Read more

Legislative Update: Torture Outsourcing Bill One Step Closer

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(7th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Via Congressman Markey’s Office: The Republican leadership has released the version of the 9/11 Commission bill that will go before the full House this week. Here is a PDF version. The torture outsourcing provisions are still there. (Sections 3032 and 3033, pages 254-258.)

I didn’t have much hope otherwise. I’m still pretty depressed right now.

The Senate version doesn’t include the language legalizing extraordinary rendition. But given that the D.O.J. apparently requested these provisions and given the routine exclusion of Democrats and moderates from conference committees on major bills, I would be very very surprised if they were not included in the bill that comes out of conference.

Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans will probably not vote against, let alone filibuster, the bill based on this issue. Not the 9/11 Bill, not in an election year. They remember the Homeland Security Bill and the 2002 midterms. They remember how a triple amputee was successfully painted as soft on defense and this led to the loss of the Senate. I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that Hastert and DeLay remember too, and that it’s part of the reason for the anti-immigration provisions in the bill. Heads they win, tails Democrats lose. Maybe they can even have it both ways: pass the bill AND get a few conscience-ridden Democrats to oppose it and give them negative ad fodder.

So if I had to guess, I would tell you that Markey’s amendment is our last, best hope of stopping this.

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Mamdouh Habib

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(6th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Summary
Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan on October 5, 2001, and sent to Egypt for interrogation shortly after that. Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, told the Australian TV show SBS Dateline that Habib was sent to Egypt on U.S. orders and in U.S. custody: “The US wanted him for their own investigations. We are not concerned where they take him,” Hayat said. Hayat also stated that Egypt had never requested Habib’s extradition.

The Australian government has accused Habib of attending Lashkar and Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. An Australian TV program, Four Corners on the ABC network, has reported that a raid on Habib’s home in Sunday had uncovered “notes from a terrorist weapons training course”, that he told a friend he planned “to go to Afghanistan to live an Islamic life in the bin Laden camp,” and that he had contacts with two men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ibrahim El-Gabrowny. Sheik Mohammed Omran, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric in Melbourne, has said that he banned Habib from his mosque for trying to recruit people for jihad.

Habib’s family and lawyers deny all these charges. His wife says he traveled to Pakistan to look for an Islamic school for their children.

Habib’s lawyers say he was imprisoned for six months in Egypt and tortured with beatings, electric shock, and drug injection. Dr. Najeeb Al-Nauimi, the former Justice minister of Qatar, told the Dateline TV program that these accusations were true, though it is not clear how he knew this. From an unofficial transcript:

DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI, FORMER MINISTER OF JUSTICE, QATAR: They said he will die.
REPORTER: Tell me more specifically what you were told from your sources about what happened to Mamdouh Habib in Egypt.
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Well, he was in fact tortured. He was interrogated in a way which a human cannot stand up.
REPORTER: And you know this absolutely?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes. We were told that he – they rang the bell that he will die and somebody had to help him.
REPORTER: And again, did your sources tell you what kinds of things he was saying in Egypt to his torturers, to his interrogators?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: My sources did not say exactly what dialogue but they say that he accepted to sign anything.
REPORTER: So he was talking lots?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes – “Whatever you want, I will sign. I’m not involved. I’m not Egyptian. I’m Egyptian by background but I’m Australian.” But he was really beaten, he was really tortured.
REPORTER: Do you think…
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: They tried to use different ways of treating him in the beginning but in the end of that they thought he was lying and that’s why they were very tough.

Sometime in the spring of 2002, most likely in May, the U.S. brought Habib from Egypt to Guantanamo Bay. Ian Kemish, a spokesman for Australia’s foreign affairs department, told Dateline SBC that 10 days after he arrived in Guantanamo Habib “made some serious complaints about maltreatment during his time in Egypt” to visiting Australian officials.

This July, three British detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Rhuhel Ahmed, gave a long public statement about conditions there. It contained these allegations about Habib (on page 108):

Habib himself was in catastrophic shape – mental and physical. As a result of his having been tortured in Egypt he used to bleed from his nose, mouth and ears when he was asleep. We would say he was about 40 years of age. He got no medical attention for this. We used to hear him ask but his interrogator said that he shouldn’t have any. The medics would come and see him and then after he’d asked for medical help they would come back and say if you cooperate with your interrogators then we can do something.

Habib is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, and has not yet been charged before a military commission.

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