American Torture Task Force 6-26

This is what the United States, as a nation, has come to represent, under the George Bush administration. Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall of The New York Times report in a multi page story about an American elite Special Operations forces unit named Task Force 6-26. It's official mission was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its unofficial mission, judging by the behavior of the unit's personnel, was torture. American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room. … "In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball." … Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." … The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives.