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9/11/2001

Event: Terror attacks in New York City and Washington.

9/17/2001

Event: President Bush signs a finding giving the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture, and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

10/07/2001

Event: United States attacks Afghanistan.

10/28/2001

Coverage: Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Kamran Khan, “Cole Suspect Turned Over By Pakistan,” The Washington Post.

11/13/2001

Event: Bush signs order creating tribunals for terror suspects. Lacking protections guaranteed by military’s courts-martial, it sets the stage for future litigation.

1/09/2002

Event: John Yoo, a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, argues in a memo that captured Taliban and al Qaeda aren’t protected by the Geneva Conventions.

1/11/2002

Event: First prisoners are moved from detention in Afghanistan to open-air cages at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo.

1/17/2002

Event: Red Cross makes first visit to detainees at Guantanamo.

1/25/2002

Event: Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel, argues in a memo that the Geneva Conventions’ limitations on interrogation are “obsolete.”

1/26/2002

Coverage: Rowan Scarborough, “Powell wants detainees to be declared POWs; Memo shows differences with White House,” Washington Times

2/07/2002

Event: In a memo, Bush states that al Qaeda members are not protected by Geneva, but says that when it is “consistent with military necessity,” detainees should be treated in a manner “consistent with the principles of Geneva.”

3/11/2002

Coverage: Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Peter Finn, “U.S. Behind Secret Transfer of Terror Suspects,” The Washington Post

4/25/2002

Event: Construction of 410-bed Camp Delta is completed at Guantanamo.

7/08/2002

Coverage: Roy Gutman et al., “Guantanamo Justice?” Newsweek

8/01/2002

Event: In a memo to Gonzales, Jay Bybee, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, narrowly defines torture as something causing pain equivalent to “death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of bodily function.”

11/27/2002

Event: William J. Haynes II, general counsel of the Defense Department, recommends interrogation techniques, including stress positions and something called “fear up,” for use at Guantanamo. Approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. This is the memo on which Rumsfeld wrote, “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”

12/26/2002

Coverage: Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, “U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations,” The Washington Post, on U.S. abuse and rendition to other countries that torture

1/15/2003

Event: Rumsfeld rescinds blanket authorization of some abusive interrogation techniques at Gitmo, but allows for approval of them case by case.

3/04/2003

Coverage: Carlotta Gall, “U.S. Military Investigating Death of Afghan in Custody,” The New York Times

3/20/2003

Event: United States attacks Iraq.

10/07/2003

Event: ACLU files an FOIA request demanding release of information about detainees held overseas by the U.S.

10/12/2003

Event: Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the overall commander in Iraq, signs classified memo encouraging interrogators at Abu Ghraib to “manipulate an internee’s emotions and weaknesses.”

10/2003-12/2003

Event: Photographs taken of abuses at Abu Ghraib.

11/01/2003

Coverage: Charles Hanley, “Former Iraqi detainees tell of riots, punishment in the sun, good Americans and pitiless ones,” The Associated Press

11/05/2003

Event: Maj. Gen. Ryder reports to Lt. Gen. Sanchez that U.S. military prisons in Iraq are dangerously mismanaged; notes “tension between the missions of the military police . . . and intelligence teams.” Report alleges no wrongdoing by MPs.

12/18/2003

Event: U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals orders that the alleged “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla be released from military custody and either charged in court or set free.

1/13/2004

Event: Specialist Joseph Darby hands over hundreds of pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command.

1/16/2004

Event: Central Command issues brief press release announcing an investigation into prisoner treatment.

1/19/2004

Event: Lt. Gen. Sanchez orders secret investigation of Abu Ghraib.

1/31/2004

Event: Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba appointed to conduct investigation of 800th MP Brigade at Abu Ghraib.

2/26/2004

Event: Taguba submits his report on Abu Ghraib.

3/20/2004

Event: Military charges six soldiers in Abu Ghraib abuses.

4/2004

Event: Abu Ghraib photographs leaked to 60 Minutes II, but not immediately broadcast at the request of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

4/28/2004

Coverage: 60 Minutes II airs Abu Ghraib photos.

4/30/2004

Coverage: Seymour Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker Web site

5/13/2004

Coverage: James Risen et al., “Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations,” The New York Times

5/17/2004

Coverage: Seymour Hersh, “Chain of Command,” The New Yorker

5/17/2004

Coverage: Stephen Grey, “America’s Gulag,” The New Statesman

5/24/2004

Coverage: Seymour Hersh, “The Gray Zone,” The New Yorker

5/24/2004

Coverage: John Barry, Michael Hirsh, and Michael Isikoff, “The Roots of Torture,” Newsweek

6/2004

Event: ACLU files lawsuit demanding the government comply with its October 2003 FOIA request.

6/07/2004

Coverage: Jess Bravin, “Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture,” The Wall Street Journal

6/10/2004

Coverage: Mark Danner, “Torture and Truth,” The New York Review of Books

6/13/2004

Coverage: Jason Burke, “Secret World of U.S. Jails,” The Observer (London)

6/21/2004

Coverage: Tim Golden et al., “U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantanamo Detainees,” The New York Times

6/24/2004

Coverage: Mark Danner, “The Logic of Torture,” The New York Review of Books

6/28/2004

Event: U.S. Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Rasul v. Bush that federal courts do have jurisdiction over Gitmo.

9/2004

Coverage: Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command (HarperCollins)

10/07/2004

Coverage: Mark Danner, “Abu Ghraib: The Hidden Story,” The New York Review of Books

10/2004

Coverage: Human Rights Watch, “The United States’ ‘Disappeared,’ The CIA’s Long-Term ‘Ghost Detainees’”

10/2004

Coverage: Mark Danner, Torture and Truth (New York Review of Books Publishing)

12/20/2004

Event: ACLU begins releasing internal FBI memos containing reports of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

2/14/2005

Coverage: Jane Mayer, “Outsourcing Torture,” The New Yorker

3/07/2005

Event: Vice Adm. Church delivers report on detainee abuse to Congress outlining a growing trend in the war on terror for military psychiatrists and psychologists to take part in interrogations.

4/2005

Coverage: Human Rights Watch, “Getting Away With Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees”

4/23/2005

Coverage: Carlotta Gall, “U.N. Monitor of Afghan Rights Accuses U.S. on Detentions,” The New York Times

5/01/2005

Event: U.S. military releases 85 prisoners from its jails in Afghanistan, deciding they pose no threats. Others were released earlier.

5/20/2005

Coverage: Tim Golden, “In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates’ Deaths,” The New York Times

6/06/2005

Coverage: Daniel Eisenberg and Timothy J. Burger, “What’s Going on at Gitmo?” Time

7/11/2005

Coverage: Jane Mayer, “The Experiment,” The New Yorker

7/14/2005

Coverage: Mark Danner, “The Iraq Pretext: Why The Memo Matters,” The New York Review of Books

9/23/2005

Coverage: Adam Zagorin, “Pattern of Abuse,” Time.com

9/24/2005

Coverage: Eric Schmitt, “3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine,” The New York Times

11/02/2005

Coverage: Dana Priest, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons,” The Washington Post

11/08/2005

Coverage: Amnesty International, “Secret Detention in CIA ‘Black Sites’”

11/14/2005

Coverage: Jane Mayer, “A Deadly Interrogation,” The New Yorker

12/30/2005

Event: President Bush signs Defense appropriations bill including the McCain Amendment and the Detainee Treatment Act.

2/2006

Coverage: “Guantanamo’s Grip,” National Journal

2/27/2006

Coverage: Jane Mayer, “The Memo,” The New Yorker

3/19/2006

Coverage: Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall, “Task Force 6-26: Inside Camp Nama; In Secret Unit’s ‘Black Room,’ A Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse,” New York Times

3/23/2006

Coverage: Charles Hanley, “U.S. soldier’s prison crimes,” The Daily Telegraph

6/10/2006

Event: Three Guantanamo detainees commit suicide by hanging themselves with clothing and sheets.

6/29/2006

Event: U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-3 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that military commissions, and any abusive interrogation techniques, violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.

To read the articles in the September/October 2006 issue, click here.

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