Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt

Inquiry conducted by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt of the Air Force.

Prompted by internal reports from FBI agents about the mistreatment of detainees.

What has been released: Nothing. Unnamed military officials described aspects of a draft of the report to the press in April 2005 and said then that the report would be released by late May. The FBI internal reports to which this investigation responded were released after the ACLU made a Freedom of Information Act request.

Sources: Unknown.

Findings: According to the New York Times, Schmidt's investigators did not find evidence of physical mistreatment and "were examining whether interrogators improperly humiliated prisoners or used psychological abuse." It's not clear how far up the chain of command the final report will go.

Context: The FBI internal memoranda include one account of prisoners held in extremely hot or extremely cold rooms for up to 24 hours who "most times" had "urinated or defecated on themselves." The agent who made that report also saw a detainee "almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night." Another memorandum describes a detainee arriving from Guantanamo's Temporary Holding Facility with "marks (burns) on him that seemed suspicious." The FBI agent said: "When questioned about the marks, the detainee stated that he had been tortured by his captors." In a third account, agents say they witnessed "sleep deprivation [redacted] and utilization of loud music/bright lights/growling dogs in the Detainee interview process by DOD representatives." A May 2005 report by Physicians for Human Rights found that evidence of "systematic psychological torture" at Guantanamo included the use of prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual abuse, and dogs.

Photograph of Randall Schmidt courtesy AFP.