ICRC: CIA doctors tortured Gitmo inmates

The International Committee of the Red Cross document depicts how CIA medical staff members participated in Guantanamo Bay waterboarding sessions in which the medics controlled the detainees' vital signs to ensure their survival throughout the period of the torture.

The 'classified' Red Cross material, originally recorded in 2007, hit the press in April 2009 and describes torture sessions "monitored by [CIA] health personnel who in some instances recommended stopping the method of ill-treatment, or recommended its continuation, but with adjustments."

The report also marks cases in which CIA medical personnel deliberately took part in the administration of torture and interrogation.

"The alleged participation of health personnel in the interrogation process and, either directly or indirectly, in the infliction of ill-treatment constituted a gross breach of medical ethics and, in some cases, amounted to participation in torture and/or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment."

A paramedic involved in torturing one of the inmates told him, "I look after your body only because we need you for information," the Guardian quoted the Red Cross document as saying.

While in shackles, prisoners were made "to urinate and defecate on themselves and remain standing in their own bodily fluids for periods of several days," the report added.

Head of media at the Red Cross in Geneva, Florian Westphal, has verified the accuracy of the dossier posted on the Internet, saying "It is a legitimate document. It is extremely unusual for an ICRC document on detention procedures to be leaked publicly."

The Red Cross also "deplores the fact that these persons were held in undisclosed detention during a prolonged period by the US authorities and the conditions of treatment to which they were subjected during the time."

The infamous US naval detention facility located in a Cuban territory was ordered by US President Barack Obama to be shut down due to its catastrophic effects on America's human rights' record.

The naval base was basically used to hold suspected and so-called terror suspects during the tenure of former President, George Bush.