The Nappy Cat Chronicles

In a review of declassified interrogation logs and other documents connected to an investigation conducted by the United States Army, Miles (2007) found that, between November 23, 2002, and January 11, 2003, al-Qahtani was interrogated 20 hours a day. After nearly two weeks, al-Qahtani’s first break came in the form of a 42-hour hospitalization for hypothermia due to prolonged exposure to an air conditioner and edema likely due to malnutrition and prolonged restraint and recumbence. Medical personnel regularly administered intravenous fluids for dehydration and, on at least one occasion, inserted a shunt to permit the infusion of intravenous fluids. Between December 12 and 14, 2002, al-Qahtani’s weight increased 11 pounds after he was administered a total of six bags of intravenous fluids. Although al-Qahtani experienced bradycardia (his heat rate measured 42 beats per minute) after his precipitous weight gain, a physician cleared al-Qahtani for continued interrogation.

The role of medical personal was not limited to intravenous fluid infusions and determinations of interrogative “fitness.” Miles (2007) reports that Major John Leo, the first psychologist to chair the Guantánamo Bay BSCT, recommended that al-Qahtani be placed in a swivel chair “to prevent him from fixing his eyes on one spot” (¶ 11). Additionally, after he asked to be allowed to sleep in an area away from his interrogation room, the BSCT advised al-Qahtani’s interrogators that his request was a ploy for sympathy and control.

Throughout his detention, al-Qahtani was forced to endure abusive psychological manipulation predicated upon behaviors proscribed by Islam: He stood naked in the midst of female soldiers during repeated strip searches, he wore a bra and a woman’s thong on his head, he was dressed as a woman and made to dance with a male soldier, he witnessed desecration of the Qur’an, he was forced to wear pictures of women dressed in bikinis, he was told that he had homosexual tendencies and that his mother and sister were whores, and he was not allowed to pray most days. Additionally, “[al-Qahtani] was leashed [and]….told to bark like a happy dog at photographs of 9/11 victims and growl at pictures of terrorists” (Miles, 2007, ¶ 14). His interrogators advised him that behaving like a dog elevated his social status.