Guantánamo torture trail

At the US military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 18 tactics that overstepped international laws were approved for the interrogation of detainees in 2002. Photograph: John Riley /EPA

Former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld.
His role: Rumsfeld signed a memo allowing the 18 tactics, including three that were neither forbidden nor given “blanket” approval.
Right now: Rumsfeld resigned after the Republican party suffered huge losses in the 2006 elections and is now a fellow at Stanford University’s conservative think-tank. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

William “Jim” Haynes, former defence department general counsel
His role: Haynes submitted the 18 tactics to Rumsfeld weeks after the US justice department gave legal approval.
Right now: Haynes resigned from the Pentagon in February and became chief counsel at oil corporation Chevron. He has hired a long-time counsel to vice president Dick Cheney as his lawyer amid reports of a congressional investigation targeting him. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

Guantánamo detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani
His role: Al-Qahtani, a Saudi detainee and alleged al-Qaida member, was subjected to such tactics as being doused with water and sexually taunted, according to the Pentagon's interrogation log.
Right now: Al-Qahtani’s lawyer recently revealed that he had recanted his statements incriminating other detainees, claiming that he gave false information to avoid harsh treatment. Photograph: Mark Wilson/AP

Major general Michael Dunlavey, interrogations commander at Guantánamo
His role: Dunlavey reported directly to Rumsfeld to develop an interrogation plan for Guantánamo starting in early 2002. He filed the first request to use the 18 tactics.
Right now: Dunlavey was replaced less than a month after filing his request. His successor moved on to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He is now a judge in Pennsylvania. Photograph: Andres Leighton/AP

Lieutenant colonel Diane Beaver, judge advocate at Guantánamo
Her role: Beaver was asked to rule that the new tactics, including forced nudity, were legal. She did so, while asking for further review of the harsher methods.
Photograph: Phillipe Sands/Phillipe Sands

General Richard Myers, former chairman of the US military’s joint chiefs of staff
His role: The officer who first read Dunlavey’s request to use the 18 new tactics told Myers that the harshest of them might be illegal. Myers continues to claim erroneously that detainees were treated in accordance with the Geneva convention.
Right now: Myers retired in 2005 and is now a part-time military professor. Photograph: Ed Wray/AP

John Yoo, former deputy assistant attorney general
His role: Yoo co-wrote a series of legal memos at the US justice department that exempted terrorist suspects from the Geneva conventions.
Right now: Yoo is a law professor at the liberal Berkeley campus of the University of California, where pressure has mounted to sack him. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP

While Bush continues to insist that torture does not occur at Guantánamo, abusive tactics are still permitted and the CIA retains the freedom to waterboard prisoners. Bush vetoed a total ban on waterboarding and was supported by Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty