Questions of torture, abuse rooted in Bush-era decisions

After the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Bush administration crafted the legal basis for aggressive interrogation techniques of prisoners and terrorism suspects.

The techniques included keeping the prisoner in stress positions for extended periods of time, sleep deprivation, slapping, enclosing the prisoner in a box with insects, and waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

Those techniques were detailed in four Bush-era legal memos -- one from 2002 and three from 2005 -- released by the Obama administration last month. The memos concluded that such techniques did not constitute torture and were not illegal.

The Obama administration disagrees.

President Obama formally banned the techniques by issuing an executive order requiring that the U.S. Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations.

"I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture," he said during an address to a joint session of Congress in February.

More than 400 people have been disciplined based on investigations involving detainee abuse, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. He said the punishments have ranged from prison sentences to demotions and letters of reprimand.

"The policy of the Department of Defense is to treat prisoners humanely, and those who have violated that policy have been investigated and disciplined," he said.

The most notorious of the cases centered on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.