Criticism as Wikileaks shows US ignored torture in Iraq and Bush defends ‘waterboarding’ terror suspects

In October, over 400,000 secret US military documents were published by Wikileaks revealing thousands of cases of torture and other ill-treatment documented by US personnel in Iraq.

The news was reported all over the world and, in the UK, the Medical Foundation worked with Dispatches to give an insight into the severe physical and psychological torture of hundreds of Iraqi civilians seen by the Medical Foundation since 2003.

In November, as former US President Bush launched his memoirs by advertising his personal involvement in the authorisation of the ‘waterboarding’ of terror suspects, the Medical Foundation featured in the Big Issue magazine explaining the harsh realities of the torture method. Bush’s claim that ‘waterboarding’ helped save British lives by foiling attacks on UK soil was also quickly dismissed by UK security services.

A matter of weeks earlier, Sir John Sawers, had become the first serving head of MI6 to make a public speech, in which he went on record stressing that “torture is illegal a