It is not easy to tell who is telling the truth. Few independent reporters or investigators outside the ICRC have access to prisoners at Gitmo. That's one problem. Another is that the line between torture and coercive interrogation is not always clear.

Finally, the ICRC report itself, which followed a monthlong investigation in June, has not been released publicly. That is because the committee agrees to maintain confidentiality, reporting only to the government that runs a prison, in exchange for access to the inmates.

What is known about the ICRC report comes mostly from a government memorandum that reportedly quotes liberally from the original report and lists its major findings. That memo was leaked to The New York Times, which published a story about it Tuesday.

According to the Times story, the committee accused the U.S. government of creating a system at Guantanamo designed to break the will of prisoners through “humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes and use of forced positions.”

The committee charged that medical personnel at the prison had given information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, in violation of medical ethics.

Military leaders and spokesmen for the president have denied that torture is taking place, but they have not said that the ICRC allegations were reported inaccurately.

Unfortunately, it is hard to see what the committee has to gain by making accusations which are not true or are exaggerations, especially when the report itself is supposed to remain secret. The committee is continuing to respect its confidentiality agreement with the United States.

There also is a history here. The government's decision to classify the prisoners at Guantanamo as enemy combatants, imprison them on foreign soil, and debate whether they are due the protections of the Geneva Conventions calls into question the U.S. commitment to humane treatment. A U.S. investigation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's ill-advised decision to authorize aggressive tactics of interrogation, at Gitmo and elsewhere, which border on torture.

Pushing these boundaries undermines the moral clarity that should guide U.S. policy and mocks the humane values that are the foundation of our democracy.