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Marquis de Bush *

Ann Wright is now free to say what few dare: That no young military reservist could possibly have concocted the strategy of interrogating Muslim men by using religious humiliation and tactics of sexual degradation worthy of the Marquis de Sade.  "It came from the minds of some of the senior interrogators who are very well-versed in Arab cultures," Wright told me. "Those types of things would be very well discussed."  She has no proof, . . .We are officially told that the abuse of detainees in American custody - who were stripped naked and beaten, forced to simulate sexual acts, their beards shaved, leered at by women interrogators who rubbed their breasts against them, or smeared them with fake menstrual blood, or grabbed and sometimes kicked their genitals - is the handiwork of a few rogues Marie Cocco , NewsDay, 5/24/05  MORE

Amnesty Intl. Calls for Inquiries on Bush Torture Policy*

Contrary to White House assertions, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo published by Newsweek May 6 are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States, RAW STORY has learned.  Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram airbase prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Quran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. . . The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003 interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan: "Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet.  Raw Story, 5/16/05  MORE

Bush Torture Whitewash *

Pentagon officials have now made it known that the last of the official investigations of prisoner abuse, by the Army inspector general, has ended by exonerating all but one senior officer, a female reserve brigadier general . . . Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; former CIA director George J. Tenet; and Alberto R. Gonzales, the former White House counsel who is now attorney general, are excused: . . .The only people to suffer criminal prosecution from one of the most serious human rights scandals in U.S. history remain a handful of lower-ranking soldiers . . .even the limited disclosures that have taken place make clear the culpability of several senior officers whom the Army has exonerated:  Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez . . .Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller . . .Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast. . .Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski. . .  Washington Post Editorial 4/26/05 MORE

Rendition Reaction*

A radical Egyptian cleric known as Abu Omar was walking to a Milan mosque for noon prayers in February 2003 when he was grabbed on the sidewalk by two men, sprayed in the face with chemicals and stuffed into a van. He hasn't been seen since. . .Italian authorities suspect the Egyptian was the target of a CIA-sponsored operation known as rendition, in which terrorism suspects are forcibly taken for interrogation to countries where torture is practiced. . .prosecutors in Italy and Germany have not ruled out criminal charges. At the same time, the European investigations are producing new revelations about the suspected U.S. involvement in the disappearances of four men, not including the Egyptian, each of whom claims they were physically abused and later tortured.  Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 3/13/05 MORE

Bush's Torture Safeguards *

The Bush administration's secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval . . .The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government's efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticized by human rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration's public pledge to provide safeguards against torture. . ..former government officials say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A. has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists from one foreign country to another, including to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan. . .Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons.  DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON, NY Times, 3/6/05 MORE

Rumsfeld Sued for Torture *

[T]he American Civil Liberties Union and a human rights organization sued Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and three Army commanders Tuesday on behalf of former detainees, charging that the military authorized illegal interrogation techniques. . .if the federal courts allow it to proceed, the suit could bring further attention to the abuse of prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers and force the Pentagon to disclose additional details from its own investigations of the abuse.  The suit says the prisoners were subjected to severe and repeated beatings, were cut with knives, faced sexual humiliation and assault, were confined in a wooden, coffin-like box, deprived of sleep, subjected to mock executions, threatened with death, and restrained in "contorted and excruciating positions."  James Gerstenzang,,LA Times, 3/2/05  MORE

JAGs Report Gitmo Torture *

Military lawyers at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison tried to stop inhumane interrogations, but were ignored by senior Pentagon officials, . . . But Pentagon officials "didn't think this was a big deal, . . The military lawyers' actions had never been disclosed and are the first known cases of lower-level officers resisting interrogations at the Cuban camp that might constitute torture. Some officials called them "unsung heroes" for risking their careers by crossing senior officials who approved the techniques.  The potentially unlawful methods. . . were among 33 procedures authorized in a Dec. 2, 2002, memo by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and used on at least two detainees . . .An Air Force colonel with the war crimes task force told a superior he was "aghast" at the harsher techniques. . . the judge advocates . . . were persuaded the interrogation policies violated the law, sources said.  JAMES GORDON MEEK, NY Daily News, 2/13/05  MORE

Bush's Guantanamo 
Concentration Camp *

Bush and Death Squads*

NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq Michael Hirsh and John Barry, Newsweek, 1/10/05  MORE

War Crimes

[T]housands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, . .  .The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false. . . The record of the past few months suggests that the administration will neither hold any senior official accountable nor change the policies that have produced this shameful record.  Washington Post Editorial, 12/23/04 MORE

Bush and Torture*

F.B.I. memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents.  The documents, released Monday [were] in connection with a lawsuit accusing the government of being complicit in torture . . .One of the memorandums released Monday was addressed to Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, and other senior bureau officials, and it provided the account of someone "who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees" in Iraq. One of the memorandums . . . provided the account of someone "who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees" in Iraq. . . .The documents are. . .disclosures that have increasingly contradicted the military's statements that harsh treatment of prisoners happened only in limited, isolated cases. LEWIS &  JOHNSTON, NY Times, 12/21/04 MORE

Red Cross Cites Guantanamo Torture*

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo.  The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."  NEIL A. LEWIS, NY Times, 11/30/04  MORE

Possible Bush War Crimes *

Human rights experts said Friday that American soldiers might have committed a war crime on Thursday when they sent fleeing Iraqi civilians back into Falluja.  Citing several articles of the Geneva Conventions, the experts said recognized laws of war require military forces to protect civilians as refugees and forbid returning them to a combat zone.  . . .James Ross, senior legal adviser to Human Rights Watch, said, "If that's what happened, it would be a war crime."  MICHAEL JANOFSKY, NY Times, 10/13/04  MORE

[Bilal Hussein, an AP reporter in Fallujah] watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands." AP, 11/14/04.  MORE

Bush and the Torture Architect

President Bush nominated White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general  . . .Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based group that represents families of some detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said  . .  ."He's right in the middle of where this administration went off the page of the law and into chaos," Ratner said. "They're promoting someone who was one of the legal architects of the abuse. It's just appalling." . . .His office also played a role in an August 2002 memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel advising that torturing alleged al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" Dan Eggen Washington Post 10/11/04 MORE

New Bush Torture Ploy *

The White House has endorsed a proposed bill that would make it legal for U.S. intelligence officials to deport individuals to countries known to use torture to extract information. The "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act" marks the first time the U.S. government has officially scripted its policy known as "extraordinary rendition," whereby American authorities can circumvent their own restraints on interrogations by sending suspects to countries known to employ harsh tactics. Canadian Maher Arar alleges he was a victim of this practice, which is the crux of the lawsuit he has launched against the U.S. government. Arar was detained in New York on Sept. 26, 2002, on a stopover flight to Canada, and after two weeks was quietly deported on a private plane to Syria, via Jordan. He says he was questioned and tortured for almost two weeks, then held without charges in deplorable conditions for a year.  MICHELLE SHEPHARD, Toronto Star, 10/1/04

READ BAR ASSOCIATION CONDEMNATION

Guilt at the Highest Levels*

A high-level Army investigation has found that military intelligence soldiers played a major role in directing and carrying out the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The report undercut earlier contentions by military officials and the Bush administration that a handful of renegade military police guards were largely to blame. . .Coupled with the findings released on Tuesday by a four-member independent panel headed by James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, the Army report reaffirms the suspicion of many critics that culpability extended far beyond a handful of low-level military police personnel, to include military intelligence soldiers in Iraq and up the chain of command in the Persian Gulf to the highest levels in Washington. . ." the clear message is that the system failed in a widespread manner," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican on the Armed Services Committee.  ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times, 8/26/04

Authority at Abu Ghraib

There appears to be a very odd and ominous disconnect about the findings of a high-level Army inquiry into the abuses at the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The report, according to those familiar with it, says high-level military officers were indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but it doesn't recommend even administrative sanctions against anyone above the one general who has already implicated in the affair.. . . In other words, the top generals whose negligence allowed these abuses to occur may not be called on to answer for their failure.  This would be a miscarriage of justice. Those charged with supervising prisoners of war are under both legal and moral obligations to protect them. That includes everyone in the chain of command, from the lowest private to the commander in chief. If they fail to take steps to provide that protection, they should be made to answer.  Editorial, Milwaukee Journal Sentinal 8/21/04

This is a summary of Hersh speaking at the ACLU 2004 America At A Crossroads conference according to EdCone.com (via Oliver Willis). I verified by watching the video myself (it starts at 1:07, the "worse stuff" part starts at 1:30). There's more bad stuff in here, read Ed Cone's summary.,  Gryn, Daily KOs, 7/14/04

Bush Hides Prisoners from Red Cross*

The International Committee of the Red Cross has petitioned the American government to notify it of all detainees.  "So far, we haven't had a satisfactory reply," said Antonella Notari, spokesperson for the Red Cross.  The Red Cross has had access to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, but "there are people that are detained outside of these places for which we haven't received notification or access," said Notari. . . Taguba found that military police "routinely held persons brought to them by other government agencies without accounting for them, knowing their identities. . .Taguba also said, on at least one occasion, they moved these "ghost detainees" around the prison to hide them from a visiting Red Cross delegation. He called the action "deceptive ... and in violation of international law."  CBC, 7/13/04

Rumsfeld Approved*

Brig-Gen Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade, which is at the centre of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, said that documents yet to be released by the Pentagon would show that Mr Rumsfeld personally approved the introduction of harsher conditions of detention in Iraq. . . ."Since all this came out," she replied, "I've not only seen, but I've been asked about some of those documents, that he [Mr Rumsfeld] signed and agreed to."  Asked whether the documents have been made public, Gen Karpinski replied "No" and went on to describe the methods approved in them as involving "dogs, food deprivation and sleep deprivation". . .The Pentagon has consistently denied that Mr Rumsfeld authorised the transfer of harsher techniques of interrogation and detention from Guantanamo Bay Julian Coman, Telegraph (U.K.), 7/4//04

Red Cross Reports Children are Prisoners at Abu Ghraib*

"Between January and May of this year we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations" the representative of the International Red Cross, Florian Westphal, told the TV station SWR's Magazine "Report Mainz". He noted that these were places of detention controlled by coalition troops. According to Westphal the number of children held captive could be even higher.
The TV Magazine also reported of evidence and eye witness reports according to which U.S. soldiers also abused children and youthful detainees. Samuel Provance, a staff sergeant stationed in the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison said that interrogating officers had pressured a 15 or 16 year old girl. Military police had only intervened when the girl was already half undressed. Der Spiegel, 7/5/04

Torture Approval *

The memo was addressed to Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, and was signed by Jay S. Bybee, then the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The memo said that the document was an effort to define "standards of conduct" under international treaties and federal law. It concluded that a coercive procedure could not be considered torture unless it caused pain equivalent to that accompanying "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." . . The officials said that the memo followed a series of exchanges between the C.I.A. and the Justice Department over the legality of specific techniques used on detainees not long after the Bush administration had decided to keep them out of the American judicial system JOHNSTON & RISEN, NY Times, 6/27/04

Bush, Rumsfeld & Abu Ghraib

A military judge ruled Monday that the top American commanders currently involved in the Iraq war will have to submit to questioning by lawyers for two servicemen charged in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case. The defense lawyers said they would show that the most senior military and civilian officials approved interrogation methods that violated the Geneva Conventions. . .The hearings gave the strongest indication to date that defense lawyers plan to pin blame for the abuses on the most senior officials in the White House and Pentagon, as well as the top generals in Iraq. They suggested in arguments on Monday that the officials had created an atmosphere that encouraged the flouting of the conventions of war during interrogations.  EDWARD WONG, NY Times, 6/22/4

Rumsfeld's Torture Strategy Produces Little*

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay rank as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful — some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen — are sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings. . .The Pentagon's determination to hold the detainees as "enemy combatants" — beyond the reach of United States law and unbound by the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war — has also come under renewed scrutiny  TIM GOLDEN and DON VAN NATTA Jr, NY Times, 6/21/04

Rumsfeld's Secret Torture Chambers*

The United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centres worldwide and about half of these operate in total secrecy, a human rights report says. Human Rights First,. . .said in a report that secrecy surrounding these facilities made "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable." . . .The report coincided with news that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered military officials to hold a suspect in a prison near Baghdad without telling the Red Cross. . . . "The U.S. government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability of law," said the report. . . "I feel disgusted. It makes my heart sink. I feel so powerless and so helpless," said Paracha.  Reuters, 6/17/04

Bush's 25 Prison Deaths

It has been apparent for some time that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated instances -- torture from Afghanistan to Gitmo to Iraq has so far resulted in 25 deaths now under investigation. . .The damage is incalculable. When America puts out its annual report on human rights abuses, we will be a laughingstock. I suggest a special commission headed by Sen. John McCain to dig out everyone responsible, root and branch. If the lawyers don't cooperate, perhaps we should try stripping them, anally raping them and dunking their heads under water until they think they're drowning, and see if that helps. . .And I think it is time for citizens to take some responsibility, as well. Is this what we have come to? Is this what we want our government to do for us?  Molly Ivins,
Creators Syndicate, 6/10/04

Legalizing Torture
There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy   Washington Post Editorial, 6/9/04

Ashcroft Contempt for Senate*

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, testifying before a congressional committee, refused to release or discuss memoranda that news reports say offered justification for torturing suspected terrorists. Two Democratic senators said Ashcroft's stance may constitute contempt of Congress, a federal crime. . . Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, challenged Ashcroft to say whether he was invoking executive privilege in refusing to give Congress the Justice Department memos. Ashcroft said he wasn't invoking executive privilege. ``You might be in contempt of Congress, then,'' Biden replied. ``You have to have a reason. You better come up with a good rationale.'' . . .The committee's chairman, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, gave no indication that he intends to pursue a contempt citation against Ashcroft.  Laurence Arnold, Bloomberg, 6/8/04

Bush's Abu Ghraib Whitewash*

In addition to the criminal cases, which have included investigations into the deaths of at least 40 prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has ordered six inquiries or reviews since a soldier came forward in January with evidence of the Abu Ghraib abuses. Two have been completed. The others have narrow focus and limited scope; while in theory they could recommend criminal charges, that is not their focus. . . .Mr. Rumsfeld, facing criticism over his leadership and calls from some Democrats to resign, last month appointed a four-member panel . . .One of its members, Tillie K. Fowler [said of Rumsfeld], "The secretary is an honest, decent, honorable man, who'd never condone this type of activity,"  STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times, 6/6/04

Bush Lies about Military Abuse

[A]n officer in Guantánamo asked [Sean Baker, an Air Force veteran and member of the Kentucky National Guard] to pretend to be a prisoner in a training drill. . . .[Sean later reported] . . ."it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop . . . That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. ". . .Most appalling,. . . the military lied in a disgraceful effort to undermine [Baker's] credibility. Maj. Laurie Arellano . . . told reporters that his medical discharge was unrelated to the . . . training drill. . . President Bush attributed the problems uncovered at Abu Ghraib to "a few American troops who dishonored our country." Kristoff, NY Times, 6/5/04

Bush's Lack of Intelligence*

According to news stories, Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief for Iran's intelligence ministry that the Americans had broken the ministry's codes. . . If the stories are true, Chalabi could be charged with espionage . . . .As for the U.S. official who reportedly told Chalabi about the intercept, those found guilty are heavily fined and sentenced to prison for up to 10 years. . . [Also,] a grand jury has apparently been . . .investigating who might have told reporters that [Valerie] Plame was an undercover CIA agent. It was revealed yesterday that President Bush himself has sought the services of an outside lawyer in case he is called to testify. . .Exposing an undercover agent is . . .one of the most reckless crimes that anyone armed with a security clearance could commit. Fred Kaplan
Slate, 6/3/04

Undocumented Deaths*

Twenty death certificates for Afghan and Iraqi prisoners who died in American custody were completed in a 10-day rush only after the investigation into the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib became public last month,. . . Officers from Dover Air Force Base . . .signed the certificates between May 12 and 21, including one certificate for an Afghan prisoner killed at the American military base at Bagram on Dec. 10, 2002,. . . In another document, Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum,. . .wrote that he had helped an agent "secure evidence and take sworn statements" even though the allegations were against soldiers under his command  He was later suspended and given a reprimand, but has not been charged with any crimes. STEVEN LEE MYERS, NY Times, 5/31/04

Death, Deception and Missing documentation for Rumsfeld*

Accounts from intelligence officials seem to indicate that the practice of keeping detainees off official prison rosters was widespread.  In one of several cases in which an Iraqi prisoner died at Abu Ghraib in connection with interrogations, . . .he was being questioned by a C.I.A. officer and translator, intelligence officials said. . .  On Capitol Hill on Monday, the Senate Armed Services Committee said the Army had promised to deliver about 2,000 pages of supporting documents missing from copies of General Taguba's report. . . Senate officials said the missing documents included about 200 pages from Colonel Pappas's sworn statement, including a document titled, "Draft Update for Secretary of Defense."  DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times, 5/25/04

Sanchez was There*

Capt. Robert Shuck, said he was told that Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib. Shuck is assigned to defend Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of the 372nd Military Police Company. During an April 2 hearing that was open to the public, Shuck said the company commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese, was prepared to testify in exchange for immunity. The military prosecutor questioned Shuck about what Reese would say under oath.
"Are you saying that Captain Reese is going to testify that General Sanchez was there and saw this going on?" asked Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor.
"That's what he told me," Shuck said. "I am an officer of the court, sir, and I would not lie. I have got two children at home. I'm not going to risk my career."  Scott Higham, Joe Stephens and Josh White, Washington Post, 5/23/04

Bush's Torture Strategy*

Professor Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who heads the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke, said the response of authorities at Abu Ghraib to the Red Cross appeared to be part of a larger pattern in which the administration and the military devote great energy to find ways to avoid the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions.
"If you look at this in connection with other things that are coming out, it doesn't seem like a snap decision but part of an across-the-board pattern of decision-making to create another category outside the conventions."  He cited a memorandum written in January 2002 by Albert R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, recommending that President Bush decree that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners from the war in Afghanistan.
DOUGLAS JEHL and NEIL A. LEWIS, NY Times, 5/23/04

Bush's Interrogator Killers*

It is also hard to believe that the military's own investigations will yield much, given the shifting of blame offered up by top Pentagon leaders, who continue to insist that the nightmare at Abu Ghraib was an isolated case of unsanctioned behavior by a few sick soldiers.  That defense, never particularly credible, has been undercut . . .the Pentagon's own records. The Denver Post reported this week that military records documented the deaths of at last five Iraqi prisoners during brutal interrogations, only one of them at Abu Ghraib. In one especially chilling case, the former head of Iraq's air force turned himself in and was held at a "high value" prison, where interrogators appear to have killed him by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth. The Pentagon papered this over with a press release saying the prisoner "said he didn't feel well and subsequently lost consciousness." NY Times Editorial, 5/22/04

The Bush Crusade*

He said the soldiers told him that if he cooperated with interrogators they would release him in time for Ramadan. He said he did, but still was not released. He said one soldier continued to abuse him by striking his broken leg and ordered him to curse Islam. "Because they started to hit my broken leg, I curse my religion," he said. "They ordered me to thank Jesus I'm alive."
The detainee said the soldiers handcuffed him to a bed.
"Do you believe in anything?" he said the soldier asked. "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, "But I believe in torture and I will torture you.' "  Scott Higham and Joe Stephens, Washington Post, 5/21/04

 

Rape of Women Prisoners*

Astonishingly, the secret inquiry launched by the US military in January, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed that the letter smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor" was entirely and devastatingly accurate. While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humilation in front of US women soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees - who form a small but unknown proportion of the 40,000 people in US custody since last year's invasion - have also been abused.  The Guardian (U.K.), 5/20/04

Army, CIA Want Truth*

President George W. Bush in his weekly radio address Saturday claimed that the Abu Ghraib abuses were only "the actions of a few" and that they did not "reflect the true character of the Untied States armed forces."
But what enrages many serving senior Army generals and U.S. top-level intelligence community professionals is that the "few" in this case were not primarily the serving soldiers who were actually encouraged to carry out the abuses and even then take photos of the victims, but that they were encouraged to do so, with the Army's well-established safeguards against such abuses deliberately removed by high-level Pentagon civilian officials.
Abuse and even torture of prisoners happens in almost every war on every side. But well-run professional armies, and the U.S. Army has always been one, take great pains to guard against it and limit it as much as possible. Martin Sieff
UPI 5/18/2004

Bush Guilty*

a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers—and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation—methods that the Red Cross concluded were "tantamount to torture."  John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, 5/24/04 Issue

Rumsfeld Guilty*

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, . . .
According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.  SEYMOUR M. HERSH, The New Yorker, 5/24/04 Issue

The Abu Ghraib Spin

The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team. . . These silly arguments not only obscure the despicable treatment of the prisoners, most of whom are not guilty of anything, but also ignore the evidence so far. While some of the particularly sick examples of sexual degradation may turn out to be isolated events, General Taguba's testimony, and a Red Cross report from Iraq, made it plain that the abuse of prisoners by the American military and intelligence agencies was systemic. NY Times Editorial, 5/12/04

Bush/Rumsfeld War Crimes

A secret report by the international Red Cross in February warned U.S. authorities that American forces were behaving brutally toward Iraqis, committing human rights violations that were "in some cases tantamount to torture." . . . U.S. occupation authorities are running a brutal, unjust prison system that is damaging the lives of tens of thousands of people. . . The report details several horrific cases of torture, including one in which troops in Basra beat and stomped on a group of detainees -- one, a 28-year-old father, died. ICRC staffers told of finding two detainees who had been hooded, manacled and forced onto hot surfaces -- thought to be vehicle engines. One was permanently disabled.  JAMES RUPERT, Newsday, 5/11/04