Free Republic

IT WAS the stench that hit us first, gusting like a chemical cloud across the prison courtyard. The smell, unmistakable to anyone who has scented it, of human flesh slowly decomposing just under the surface of the earth. One by one, the grave diggers, toiling in a dust storm under a blazing sky, lifted the crumbling bodies from the clay-lined mass grave stretching along the prison lawn, in the shadow of an empty watchtower on top of the sprawling prison block. Each of the 13 corpses pulled from the ground was still dressed in his blue-and-white-striped prison pyjamas, his hands...

The FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it. Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement....

From yesterday, Thursday, February 25, 2010:Intel bill pulled over controversial added interrogation provision "A controversial bill that would have levied criminal punishments on intelligence officers for harsh interrogations was pulled Thursday evening [Feb 25, 2010] . House Republicans charged Democrats with trying to sneak a provision into the intelligence authorization bill that would establish criminal punishment for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” during interrogations."... Intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) added the language, originally offered by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), to his manager’s amendment, which makes several changes to the bill...