Posted on 06/13/2004 6:09:20 PM PDT by ejdrapes
New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House. The Telegraph understands that four confidential Red Cross documents implicating senior Pentagon civilians in the Abu Ghraib scandal have been passed to an American television network, which is preparing to make them public shortly. According to lawyers familiar with the Red Cross reports, they will contradict previous testimony by senior Pentagon officials who have claimed that the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident. "There are some extremely damaging documents around, which link senior figures to the abuses," said Scott Horton, the former chairman of the New York Bar Association, who has been advising Pentagon lawyers unhappy at the administration's approach. "The biggest bombs in this case have yet to be dropped." A string of leaked government memos over the past few days has revealed that President George W Bush was advised by Justice Department officials and the White House lawyer, Alberto Gonzalez, that Geneva Conventions on torture did not apply to "unlawful combatants", captured during the war on terror. Members of Congress are now demanding access to all White House memos on interrogation techniques, a request so far refused by the United States attorney-general, John Ashcroft. As the growing scandal threatens to undermine President Bush's re-election campaign, senior aides have acknowledged for the first time that the abuse of detainees can no longer be presented as the isolated acts of a handful of soldiers at the Abu Ghraib. "It's now clear to everyone that there was a debate in the administration about how far interrogators could go," said a legal adviser to the Pentagon. "And the answer they came up with was 'pretty far'. Now that it's in the open, the administration is having to change that answer somewhat." In the latest revelation, yesterday's Washington Post published leaked documents revealing that Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the senior US officer in Iraq, approved the use of dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation for prisoners whenever senior officials at the Abu Ghraib jail wished. A memo dated October 9, 2003 on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", which each military intelligence officer was obliged to sign, set out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics they could use - including stress positions and solitary confinement for more than 30 days. The White House has ordered a damage-limitation exercise to try to prevent the abuse row undermining President Bush's re-election campaign. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, has ordered that all deaths of detainees held in US military custody are to be reported immediately to criminal investigators. Deaths in custody will also be reported to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, and to Mr Rumsfeld himself. The Pentagon has also announced an investigation into the condition of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, where more than 600 prisoners suspected of links with al-Qaeda are being held. The inquiry will be led by Vice-Adml Albert Church, who has been ordered to investigate reports that extreme interrogation techniques "migrated" from Guantanamo to Iraq. "This is not going to be a whitewash," said the Pentagon adviser. "The administration is finally realising how damaging this scandal could become." A new investigator has also been appointed to lead the inquiry into abuse at Abu Ghraib. Gen George Fay, a two-star general, will be replaced by a more senior officer. Gen Fay, according to US military convention, did not have the authority to question his superiors. His replacement indicates that the Abu Ghraib inquiry will now go far beyond the activities of the seven military police personnel accused of mistreating Iraqi detainees. Legal and constitutional experts have expressed astonishment at the judgments made by administration lawyers on interrogation techniques. In one memo, written in January 2002, Mr Gonzalez told President Bush that the nature of the war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions". Scott Silliman, a former US air force lawyer and the director of the Centre for Law Ethics and National Security at Duke University, said: "What you have is a culture of avoidance of law rather than compliance with it." A separate memo, written by Pentagon lawyers in March 2003, stated that "the infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental is insufficient to amount to torture. [The pain] must be of such a high level of intensity that it is difficult for the subject to endure".Interrogation abuses were 'approved at highest levels'
The Red Cross has zero credibility, as far as I am concerned.
NO, I don't think it will affect the President's job. I don't believe he approved panties on their head, sexual abuse, beatings, or the naked piles...anything else doesn't count in most conservative opinions anyway.
I agree that the lib news will begin bashing Bush, Reagan and anything conservative from here on out, until the election and beyond. Dogs bark, its their nature.
Now that the period of mourning and goodbyes are over they will attack like the wild animals they are....what else do you expect them to do. They have no morals, manners or actual understanding of what their party stands for...they are just followers behind the pied piper!
It is a safe bet whatever evidence they have is being overblown and amounts to very little. But it will be hyped by the media.
The Red Cross has become a partisan organization.
BS.
IMHO many if not most Americans have no problem with tough interrogation techniques, especially of these terrorists and other non-regular-army type prisoners.
"dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation".
Works for me. Does anyone think tea and cookies is an effective interrogation technique?
Iraq's 'KGB' is everywhere now!
i) the "torture" memo was probably disseminated only among top DOJ and admin officials. Probably no one at the Pentagon (to say nothing of the Abu Ghraid staff) ever saw or heard anything about it until this week;
ii)The W Compost was slandering Gen. Sanchez yesterday by implying that he had approved the "torture" at Abu Ghraib. What Sanchez approved was the use of certain coercive techniques, when specifically requested and authorized. This was already reported weeks ago, and Gen. Sanchez testified that no such specific requests were made nor any such authorizations given. In any case the coercive techniques subject to approval did not encompass any of the abuses documented at Abu Ghraib.
This is simply another digusting attempt by the press to manufacture a story implicating the Bush administration in something when the facts don't warrant it.
BTW, while we're talking about Abu Ghraib, shall we recall what the late Mike Spann told Johnny Taliban on the video tape from Mazar i Sharif we all saw two years ago? He told him he would be killed if he did not cooperate. No one complained then (except for some of the usual leftist suspects), because we were still angry and afraid after 9/11.
Sorry, but what angers me about Abu Ghraib is the lack of discipline among the troops there, not the adoption of a realistic framework for coercive interrogations by Gen. Sanchez and the DOD, a framework which was never applied by the command there.
The WH could have diffused this entire thing - by going on the offensive when Inhofe and Zell Miller did after the Berg killing. The people were ripe for a backlash against this incessant story. Now, they will gin up a bunch of new "leaks" to keep it going. Use of dogs is not "torture", none of this stuff is.
So much for "confidential."
But the administration hasn't made that point - and they are going to have to be blunt about it, because they media will tell people that "torture" involves the prisoners not getting room service. the message that you are describing isn't coming from anyone except Inhofe and Miller - and they have been buried.
The Red Cross...at it again. They seem so close to the enemy that I think we can take their claims with a grain of salt. (Not that the media will...)
what facts do you want to see? either you think these practices are torture, or you don't. either you think these prisoners and terrorists should be treated better then this, or you think its OK.
Which means neither will the majority of the public.
"IF" this does cost the President the election then America deserves what she gets.
Now no where in any of this was one act of simulated "sex" acts were ever approved at there high up level.
Our men and women were getting blown up day and night by these freaks. Cry me a river.
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