Posted on 12/17/2003 8:15:23 PM PST by vladog
INTERROGATORS SHOW SADDAM ‘TRISTA AND RYAN’S WEDDING’
Rumsfeld Defends Tactics
U.S. interrogators are pressuring Saddam Hussein to cooperate with them by repeatedly showing him ABC's two-hour wedding special featuring "Bachelorette" Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter, the Pentagon acknowledged today.
News of the Pentagon's use of "Trista and Ryan's Wedding" rippled through international human rights circles today, with some watchdog groups claiming that showing certain reality programs to prisoners of war could be in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"Watching Trista marry Ryan once is punishment, but watching it six, seven times in a row may in fact constitute torture," said Dr. Josef Claire, a leading human rights activist based in Brussels.
At a press briefing in Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that showing Saddam the video of the Rehn-Sutter nuptials was "something we did not enter into lightly."
"Is forcing someone to watch 'Trista and Ryan's Wedding' cruel? Yes," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "But I submit to you: so is Saddam Hussein."
In addition to defending the use of the excruciating wedding special, the Defense Secretary refused to rule out playing Clay Aiken's new CD to the Iraqi madman "over and over again until he screams."
"If I may remind you, gentlemen," he said, "we are at war."
In other Saddam news, the owner of the farm in Tikrit where the Iraqi strongman was captured objected to the media's characterization of the dictator's hiding place as a "hole."
"You try to rent out a place that everybody and his uncle is calling a hole," the farmer said. "Okay, it's not roomy, but it would be perfect for a young couple starting out."
Canned ham was one of the food items found in the shack where he had been staying.
She is painful to watch, isn't she?
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