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The head of the militant group routinely shows visitors to his office in Basra the same set of pictures. The first is of an American soldier having sexual intercourse with a female Iraqi prisoner. Others include the familiar picture of Pte Lynndie England with an Iraqi soldier on a dog leash. The images, and hundreds like them, can be found everywhere in Iraq. They are available on the internet, on video and DVD at market stalls and as mass-produced flyers. The captors of Kenneth Bigley will have seen them. In Iraq's deeply conservative society the effect of the images has...

Dan Rather's ApologyA statement from Dan Rather of CBS News: Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question -- and their source -- vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome...(snip) Apology not accepted, Rather. You are only sorry you clumsily botched the hit on Bush. Forgiveness won’t be considered until you tell us who in the Kerry...

Abu Ghraib’s Kitty Kelley Seymour Hersh serves up fiction in Chain of Command. Seymour Hersh doesn't like George W. Bush's America, Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon, the war we're in, or the way we're fighting it. Promoting his new book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Hersh is trying to lay the blame for the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse problem directly at Rumsfeld's feet. But Hersh has apparently invented what he could not discover; this once-distinguished journalist is working awfully hard to become the Kitty Kelley of Abu Ghraib. When the title "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist" is appended to someone's...

...Ms. Mapes, 48 years old, is a workaholic who spends years developing and nurturing relationships that might pay off in marquee scoops. CBS News executives say she spent two months reporting the Abu Gharib story before it was ready for broadcast. She spent close to five years digging into Mr. Bush's National Guard history.... Ms. Mapes also produced Wednesday's follow-up segment in which CBS -- after a week of dismissing calls for an internal investigation and defending the documents as authentic -- said it was aggressively investigating the source of the documents and acknowledged there was a legitimate chance they...

Seymour Hersh doesn't like George W. Bush's America, Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon, the war we're in, or the way we're fighting it. Promoting his new book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Hersh is trying to lay the blame for the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse problem directly at Rumsfeld's feet. But Hersh has apparently invented what he could not discover; this once-distinguished journalist is working awfully hard to become the Kitty Kelley of Abu Ghraib. When the title "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist" is appended to someone's name, it inevitably adds a measure of credibility he may not otherwise deserve....

We hear a lot in this Presidential campaign about 30-year-old events. People change a lot in 30 years, we're told, and that is true, although liberals certainly don't want us to think it's true about Bush. So let's have a little fun looking 30 years into the future, shall we? Let's say that 30 years in the future, Pfc. Lynndee England, the girl in the Abu Ghraib photos, were to be a candidate for President. Would you consider supporting her? Or does Abu Ghraib reveal character failings that are disqualifying? If your answer is that you would not support her,...

...CBS has dismissed calls for an internal investigation into its reporting of the story, arguing that it was thoroughly reviewed before broadcast. "I'm confident in the process of vetting that got the story on air. When we say we continue to report the story you can be sure we're being conscientious in responding to these allegations," says CBS News President Andrew Heyward. CBS may offer further evidence in support of its story as early as today. The stakes are high for "60 Minutes," the undisputed gold standard in television news.... Its longtime producer, Don Hewitt, 81, has retired unenthusiastically, and...

5/8/2004: Nazimedia: Attack US Targets The San Francisco branch of Indymedia advocates violent attacks against “military targets” in the United States, in a post that was moved by the Indymedia overlords to their “hidden” area, but remains visible with a few clicks: Military Targets in the USA must be Attacked. (Hat tip: Rayra.) UPDATE: The incriminating page has now been removed completely, after the Morlocks noticed referrals from LGF. UPDATE: This is the text of the deleted Indymedia post: Military Targets in the USA must be Attacked by al-masakin — Thursday, May. 06, 2004 at 7:13 PM The torture of...

A US Army specialist broke down in tears today as he admitted abusing inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, receiving a lighter sentence in return for his testimony against others charged in the scandal. "There is no way to justify it," Specialist Armin Cruz, 24, said after pleading guilty to conspiracy to mistreat subordinates and mistreatment of prisoners at the prison in western Baghdad last October. "I accept full and complete responsibility." Cruz, who had been assigned to the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, was sentenced to eight months' confinement, demotion to private and a bad conduct discharge. The judge, Colonel...

WASHINGTON -- Senior military and national security officials in the Bush administration were repeatedly warned by subordinates in 2002 and 2003 that prisoners in military custody were being abused, according to a new book by a prominent journalist. Seymour M. Hersh, a writer for The New Yorker magazine who earlier this year was among the first to disclose details of the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, makes the charges in his book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins), which is being released Monday. The book draws on the articles he has written...

U.S. Department of DefenseOffice of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)News Release On the Web: http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20040910-1240.htmlMedia contact: +1 (703) 697-5131 Public contact:http://www.dod.mil/faq/comment.htmlor +1 (703) 428-0711   No. 889-04 IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 10, 2004   Department of Defense Statement on Seymour Hersh Book Based on media inquiries, it appears that Mr. Seymor Hersh’s upcoming book apparently contains many of the numerous unsubstantiated allegations and inaccuracies which he has made in the past based upon unnamed sources.   Detainee operations  in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere have been examined extensively  – both within the Department of Defense and by an independent...

WASHINGTON (AP) - American abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib were terrible, but they are not crimes on par with beheadings and other acts carried out by terrorists, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday. Rumsfeld, speaking at the National Press Club, said the military is correcting the problems raised by the prison events. "Has it been harmful to our country? Yes. Is it something that has to be corrected? Yes," he said. "Does it rank up there with chopping off someone's head off on television? It doesn't. It doesn't. Was it done as a matter of policy? No."...

<p>James Schlesinger, who was picked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to head a civilian investigation of Abu Ghraib and seems determined to repay the favor, gave unhelpful testimony that included an incredible statement that there was no policy "that encourages abuse." He told that to the same senators who had heard earlier from a panel of generals that the Central Intelligence Agency was still refusing to account for its practice of hiding dozens of prisoners from the Red Cross. Mr. Rumsfeld personally approved that violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties on at least one occasion.</p>

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 - Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the Central Intelligence Agency's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday. The total is far more than had been previously reported. An Army inquiry completed last month found eight documented cases of so-called ghost detainees, but two of the investigating generals said in testimony before two Congressional committees and in interviews on Thursday that depositions from military personnel who served at the prison indicated that the real total...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Army plans to pass over for promotion the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, because of fallout from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, a member of the U.S. Congress said on Thursday. "This is one individual that is being unfairly held accountable," Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, told a House of Representatives Armed Services Committee hearing. He criticized President Bush's handling of the Iraq war and said Sanchez had "got screwed ... by a plan that was an abomination." The congressman cited information given to the House Intelligence Committee on...

...The vast majority of our force has behaved in Iraq with extraordinary forbearance -- including countless acts of kindness. In this respect, its performance has been vastly better than in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.... I can only say... OUR TROOPS HAVE PERFORMED WELL.... [W]e have identified some 300 cases of possible abuse of which fewer than 100 have been confirmed: and a third of those have been at the point of capture. In combat, passions run high. Donald Rumsfeld established our panel to provide an independent and objective assessment of what went wrong in U.S. detention operations in...

In the clearest evidence yet that reaction to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has spun out of control, four Navy SEAL commandos have been indicted for manhandling an Iraqi terror suspect who resisted their efforts to take him into custody. The charges against the SEALs include assault, maltreatment of detainees and giving false statements to investigators, the New York Times said on Saturday. But at least one aspect of the case has some complaining that the SEALs are being judged by civilian police standards for work done under battlefield conditions. The abuse charges announced Friday focus on the handling of...

FORT HUACHUCA - A retired soldier who was mentioned in a recent report about detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison complex in Iraq has been placed on administrative leave by the contractor he works for on the post. Steven Walters retired from the Army in February as a sergeant first class and was employed by Anteon the same month, Maj. Paul Karnaze said Friday. Karnaze did not state how long Walters' leave was for or the reason for it. Because of the time the information was received, the Herald/Review couldn't contact Walters' employer for comment. Walters is not the only...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Army general who once ran detention operations in Iraq (news - web sites) said a "conspiracy" among top U.S. commanders has left her to blame for the abuses of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the Army's 800th Military Police Brigade, said she fears more senior Army generals may escape punishment, even though they issued or approved guidelines on the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Karpinski said in an e-mail interview with The Associated Press that she was unfairly cited by a report issued last month by an independent panel of...

NEW YORK - Veteran recording and movie star Pat Boone advises politically conservative and religious young people seeking a career in show business not to hide their worldview. At the same time, the 70-year-old crooner charges that there is an unwritten Hollywood blacklist against conservatives. "Definitely, I've been a victim of it for years," he told NewsMax.com in an interview. "There have been many roles, movie roles and TV things that I was really ripe for. And if I was considered at all, I was immediately shut out because of the liberal mind-set of the guys who hire and fire."...