Free Republic

Much information on the Iraq prison torture story is making it's way into the major media. Most of it is confusing, if not deliberately misleading. Given the amount of information available to the average news reader, a better understanding of the situation could likely result from reviewing the events of the story in chronological order.

FORT HOOD -- In his quarter century working in military courts, attorney Guy Womack can count on the fingers of one hand the times he has allowed a client to testify. "My knee-jerk reaction is never to do that," said Womack, an ex-Marine Corps lawyer based in Houston. "I've never regretted not doing that." But he may make an exception to his rule for Spc. Charles Graner Jr., the Army reservist accused of leading the much-publicized abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He says Graner, whose trial begins with opening statements Monday, can explain better than anyone...

Senior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk, according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York. Gen. Richard B. Myers... said... he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released. The [ACLU wants] to obtain under the Freedom of Information Act the release of 87 photos and four videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib.... "I condemn...

A federal judge in New York told the Defense Department yesterday that it would have to release perhaps dozens of photographs taken by an American soldier of Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, said at a hearing that photographs would be the "best evidence" in the public debate about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The hearing... came in a [FOIA] suit filed by the [ACLU].... In response to the suit the government has already released more than 36,000 pages of documents that shed sometimes dramatic light...

International officials trying to prosecute American military personnel will not be allowed to enter the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday. “We are determined to protect the American, allied, and civilian personnel from living in fear of unjust prosecutions for actions taken to defend our great nation,” Pompeo told reporters at the State Department. Pompeo’s decision puts personal pressure on the International Criminal Court, a European-based tribunal that is trying to investigate whether “war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed” since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The top diplomat said that the court, which was...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday the US is barring all transactions with the International Criminal Court and told America’s allies he expects their help in reining in the “rogue” body. Rubio declared in a statement the US was moving to cripple the court’s economic reach for threatening to bring cases against American troops, border agents and politicians. “For decades now, both Republicans and Democrats have rejected the idea that the International Criminal Court has any power to prosecute American citizens, to prosecute military servicemembers, or political leaders because America never joined the court,” Rubio said in a video...

FBI agent Pellegrino; "But there were missed opportunities before. And you always have to wonder what else could have been done to possibly have picked him up. And if we had picked him up, I just, I can't imagine that an event like 9-11 would have happened." CBS. Sep 11, 2026. How '9/11 mastermind' slipped through FBI's fingers. BBC. Sep 5, 2021. Mohammed seems to have been tipped off about the US interest in him and fled Qatar, ending up in Afghanistan.''

Fox News news analyst Ellen Ratner relayed information from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to Texas businessman Ed Butowsky regarding Seth Rich’s role in transferring emails to Wikileaks, according to an amended lawsuit that I filed this morning on behalf of Mr. Butowsky. Although Ms. Ratner appears on Fox News, she is by no means a Republican or a conservative, and her role in the Seth Rich saga (like that of journalist Sy Hersh) obliterates the Democratic narrative that right-wing zealots fabricated the story about Mr. Rich leaking emails from the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Rich, a DNC employee, was murdered...

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has expressed willingness to aid a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia by victims of the attack if the federal government does not seek the death penalty against him, according to The Wall Street Journal. Mohammed’s offer was first made public in a filing Friday as part of the federal lawsuit, which seeks to hold the Saudi government responsible for assisting in the attacks, a charge the Saudis have denied. Lawyers for the plaintiffs reportedly reached out to three of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of conspiring in the...

A 25-year-old Austin man returned to the United States from Mexico over the weekend after being deported despite telling federal immigration officials he was a U.S. citizen, according to his attorneys. Brian José Morales García was deported in April after a traffic stop in Fredericksburg. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Gillespie County sheriff's deputies who pulled over his work vehicle did not believe him when he said he was a U.S. citizen and contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Federal immigration officials disputed that Morales García was a U.S. citizen and accused him of entering the country illegally,...

FBI agents also didn't tell the Al Qaeda leader he could call a lawyer. Using the Article III system to try Al Qaeda terrorists was a reasonable solution, the trouble is that military tribunal personnel in this century look nothing like the guys who took a smoke break and sentenced Nazi saboteurs to death during WWII. Their ideal is A Few Good Men, they’re liberals if not outright leftists, and they’re far more likely to be on the side of the terrorists than to be on our side. The few Islamic terrorists whom Obama and Biden didn’t free from Gitmo...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - Troubled by news accounts of medical participation in coercive interrogations at Guantánamo Bay and the resulting unease in the professional medical community, the Pentagon led an intense one-day tour of the detention camp last month, several participants said in recent days. The purpose of the trip, some of the participants said, was for the military leadership to convince the ethicists, psychiatrists, psychologists and others who visited the detention camp at the United States Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that what was occurring there did not violate medical ethics and was necessary to strengthen the nation's...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA took the first step toward a criminal investigation of a leak of possibly classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post, a U.S. official said Tuesday. The agency's general counsel sent a report to the Justice Department about the Post story, which reported the existence of secret U.S. detention centers for suspected terrorists in Eastern Europe. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue deals with classified information, said the referral was made shortly after the Nov. 2 story. The leak investigation into the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's...

April 03, 2009, 2:00 p.m. Imperial Judiciary Goes GlobalBy the Editors In 2004, the Supreme Court sowed the seeds for a national-security upheaval when it ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that war prisoners held outside the United States had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the justices continued the seismic shift, holding that the right they had invented in Rasul — a right extended to aliens whose only connection to the United States is in waging war against it — was somehow rooted in our Constitution. Thursday, the inevitable earthquake...

May 15, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: United States Transfers Lakhdar Boumediene to France Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since 2002, has been transferred to France. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009, Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of Boumediene’s case. As a result of that review, Boumediene was approved for transfer to France, which was carried out today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and France. Boumediene was involved in the Supreme Court case, Boumediene v....

Former SAS soldiers warn the prolonged war crimes investigation into Ben Roberts-Smith threatens to create life or death hesitation for troops in combat situations.The father of an Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan has questioned why a dedicated team of investigators has spent six years building a case against Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith while his son’s killer remains free.It comes as former SAS soldiers warn the Office of the Special Investigator’s (OSI) prolonged investigation into alleged war crimes is causing mental health issues to military families and creating life or death issues for soldiers in combat.Hugh Poate’s son Robert was...

Statement by Benjamin Roberts-Smith VC MG, 19th April 2026For the past 10 years, my family and I have been subject to a campaign to convince Australians that I’ve acted improperly in my service in Afghanistan.As I’ve always maintained, I categorically deny all of these allegations and while I would have preferred these charges not be brought, I will be taking this opportunity to finally clear my name.I’m proud of my service in Afghanistan.While I was there, I always acted within my values, within my training and within the rules of engagement.I’d also like to say I’m extremely proud of all...

Two of the five men Ben Roberts-Smith is accused of murdering while serving with the Special Air Service in Afghanistan have never been identified by war crimes investigators. Court documents seen by the Daily Mail show one of the Victoria Cross recipient's alleged victims is described only as 'Person Under Control 1', or alternatively 'Enemy Killed in Action 3'. Roberts-Smith is accused of murdering that Afghan male with another SAS soldier dubbed 'Person 68' at Syahchow in Uruzgan Province on October 20, 2012. Another alleged victim who is only known to authorities as 'Person Under Control 2' or 'Enemy Killed...

Ben Roberts-Smith was taking his teenage daughters on a shopping day trip to Sydney when he was arrested getting off a Qantas flight and charged with war crimes. The Victoria Cross recipient had flown from Queensland to NSW with his 15-year-old twins and partner Sarah Matulin on the morning of April 7 and all four were holding return tickets to Brisbane. Roberts-Smith, who will apply for bail today in Downing Centre Local Court, had treated his girls to an Easter school holidays expedition and none of the group had checked any luggage. Federal authorities knew the 47-year-old was making the...

Goodfellow’s BedfellowsWho’s in Bed with the Washington PostBy Fedora Introduction I. A Radical Education: Boston University and Cambridge-Goddard II. Vietnam Roots: Indochina Resource Center A. Luce at International Voluntary Services B. Luce and Cornell’s Hanoi for Lunch Bunch C. Luce’s Tiger Cages and the Indochina Mobile Education Project D. Luce and Branfman: The COLIFAM Connection E. Luce, Branfman, Winter Soldier, and Project Air War F. The Indochina Resource Center: Branfman, Luce, and Goodfellow G. The IRC and the Indochina Peace Campaign: The Hayden-Fonda Link III. Post-Vietnam Transition: Campaign for a Democratic Foreign Policy and Coalition for a New Foreign and...