Last Update: Monday, April 4, 2005. 7:19am (AEST)
Al Qaeda says 7 suicide bombers hit Iraqi prison
Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq says in an Internet statement that seven suicide bombers spearheaded its brazen raid on Abu Ghraib prison that wounded 44 United States soldiers.

In a statement on Saturday's raid on the prison outside Baghdad, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group said its fighters killed "dozens of Americans", destroyed more than 15 vehicles and shot down an Apache helicopter.

It said 57 fighters attacked watchtowers from four sides and "silenced them" as seven suicide bombers detonated vehicles laden with explosives around the facility.

"Three martyrs were ... [killed] while infiltrating the infidels' fortresses and seven other martyrdom seekers went to heaven after they blew up the enemy ...," said the statement, posted on a website used by Islamists.

The US military said dozens of insurgents carried out the attack, detonating two car bombs and firing rocket-propelled grenades at US forces before the assault was repelled.

"Your brothers in the Al Qaeda Organisation [for Holy War] in Iraq launched a well-planned attack on Abu Ghraib prison, where Muslim women and men are held," the group said in another statement.

It said the battle, which also involved missile strikes, lasted most of the night.

"Columns of smoke were seen rising from the crusaders' bases," the statement said.

"This battle is part of a series of raids ... which began yesterday across the land of Mesopotamia."

The group said it would provide a film of the attack soon.

Besides the 44 US troops wounded, 12 detainees were hurt, one seriously.

The US military said at least one insurgent was killed.

It was believed to be the largest and most determined attack on Abu Ghraib, a prison where more than 3,000 suspected insurgents are held in US detention and which was at the centre of a prisoner abuse scandal last year.

-Reuters
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1337245.htm

US Afghan allies committed massacre

American experts find that Northern Alliance warlords slaughtered prisoners of war

David Rose
Sunday March 21, 2004
The Observer

Dramatic corroboration of the massacre of Afghan prisoners by the US-backed Northern Alliance at the start of the war in 2001 was last night provided by American pathologists commissioned to investigate the claims by the UN.
A vivid account of the slaughter was provided to The Observer last week by three Britons who were released from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba more than two years after they were first seized in Afghanistan. They told how they narrowly escaped the massacre before being handed over to American forces and flown to Guantanamo Bay.

Forensic anthropologist William Haglund, who earlier led inquiries into mass graves in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone, told The Observer how he dug into an area of recently disturbed desert soil outside the town of Shebargan, and exhumed 15 bodies, a tiny sample, he said, of what may be a very large total.

Thanks to the cold and arid climate, they were well enough preserved to carry out autopsies. Haglund's conclusion 'that they died from suffocation' exactly corroborates the stories told by the Guantanamo detainees in last week's Observer .

'They are the first survivors to describe what we already believed happened to the victims we discovered,' Haglund said yesterday. 'The time has come for a full investigation, under the protection of the international community.'

Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed, from Tipton in the West Midlands, told in their interviews how weeks before they were handed over to the Americans, they were captured by Northern Alliance forces led by General Abdurrashid Dostum in November 2001, as they tried to flee war-torn Afghanistan.

At Shebargan, they were herded into two of several truck containers. Then, Iqbal said, the doors were sealed. He and the others lost consciousness, and when he came to he was 'lying on top of dead bodies, breathing the stench of their blood and urine'.

'We lived because someone made holes with a machine gun, though they were shooting low, and still more died from the bullets. When we got out, about 20 in each container were still alive.'

Haglund visited the mass grave at Shebargan twice in 2002, in the wake of the coalition's war against the Taliban. On the first occasion, he was part of a team from the US-based Physicians for Human Rights, which identified dozens of mass graves in northern Afghanistan, many containing the remains of prisoners killed by the proxy warlord forces backed by Britain and America.

The team also inspected the Northern Alliance prison at Shebargan in January, 2002, while the 'Tipton Three' were still there. Their findings, said John Heffernan, another team member, also corroborate the Tipton men's story. 'There were nearly 3,000 of them being held in squalid conditions under the control of Dostum, whose palatial headquarters were across the street,' Heffernan said.

Iqbal and Rasul told how they had been marched through the desert towards Shebargan past huge ditches already filled with bodies. Heffernan said: 'After taking into account the thousands crowded into the dilapidated prison, the whereabouts of many taken captive remained unknown. We began to suspect some might have met their fate on the way there. After we left the prison and travelled down the road a few miles into the desert, we smelled the unmistakable odour of decaying flesh and soon found bulldozer tracks and skeletal remains.' Haglund came back under United Nations auspices a few months later.

By chance, on the day he arrived at Shebargan, Dostum had gone into the mountains, he said, leaving behind a military escort which allowed him to open the grave. 'I uncovered one small corner, exposing 15 remains which were quite complete, and did autopsies on three. There were no signs of trauma and these were all young men. This is consistent with death by asphyxiation.

'I told Dostum's security chief that they had died from suffocation, and there was this big silence hanging over the desert.'

The details about elements of the Tipton Three's story assumed a new importance last week, after the Sun published claims by a US Embassy spokesman, Lee McClenny, that the three had trained at an al-Qaeda camp in 2000. They told The Observer last week that they had all confessed to this accusation only after months of solitary confinement and 200 separate interrogation sessions, only to have it finally disproved by MI5, which brought documents showing they had been in Britain at the time.

After making his claims in the Sun, McClenny refused to answer further questions from journalists, while Lt Col Leon Sumpter, the US spokesman at Guantanamo Bay, said any allegations concerning detainees were highly classified, even after their release: 'I don't know how the Embassy got this,' he said. 'It didn't come from us, and we knew nothing about it.' McClenny's letter was widely criticised as an attempt to nullify the Tipton men's stories of abuse at American hands

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/internation...1174554,00.html

Thanks SaluteLiberty. I had not seen these articles. I was particularly horrified at the newsweek article. I am going to post the story here for those that do not click on the links. I think it is an important storry.

I can not believe that the U.S. TV media will not cover any of these stories. My god, the descriptions in this newsweek article bring visions of the Nazi's transporting jews and other prisoners in cattle cars. How can the TV news media ignore these stories?

SaluteLiberty posted a link to this older Newsweek story about prisoner treatment in Afganistan but I am posting the entire story here. Please help contact the TV media to get them to cover these horrendous stories from Afganistan to Iraq to Guantanamo. We can not be like the Americans that ignored the Holocaust stories in the 1930s.

The Death Convoy of Afghanistan
By Babak Dehghanpisheh, John Barry and Roy Gutman
NEWSWEEK

Witness reports and the probing of a mass grave point to war crimes. Does the United States have any responsibility for the atrocities of its allies?
A NEWSWEEK investigation.

August, 26 Issue

Trudging over the moonscape of Dasht-e Leili, a desolate expanse of low rolling hills in northern Afghanistan, Bill Haglund spotted clues half-buried in the gray-beige sand. Strings of prayer beads. A woolen skullcap. A few shoes. Those remnants, along with track marks and blade scrapes left by a bulldozer, suggested that Haglund had found what he was looking for. Then he came across a human tibia, three sets of pelvic bones and some ribs.

Mass graves are not always easy to spot, though trained investigators know the signs. "You look for disturbance of the earth, differences in the vegetation, areas that have been machined over," says Haglund, a forensic anthropologist and pioneer in the field of "human-rights archeology." At Dasht-e Leili, a 15-minute drive from the Northern Alliance prison at Sheber-ghan, scavenging animals had brought the evidence to the surface. Some of the gnawed bones were old and bleached, but some were from bodies so recently buried the bones still carried tissue. The area of bulldozer activity--roughly an acre--suggested burials on a large scale. A stray surgical glove also caught Haglund's eye. Such gloves are often used by people handling corpses, and could be evidence, Haglund thought, of "a modicum of planning."

Haglund was in Dasht-e Leili on more than a hunch. In January, two investigators from the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights had argued their way into the nearby Sheberghan prison. What they saw shocked them. More than 3,000 Taliban prisoners--who had surrendered to the victorious Northern Alliance forces at the fall of Konduz in late November--were crammed, sick and starving, into a facility with room for only 800. The Northern Alliance commander of the prison acknowledged the charnel-house conditions, but pleaded that he had no money. He begged the PHR to send food and supplies, and to ask the United Nations to dig a well so the prisoners could drink unpolluted water.

STORIES OF MASS GRAVES

But stories of a deeper horror came from the prisoners themselves. However awful their conditions, they were the lucky ones. They were alive. Many hundreds of their comrades, they said, had been killed on the journey to Sheberghan from Konduz by being stuffed into sealed cargo containers and left to asphyxiate. Local aid workers and Afghan officials quietly confirmed that they had heard the same stories. They confirmed, too, persistent reports about the disposal of many of the dead in mass graves at Dasht-e Leili.

That's when Haglund, a veteran of similar investigations in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the Balkans and other scenes of atrocity, was called in. Standing at what he reckoned from the 'dozer tracks was an edge of the grave site, he pushed a long, hollow probe deep into the compacted sand. Then he sniffed. The acrid smell reeking up the shaft was unmistakable. Haglund and local laborers later dug down; at five feet, they came upon a layer of decomposing corpses, lying pressed together in a row. They dug a trial trench about six yards long, and in that --short length found 15 corpses. "They were relatively fresh bodies: the flesh was still on the bones," Haglund recalls. "They were scantily clad, which was consistent with reports that [before they died] they had been in a very hot place." Some had their hands tied. Haglund brought up three of the corpses, and a colleague conducted autopsies in a tent. The victims were all young men, and their bodies showed "no overt trauma"--no gunshot wounds, no blows from blunt instruments. This, too, Hag-lund says, is "consistent" with the survivors' stories of death by asphyxiation.

How many are buried at Dasht-e Leili? Haglund won't speculate. "The only thing we know is that it's a very large site," says a U.N. official privy to the investigation, and there was "a high density of bodies in the trial trench." Other sources who have investigated the killings aren't surprised. "I can say with confidence that more than a thousand people died in the containers," says Aziz ur Rahman Razekh, director of the Afghan Organization of Human Rights. NEWSWEEK's extensive inquiries of prisoners, truckdrivers, Afghan militiamen and local villagers--including interviews with survivors who licked and chewed each other's skin to stay alive--suggest also that many hundreds of people died.

The dead of Dasht-e Leili--and the horrific manner of their killing--are one of the dirty little secrets of the Afghan war. The episode is more than just another atrocity in a land that has seen many. The killings illustrate the problems America will face if it opts to fight wars by proxy, as the United States did in Afghanistan, using small numbers of U.S. Special Forces calling in air power to support local fighters on the ground. It also raises questions about the responsibility Americans have for the conduct of allies who may have no --interest in applying protections of the Geneva Conventions. The benefit in fighting a proxy-style war in Afghanistan was victory on the cheap--cheap, at any rate, in American blood. The cost, NEWSWEEK's investigation has established, is that American forces were working intimately with "allies" who committed what could well qualify as war crimes.

FALSE STATEMENTS

Nothing that NEWSWEEK learned suggests that American forces had advance knowledge of the killings, witnessed the prisoners being stuffed into the unventilated trucks or were in a position to prevent that. They were in the area of the prison at the time the containers were delivered, although probably not when they were opened. The small group of Special Forces soldiers were more focused at the time on prison security, and preventing an uprising such as the bloody outbreak that had happened days earlier in the prison fort at Qala Jangi. The soldiers surely heard stories of deaths in the containers, but may have thought them exaggerated. They also may have believed that the dead were war casualties, or wounded prisoners who, among thousands of their comrades, simply didn't survive the rugged journey from the surrender point to the prison. But it's also true that Pentagon spokesmen have obfuscated when faced with questions on the subject. Officials across the administration did not respond to repeated requests by NEWSWEEK for a detailed accounting of U.S. activities in the Konduz, Mazar-e Sharif and Sheberghan areas at the time in question, and Defense Department spokespersons have made statements that are false.

Questions can be raised, as well, about international agencies. How seriously has the United Nations pursued investigations of what happened at Sheberghan? The reports of atrocity come at a time when the international community is desperately trying to bring stability to Afghanistan. Well-meaning officials may be wondering if a full-scale investigation might set off a new round of Afghan slaughter. Would it be worth it? A confidential U.N. memorandum, parts of which were made available to NEWSWEEK, says that the findings of investigations into the Dasht-e Leili graves "are sufficient to justify a fully-fledged criminal investigation." It says that based on "information collected," the site "contains bodies of Taliban POW's who died of suffocation during transfer from Konduz to Sheberghan." A witness quoted in the report puts the death toll at 960. Yet the re--port also raises urgent questions. "Considering the political sensitivity of this case and related protection concerns, it is strongly recommended that all activities relevant to this case be brought to a halt until a decision is made concerning the final goal of the exercise: criminal trial, truth commission, other, etc."

U.S. INVOLVEMENT

The close involvement of American soldiers with General Dostum can only make an investigation all the more sensitive. "The issue nobody wants to discuss is the involvement of U.S. forces," says Jennifer Leaning, professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and one of the pair of Physicians for Human Rights investigators who pushed their way into Sheberghan. "U.S. forces were in the area at the time. What did the U.S. know, and when and --where--and what did they do about it?"

The Taliban and Qaeda forces at Konduz surrendered in a negotiated deal that took two to three days to hammer out. According to Shams-ul-Haq (Shamuk) Naseri, a mid-level Northern Alliance commander who was present, the talks were held in the presence of three American intelligence officers and a dozen or more Special Forces soldiers. Northern Alliance commanders, including General Dostum, agreed to relatively generous conditions: The Afghan fighters would be allowed to go home to their villages. Most of the Pakistanis could also return home after the Americans picked out suspected Qaeda operatives. Arabs and other foreign fighters would be turned over to the United Nations or some other international organization. According to another Afghan present at the talks, Said Vasiqullah Sadat, the Taliban representatives insisted that their men surrender to General Dostum, because they figured he was the least likely to seek revenge for past killings. The surrender would formally start on Sunday, Nov. 25--to give time for the Taliban leaders to sell the deal to their forces in Konduz.

The day after negotiations ended, roughly 400 hard-core fighters made a break for it anyway, fleeing west. But the vast majority of fighters trapped in Konduz surrendered "like sheep," according to Naseri. "One went and the rest followed." The agreed site for the actual surrender was Yerganak, a desert spot about five miles west of Konduz. Most of the top Taliban and foreign commanders drove out, and their vehicles were promptly confiscated by the Northern Alliance. The rest walked. Four checkpoints had been set up at Yerganak to disarm the fighters and load them onto whatever vehicles were available: pickups, big-wheeled, open-topped Russian Kamaz trucks, even some container trucks. But the numbers streaming out of Konduz overwhelmed the facilities, and most of those surrendering waited three or four days in the desert.
CREDIBLE MUSCLE

Dostum and another Northern Alliance commander, Atta Mohammed, were at Yerganak to monitor the surrender. So were dozens of American Special Forces troops, according to U.S. and Afghan participants. Some of the Special Forces teams were zipping around the area on four-wheeler motorcycles; Dostum was filmed at the time enjoying a ride on the back of one. The Americans provided much of the food and water given to the waiting masses. But they were there primarily to provide credible muscle, a message that was reinforced by the frequent appearance of U.S. bombers streaking overhead.

At about this time, soldiers from Dostum's militia arrived at a container depot on the outskirts of Mazar-e Sharif, about 100 miles to the west, and recruited a driver we'll call Mohammed, a bearded man in his mid-40s. (NEWSWEEK has changed the names of several witnesses in this report to lessen the chance of reprisals.) Mohammed was told that his container truck was needed to ship captive Taliban fighters to Sheberghan prison. He was to pick them up that evening at the old fort in Qala Zeini, which lies on the road between Mazar-e Sharif and Sheberghan. The road actually passes through the fort: one gate in, one gate out.

Mohammed arrived at Qala Zeini about 7 that evening. Several other container trucks were already waiting inside the fort. So were about 150 soldiers, all Afghans. At about 9, the prisoners--a mix of Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens--arrived from Yerganak in open trucks and pickups. Soldiers ordered the prisoners down from the trucks and stripped them of their turbans, caps and vests. Then they herded the captives into the containers, as many as 200 to a truck. The fighters realized they were not going home, as promised. "F--k Shamuk Naseri," one driver recalls a prisoner's screaming. "He betrayed us." The doors of the container trucks were locked.

The prisoners probably realized their fate. "Death by container" has been a cheap means of mass murder used by both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance for at --least five years. Abandoned freight containers--international standard size, 40 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet--litter the roads of Afghanistan, rusting reminders of the many tons of aid that have poured into the country over the past 20 years. It was reputedly a savage Uzbek general named Malik Pahlawan who first saw the container's potential as a killing machine in 1997. After a Taliban assault on Mazar-e Sharif had been repulsed, Pahlawan--according to a subsequent U.N. report--killed some 1,250 Taliban by leaving them in containers in the desert sun. When the containers were opened, it was found the inmates had been grilled black. When the Taliban took Mazar-e Sharif in 1998, they in turn killed several hundred enemies in thesame fashion.

'WE'RE DYING. GIVE US WATER!'

In the case of the Taliban prisoners from Konduz, the November temperatures weren't hot enough to blacken them. But after a few hours, they started beating on the sides of their overstuffed cells. "We're dying. Give us water!" some shouted. "We are human, not animals." Mohammed used a hammer and spike to bang holes in his container, until one of Dostum's soldiers heard the banging and angrily demanded to know what he was doing. Mohammed said that he was sealing holes to prevent the prisoners' escape.

After the soldier had gone, one of the prisoners in the container stuck his face close to one of the holes. "Are you a Muslim?" he asked. "Yes," Mohammed replied. "Look at my tongue," said the prisoner, and stuck it out. It was cracked from dehydration. Mohammed filled a two-liter Fanta bottle with water and passed it in through the hole. He also pushed in 10 pieces of bread, all he had. "Thank Allah you are a Muslim," the prisoner said.

Some of the other drivers NEWSWEEK has traced say they, too, tried to help. One described how he also poked holes in his container and tried to bring water to the prisoners. But Dostum's soldiers spotted him, and five of them gave him a beating with their rifle butts. Mohammed saw the beating and spent the rest of the night inside his locked cab.

Someone else saw a similar scene at Qala Zeini, and tried to send a warning. In December, Abdullah was in the settlement of Langar Khaneh, which is close to the fort of Qala Zeini. When the gates of Qala Zeini were closed for a day and a half, and traffic diverted through Langar Khaneh, Abdullah's curiosity was aroused. He made his way over to the fort and peered inside. As he watched, four container trucks were driven into the fort. Not long after, prisoners arrived in pickups and Kamaz trucks, he says. Soldiers in the fort--Dostum's men, Abdullah says--proceeded to tie up the prisoners with their own turbans.

Those who didn't move fast enough or who tried to resist were beaten. Most prisoners, says Abdullah, were bound around their upper arms and blindfolded, but some were hogtied. Unruly prisoners were grabbed by hand and foot and swung into the containers on their bellies. When the containers were full, they were locked. Abdullah was in no doubt what he was witnessing. "The only purpose was to kill the prisoners," he says.

MISSING CONTAINERS

Wondering whom he could alert to these preparations, Abdullah recalled an acquaintance who was working with the American forces based in Mazar. He was Said Vasiqullah Sadat, who was at the surrender negotiations and served as a translator for the Americans. Abdullah says that he told Vasiqullah what was happening, and he says Vasiqullah responded: "We will act." The next day, Abdullah said, a group of Americans arrived at Qala Zeini in two dust-colored pickups. But the containers were gone, and--says Abdullah--the Americans turned around and drove back to Mazar.

Vasiqullah is cautious when asked about this version of events. He says that on the fourth day of the surrender at Yerganak--Nov. 28--he headed back to Mazar with several cars full of American soldiers. Some of these were billeting in Atta Mohammed's headquarters in Mazar. Vasiqullah confirms that he "soon" heard about prisoners' being transferred into containers at Qala Zeini. But he will not confirm that he heard this from the witness from Langar Khaneh. Nor will he confirm that he passed the news on to the Americans he was working with. "The Americans were distracted at this time," he says. The uprising at the Qala Jangi prison in Mazar-e Sharif--in which CIA operative Mike Spann was killed and the American John Walker Lindh was discovered--had occurred on Nov. 25. "Many of them were taking care of arrangements for shipping Mike Spann's body out of Mazar airport." But, says Vasiqullah, the containers could not have remained a secret for long. "I think the Americans found out soon," he says. "They were at Sheberghan prison from the beginning."

At 11 a.m. on Nov. 29, according to the driver Mohammed, a convoy of 13 container trucks set out from Qala Zeini. Each driver had soldiers in the cab beside him. A driver we'll call Ghassan, who had picked up his load of human cargo at a concrete bridge 31 miles west of Mazar-e Sharif, was also on the move around this time. He recalls that some in his container were alive, and beating on the sides. "They just want water ... Keep driving," he was ordered.

By the time the trucks arrived at Sheberghan prison, many were ominously quiet. Mohammed was the driver of the second truck in line, but he got down from his cab and walked into the prison courtyard as the doors of the lead truck were opened. Of the 200 or so who had been loaded into the sealed container not quite 24 hours before, none had survived. "They opened the doors and the dead bodies spilled out like fish," says Mohammed. "All their clothes were ripped and wet. "

$750 FOR AN AIR HOLE

The following day, Nov. 30, a fresh convoy of seven trucks arrived at Sheberghan. The day after, Dec. 1, brought a third convoy--also seven trucks. NEWSWEEK has traced drivers from both later convoys. Their recollections are that most of those containers contained many dead bodies. But not all. The inmates of one truck in those convoys passed about 45,000 Pakistani rupees (about $750) to the driver through a crack in the floor as a bribe to cut air holes and spray in water through a hose. All 150 inmates survived. In at least one container, the prisoners themselves managed to rip holes in the wooden floor, and all of them survived.

Abdul, a 28-year-old pashtun, is one who lived. NEWSWEEK interviewed him in Sheberghan prison. He recalls that his container was packed to the breaking point. After nearly 24 hours without water, Abdul says, the prisoners were so desperate with thirst that they began licking the sweat off each other's bodies. Some prisoners began to lose their reason and started biting those around them. Abdul's was one of the containers in the third convoy to Sheberghan: by the time they reached the prison, he says, only 20 to 30 in his container were alive.

Other survivors now in Sheberghan tell almost identical stories. One 20-year-old was shoved into a fully packed container. After about eight hours, he thinks, the prisoners began kicking the sides of the container and shouting for air and water. None came. Some of the prisoners began using their turbans to soak and drink the sweat off each other's bodies. After a few more hours many of the prisoners started going crazy and bit each other's fingertips, arms and legs. Anything to get moisture. By the time they reached Sheberghan, the young man says, only about 40 in his container were still alive.

PACKED 'LIKE CATTLE'

For some, the agony in the containers was intensified because they were tied up. This appears to have been a fate reserved for Pakistani--and perhaps other non-Afghan--prisoners. Mahmood, 20, says he surrendered at Konduz along with 1,500 other Pakistanis. All were bound hand and foot either with their own turbans or with strips ripped from their clothing, he says. Then they were packed in container trucks "like cattle," he says. He reckons that about 100 people died in his container.

The drivers remain tormented by what they took part in. "Why weren't there any United Nations people there to see the dead bodies?" asks one. "Why wasn't anything being done?" Another driver shook uncontrollably as he spoke with NEWSWEEK.

The convoys of the dead and dying, along with many truckloads of living prisoners, seem to have arrived at Sheberghan for perhaps 10 days. Prying eyes were kept away. The Red Cross, learning of the arrivals of prisoners from Konduz, applied on--Nov. 29 to get into Sheberghan. Dostum's commander at the prison promised that access would be granted within 24 hours. In fact, it was not until Dec. 10 that the Red Cross got into the prison. By then, most of the bodies had probably been buried. (Dostum's spokesman denies that access was blocked by prison officials.)

There were witnesses near the burial site who noticed unusual activity. The hamlet of Lab-e Jar is about half a mile east of the grave site. On several nights in the first half of December, Dostum's soldiers forbade the villagers to leave their homes. Most of the villagers are now too frightened to talk. "Bodies have been buried there for years," says one. "You know what happened. I know what happened. But nothing is going to change if we talk about it." Still, NEWSWEEK found some who were willing to say what they saw. One man, 49, claims that around the first week in December, Dostum's soldiers blocked the dirt road running past Dasht-e Leili for several days. "No cars, no donkey carts, not even pedestrians were allowed to go down the road," he says. He personally saw four or five container trucks at the burial site, he says. When U.N. investigators talked with the people of Lab-e Jar in May, two residents told of seeing bulldozers at work on the site around the middle of December.

QUESTIONING SURVIVORS

A widening circle of organizations and individuals know, in broad terms, what happened after the fall of Konduz. The Red Cross has questioned survivors and compiled a report about the events; top officials at the Red Cross's Geneva headquarters have met to discuss, inconclusively, what to do next. A pair of U.N. investigators were present when Haglund dug his trial trench across the Dasht-e Leili grave site. After questioning local witnesses, they, too, compiled a report. Two U.N. entities--the Assistance Mission to Afghanistan and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights--have also been mulling what to do. "You have to understand, you're dealing with a potentially explosive issue here," says a Red Cross official in Afghanistan, explaining why he was hesitant to discuss the matter. Until now, anyway, the American military has not conducted a full-fledged investigation, nor has it been asked to participate in one by other agencies. U.N. sources say that their inquiries have not implicated U.S. forces. Publicly, the Pentagon has kept its distance. At the end of January, Department of Defense officials were told (by the PHR) of the discovery of what appeared to be a recent mass grave. In late February, officials at the Pentagon and the State Department were given confidential copies of the first formal report compiled by Haglund and his colleagues at the PHR. Consistently, however, the Pentagon has responded that Central Command investigated and found that U.S. troops know nothing of any killings--that the Pentagon indeed has no reason to believe there were killings. In June, DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said that Central Command had questioned individually the forces in Af-ghanistan "several months ago": "Central Command looked into it and found no evidence of participation or knowledge or presence. Our guys weren't there, didn't watch and didn't know about it--if indeed anything like that happened." A DOD statement a week later was emphatic: "No US troops were present anywhere near that site in November. US troops were present in the December/January timeframe when the mass graves were discovered."

But is that entirely true? The American unit most directly involved was the 595 A-team, part of the Fifth Special Forces Group based at Fort Campbell, Ky. The leader of the dozen-man 595 was Capt. Mark D. Nutsch. Throughout the Afghanistan operation, the Pentagon insisted that reporters identify Special Forces personnel by their first names only, claiming this was necessary to protect their families back home from possible terrorist reprisals. But the Army waived that concern in April, when--at the instigation of his Army superiors--the Kansas state Legislature passed a resolution of both houses honoring Captain Nutsch, a 33-year-old native of Kansas. Nutsch's wife, Amy, and their baby daughter, Kaija, born while Nutsch was in Afghanistan, were present at the very public ceremony. Contacted recently by NEWSWEEK about the container deaths, Nutsch said he did not want to discuss them.
595'S ASSIGNMENT

The Special Forces A-teams were the shock troops of the U.S. assault on the Taliban. They were the crucial link between the Northern Alliance militia on the ground and U.S. firepower in the air. Attached to each A-team in the Afghan campaign was at least one Air Force Special Operations soldier called a combat air controller. It was the high-precision airstrikes called in by those CACs that destroyed the Taliban forces. Each A-team was assigned to a specific local commander, and 595's assignment was to work with General Dostum.

595's role in the Afghan conflict made them legends to the wider public. Heloed into Afghanistan, like the rest of the teams, in a Special Forces Chinook, they met up with Dostum on Oct. 19 at his headquarters at Darra-e Suf in the mountain fastnesses south of Mazar-e Sharif. It was the 595 unit that famously carried out its missions on horseback; it was snippets from Nutsch's dispatches that a euphoric Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took to reading at his press briefings. Invigorated --by American air power--and lubricated by the money distributed lavishly to wavering locals by the CIA paramilitaries--Dostum and his fellow Northern Alliance commanders swept north out of the mountains. The climax of the brief campaign began on Nov. 4, when the Northern Alliance launched a three-pronged assault on the major city in the north, Mazar-e Sharif, orchestrated and micromanaged by an assembly of Special Forces, including two A-teams.

595 members had been with Dostum at the surrender negotiations, and then again at the actual surrender at Yerganak. As a consequence they were not with their CIA colleagues, Mike Spann and Dave Tyson, when that pair went to Qala Jangi prison to question the fresh batch of Qaeda and Taliban hard-liners who had arrived there after the abortive breakout from Konduz. The 595 commander, Nutsch, felt bitter about Spann's death. "This was a guy we considered part of our unit," he told Robert Young Pelton, a reporter working for CNN and National Geographic Adventure. "If we had been there, Mike's death would not have happened."

Over the three days that the first convoys of dead were arriving at Sheberghan, Special Forces troops were in the area. There was also a separate, four-man U.S. intelligence team, in combat gear, at the prison doing first selections of Qaeda suspects for further questioning. According to Pelton, a swashbuckling freelancer who specializes in writing about dangerous places, Special Forces soldiers were mainly concerned about security at the prison. At the same time the containers of dead were arriving, many truckloads of living prisoners were also streaming in: On the evening of Dec. 1, for instance, a container arrived bearing the 86 survivors from Qala Jangi. One of them was John Walker Lindh. It was the 595 team's medic, Bill, who first treated Lindh. Pelton believed at the time, and still does, that the dead from container trucks numbered "40-some odd" and were mostly people who died of wounds suffered in the siege of Konduz. "When I was with 595, we went over this time and again," says Pelton. "What happened is that these people basically died because they were wounded." A senior Defense Department official, speaking to NEWSWEEK on background, said the Pentagon asked the commander of the Fifth Special Forces Group to look into the reports of container deaths. That commander, Col. John Mulholland, reported back that the A-team knew that numbers, perhaps even large numbers, of Taliban prisoners had died on the journey to Sheberghan. But the Special Forces believed that these deaths had occurred from wounds or disease. news-week put this account to Colonel Mulholland through the public-affairs office of the Special Operations Command, but got no response by the time NEWSWEEK went to press.

AGONIZING DILEMMA

For the Red Cross, the killings at Sheberghan represented an agonizing dilemma. The organization's code of operating out of the public eye--a trade-off that allows them access to places no one else is allowed to go, and enables them to provide aid to people in the most difficult circumstances--inhibited its officials from going public with what they heard. "We approached the ICRC more than two months ago to look into this, and they showed no interest," says Aziz ur Rahman Razekh of the Afghan Organization of Human Rights. "We got a frosty reception."

In fact, the Red Cross was concerned from the start about the fate of prisoners turning up at Sheberghan. The Taliban's surrender of the northern towns was an extended process; and the first dribble of prisoners from Konduz--captured on its outskirts--began to arrive at Sheberghan on Nov. 22-23. The ICRC office in Mazar-e Sharif learned of these arrivals; and on Nov. 29, a small team sought entry to Sheberghan prison. They were turned away. Asked about this now, an ICRC official says: "The authorities did not want us there." (Dostum's spokesman denies that prison officials refused them access.)

Not until Dec. 10 did the Red Cross manage to talk their way into Sheberghan to interview the new prisoners. They swiftly heard about the horrors of the containers. When NEWSWEEK first approached a Red Cross official to ask about the treatment of prisoners from Konduz, his immediate response was: "I can't talk about containers." Told of the stories that prisoners in Sheberghan had already given to news-week, he responded in some anguish: "If you're hearing stories about containers now, what do you think we were hearing about then?"

Apparently caught between outrage and its own code of secrecy, the Red Cross may have sought to stir attention to Sheberghan indirectly. In mid-January John Heffernan and Jennifer Leaning of the PHR met by chance in Kabul with two Red Cross officials--one a senior official based in ICRC headquarters in Geneva. The Geneva official told them that the Red Cross had, they recall her saying, "grave concerns" about the treatment of prisoners by U.S. forces and their allies; and she urged them that this topic was "worth exploring." That was why the PHR pair went up to Sheberghan. At the start of May, the PHR--frustrated by a lack of response in either Kabul or Washington to their private briefings on Haglund's discoveries at Dasht-e Leili--issued a report describing his findings. The Red Cross chimed in, producing for reporters--this was at the Red Cross Kandahar office--a survivor from one of the containers: Sardar Mohammed, 23, from Kandahar. Mohammed reckoned, he said, that they had been packed 150 to a container. And he claimed that he and his fellow survivors had tallied up more 1,000 who had not survived the ordeal.

It may not be easy for Americans to summon much sympathy for Taliban or Qaeda prisoners. But the rules of war cannot be applied selectively. There is no real moral justification for the pain and destruction of combat if it is not to defend the rule of law. The line is tough to hold even in a conventional conflict. In a proxy war, it's much more difficult. The dead at Dasht-e Leili are proof of that.

----------

With Donatella Lorch in Washington, Karen Breslau in San Francisco and Stryker McGuire in London

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.21A.death.convoy.p.htm

The Denver Post


Witness says brass complicit in abuse
By Arthur Kane
Denver Post Staff Writer


Thursday, March 31, 2005 -

Fort Carson - Extreme interrogation techniques like those allegedly used by Fort Carson soldiers in the death of an Iraqi general were known to superior officers, according to a previously undisclosed military court transcript obtained by The Denver Post.
And prisoner-abuse reports made to superior officers were ignored, according to the transcript and court testimony Wednesday. The exchanges in the transcript are believed to be the first acknowledgment that higher level officers other than those who carried out the fatal interrogation knew soldiers were using such techniques.
Four soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are charged with murder and dereliction of duty in the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in Qaim, Iraq, on Nov. 26, 2003. The soldiers are accused of beating Mowhoush during interrogations, eventually placing a sleeping bag over his head, sitting on his chest and placing their hands over the general's mouth.

The Article 32 hearing to determine whether they will face courts-martial resumed Wednesday after nearly a four- month break.

One of the soldiers, Chief Warrant Officer Jeff L. Williams, also faces possible new charges of assault for allegedly throwing a 20-pound box of food at Mowhoush two days before he died, according to court testimony from Sgt. 1st Class Gerald Pratt, who was stationed at the facility.

The U.S. Army Court of Appeals stopped previous hearings for Williams, Sgt. 1st Class William J. Sommer, and Spec. Jerry Loper in December after The Post sued to get the hearing opened.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer is accused of sitting on Mowhoush's chest and covering the general's mouth. His hearing is to begin today.

Welshofer, Williams, and Maj. Jessica Voss, who headed the 66th Military Intelligence Unit, received reprimands following the death.

An appeals court ruled that the December hearing was closed improperly and ordered the Army to provide a transcript with classified portions redacted. Transcripts provided to The Post on Wednesday include testimony that Welshofer's superior officers knew about the extreme interrogation techniques.

In the document, Voss' rebuttal of the reprimand said she thought the use of the sleeping bag technique was authorized, although no specifics were cited. And Welshofer told Voss the technique was approved by top commanders, according to exchanges between defense council and Col. David Teeples, former commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

The earlier testimony also showed that Welshofer put claustrophobic prisoners in wall lockers to interrogate them.

"I believe the first time I heard about the claustrophobic effect was in Chief Welshofer's rebuttal to the letter of reprimand," Teeples testified. "And so, I could understand why the sleeping bag technique could be used as a claustrophobic technique not intending to harm someone, not intending to kill someone, but intending to put some type of fear into their mind."

In live testimony Wednesday, Pratt said he had reported to superior officers three situations in which he felt American soldiers were acting illegally.

Included in his reports was the theft of more than $2 million worth of Iraqi currency that was to pay for brain surgery for an 8-year-old girl. Some of the money was returned after he complained.

Pratt testified that he was concerned about some of the interrogation techniques and the abuse of prisoners by guards. He and Welshofer, days before the general died, met with staff to clarify what techniques could be used, he said.

Pratt also testified that Welshofer told him Welshofer controlled the interrogation.

"Everything that happens in this facility starts with me and ends with me," Pratt quoted Welshofer as saying.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...790868,00.html#

Beating of Iraqi General Alleged in Army Hearing


Associated Press
Sunday, April 3, 2005; Page A21


FORT CARSON, Colo., April 2 -- Previously secret court testimony indicates that an Iraqi general imprisoned by U.S. forces was badly bruised and may have been severely beaten two days before he died of suffocation during interrogation.

References to the alleged beating appear in a transcript, released under court order, from a preliminary military hearing for three soldiers charged with murder and dereliction of duty in the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush on Nov. 26, 2003. A fourth soldier faces the same charges but waived a hearing.

During the interrogation, Army prosecutors said, Mowhoush was put headfirst into a sleeping bag, wrapped with electrical cord and knocked down before the soldiers sat and stood on him. The cause of death was determined to be suffocation.

The defendants -- Chief Warrant Officers Lewis Welshofer and Jefferson Williams, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer and Spec. Jerry Loper -- have all denied wrongdoing. They said commanders had sanctioned their actions.

According to the transcript, witnesses said others had also beaten Mowhoush days before the Army interrogation. Their names and the names of their agencies were blacked out.

Col. David A. Teeples, the men's commander, said during the closed hearing: "My thought was that the death of Mowhoush was brought about by . . . [blacked out] and then it was unfortunate and accidental, what had happened under an interrogation by our people."

According to the transcript, Army special investigator Curtis Ryan testified that he found extensive bruising when he examined Mowhoush shortly after he died. "So, at some point prior to the 26th, he had been beaten," Ryan said.

An autopsy revealed that Mowhoush had also suffered broken ribs, testimony showed.

The military closed the hearing to the public shortly after it began in December, but the Denver Post successfully sued to open it, and the proceeding was concluded this week in open court. The transcript was released Thursday and posted on the Internet.

Fort Carson's commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon, will decide whether the soldiers are to be court-martialed, after he receives a recommendation from the investigating officer, Capt. Robert Ayers. No timetable was set.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...pr2.html?sub=AR

Can anyone find a link to the transcript? I have looked everywhere and can not find it.

A good place to get news on what is happening without Right Wing, or corrupted ass-kissers censuring the news is the website, set up by an international peace and justice groups with their Iraqi Counterparts:

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=9397

ACLU Letter to Attorney General Gozales Requesting Investigation of Possible Perjury by General Ricardo A. Sanchez

March 30, 2005




The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
Robert F. Kennedy Building
Tenth Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530

Re: Request for Investigation of Possible Perjury by General Ricardo A. Sanchez; Renewal of Request for an Outside Special Counsel to Investigate and Prosecute Violations or Conspiracies to Violate Criminal Laws Against Torture or Abuse of Detainees

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

The American Civil Liberties Union strongly urges you to open an investigation into whether General Ricardo A. Sanchez committed perjury in his sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 19, 2004. We also renew our request, made in a letter to you of February 15, 2005 that you appoint an outside special counsel for the investigation and prosecution of any and all criminal acts committed in the mistreatment of detainees held in Abu Ghraib, other places in Iraq or Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, or transferred by the United States to foreign countries that engage in torture or abuse of prisoners. An outside special counsel is the only way to ensure that all persons who violated the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441, or who violated, or conspired to violate, the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A, or other federal laws against torture and abuse will be held accountable and responsible for criminal wrongdoing.

During sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 19, 2004, Senator Jack Reed asked General Sanchez, who commanded the Combined Joint Task Force Seven (CJTF-7) in Iraq, whether he “ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison.” General Sanchez testified in response that he “never approved any of those measures to be used in CJTF-7 at any time in the last year” and that he “never approved the use of any of those methods within CJTF-7 in the 12.5 months that I’ve been in Iraq.”

However, a document that the Defense Department released to us late in the afternoon of Friday, March 25, 2005 specifically contradicts General Sanchez’s testimony. In a memorandum signed by General Sanchez and dated September 14, 2003, General Sanchez ordered the immediate implementation of a policy signed by him, entitled “CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy.” The policy approved by him for interrogation of “detainees, security internees and enemy prisoners of war under the control of CJTF-7” specifically approves “significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee,” “adjusting the sleep times of the detainee (e.g., reversing sleep cycles from night to day),” “sleep management: detainee provided minimum 4 hours of sleep per 24 hour period, not to exceed 72 continuous hours.” The policy also approves for detainees who are not prisoners of war (and sets up an individualized approval process for prisoners of war) additional techniques, including “yelling, loud music, and light control: used to create fear, disorient detainee, and prolong capture shock. Volume controlled to prevent injury,” and “presence of military working dogs: exploits Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogation. Dogs will be muzzled and under control of MWD handler at all times to prevent contact with detainee.”

The September 14, 2003 memorandum signed by General Sanchez does not square with his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The need for General Sanchez and all high-level government officials to tell the truth could not be more important. The nation cannot afford to have anyone covering up their wrongdoing when such horrific abuse was the result. And the nation needs a clear accounting of the extent to which the United States government tortured and abused persons under its custody and control. For these reasons, we urge you to order an investigation, and if appropriate, prosecution for any criminal acts arising from General Sanchez’s testimony, as well as for any illegal actions taken pursuant to the September 14, 2003 memorandum.

We also emphasize again the need for you to appoint an outside special counsel. There is an obvious public interest in investigating and prosecuting all persons committing torture or abuse or conspiring to commit those crimes against persons being held by the United States. A small number of enlisted men and women and a few low-ranking military officers should not be the only persons held responsible, if civilians and top military officers also engaged in wrongdoing. Given the increasing evidence of deliberate and widespread use of torture and abuse, and that such conduct was the predictable result of policy changes made at the highest levels of government, an outside special counsel is clearly in the public interest. Moreover, your leadership at the Justice Department would clearly benefit from putting all these outstanding matters related to the torture issue to rest.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to your response.

Very truly yours,

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
ACLU

Laura W. Murphy
Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

Christopher E. Anders
Legislative Counsel
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFre...?ID=17866&c=206

Thanks for another good site.

Mr. Herbert,

I want to thank you for your ceaseless attention to the lack of accountability in the heinous torture scandals in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The current administration must have its feet continuously held to the fire on this, a task made so difficult in the wake of all the numerous distractions that are interminably hammered in the news, which I need not name to you.

I am one representative of an on-line forum called Common Ground, Common Sense. We are plugging away at attempts to gain just that. We currently have a very active thread going on the torture issue, on which you have been prominently cited.

Please check us out, if you get a few moments.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...pic=24131&st=80

Thank you again.

Peggy Thornton, Ph.D.
Auburn, Alabama

Patty, I'll do more later.

-P

p.s. See, guilt does work!

You are quite welcome. Looking forward to talking with you too. I posted a couple of comments in some military threads trying to get a feel for how the current and former military feel about the torture stories. I really am interested in hearing those opinions. I realize that there will probably be some who do not see this issue the way I do but unless I hear from them it is hard to say whether I think they have a good point or not. I am not against the military I am against policies that would allow our government to torture prisoners. To me that is not American and it ticks me off that our military has been put in the middle on this.

This administration doesn't care about vets. Hell, they don't even care about active duty members. ("You go to war with the army you have.")

It always worked for my mom too! Thanks so much.

The military did not condone torture in their interrogation manual. The Bush Administration sought to change all that. No wonder there are military members speaking out against the torture. It is NOT part of the proud tradition of the military.

FM 34-52
HEADQUARTERS
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
Washington, DC, 8 May 1987

FM 34-52
INTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION

PROHIBITION AGAINST USE OF FORCE
The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor. condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. However, the use of force is not to be confused with psychological ploys, verbal trickery, or other nonviolent and noncoercive ruses used by the interrogator in questioning hesitant or uncooperative sources.

The psychological techniques and principles outlined should neither be confused with, nor construed to be synonymous with, unauthorized techniques such as brainwashing, mental torture, or any other form of mental coercion to include drugs. These techniques and principles are intended to serve as guides in obtaining the willing cooperation of a source. The absence of threats in interrogation is intentional, as their enforcement and use normally constitute violations of international law and may result in prosecution under the UCMJ.

Additionally, the inability to carry out a threat of violence or force renders an interrogator ineffective should the source challenge the threat. Consequently, from both legal and moral viewpoints, the restrictions established by international law, agreements, and customs render threats of force, violence, and deprivation useless as interrogation techniques.

Hostile and Antagonistic
A hostile and antagonistic source is most difficult to interrogate. In many cases, he refuses to talk at all and offers a real challenge to the interrogator. An interrogator must have self?control, patience, and tact when dealing with him. As a rule, at lower echelons, it is considered unprofitable to expend excessive time and effort in interrogating hostile and antagonistic sources. When time is available and the source appears to be an excellent target for exploitation, he should be isolated and repeatedly interrogated to obtain his cooperation. A more concentrated interrogation effort can be accomplished at higher levels, such as corps or echelons above corps (EAC), where more time is available to exploit hostile and antagonistic sources.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/libra...fm34-52/toc.htm

Here is a Christian Science Monitor Article from 2004 discussing interrogation techniques. It would appear from this article that the CIA is the group that used the harshest interrogation techinques in the past and possibly now. From what I have read the techniques that were adopted by the Bush Administration mirror the CIA method of interrogation not the military method.

from the May 27, 2004 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0527/p02s01-usmi.html

How interrogation tactics have changed
A review of CIA and military manuals from several decades show techniques ranging from low-pressure to coercive.
By Peter Grier and Faye Bowers | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - The prisoner seemed to be a Viet Cong officer of some sort, and he was basically just laughing at his American captors. He didn't even bother to make his lies consistent. His story changed once. Then twice. Three times.

That's the way the Army interrogator remembers it, anyway. His job as a US officer was to try to elicit useful information from POWs. But guidelines for his actions were rigid - the most he was allowed to do was shout.

So the interrogator tried patience. He waited. And waited. Then he threw the man a pack of cigarettes and said that if he didn't give up something the Americans would be forced to turn him over to the South Vietnamese police.

The man talked. It turned out he was a province chief.

"The point is, you get better results from being relatively humane to [prisoners], rather than beating on them," says the interrogator today, who asked to remain anonymous due to continuing work with US intelligence.

That may be so - but it is also likely to be only part of the story. Interrogation is a complicated process in which two people knock against each other under tense conditions. According to past and present US training manuals, loosening a prisoner's tongue requires careful planning, methodical implementation - and, at times, the inspiration of an artist.

How much of the abuse of Iraqi detainees was related to interrogations remains unclear, but the controversy has brought this process under a spotlight - and shown, graphically, what can happen when it goes wrong. An Army field manual on intelligence interrogation quotes Gen. Douglas MacArthur: "In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military."

US military scientists have studied interrogation methods for decades, according to documents from the library of a retired high-ranking officer made available to the Monitor.

Three generations of CIA and military interrogation manuals show how methods have evolved and been refined. After World War II, personnel pored over the testimony of Hanns Joachim Scharff, a genial German interrogator who questioned every downed US fighter pilot and was famous for his use of props meant to put prisoners at ease. During the Korea and Vietnam conflicts, they weighed the effectiveness of less-savory psychological methods characterized in the press as "brainwashing."

Coercive techniques
Through much of the cold war, US interrogators trained allies in Latin America and elsewhere in the use of humiliation, nakedness, physical discomfort, and other harsh coercive techniques.

Sensory deprivation in dark, sound-proofed cells can deeply affect an interrogee, said the CIA's notorious Vietnam-era KUBARK interrogation manual. "An environment still more subject to control, such as water-tank or iron lung, is even more effective," it stated.

Officially this approach was abandoned following congressional hearings in the mid-1980s. However, even training manuals that predate this change emphasized that the most important quality for an interrogator was not necessarily intimidation. The chief qualification for a questioner is "a genuine insight into the subject's character and motives," concludes the CIA's 1983 Human Resources Exploitation Training Manual.

The first rule of successful interrogation is to set the mood, according to military and CIA manuals. Ideally, that means using a spartan interrogation room. Mirrors, see-through or otherwise, should be positioned so that detainees can't see themselves. If the interrogator has a comfortable chair, and the subject does not, that subtly conveys an impression of power. There should never be a phone in the room. It is both a subliminal connection to the outside world, and an actual source of distraction. And distractions break the spell of an interrogation.

"The effect of someone wandering in because he forgot his pen or wants to invite the interrogator to lunch can be devastating," notes the CIA's KUBARK manual.

The second step is generally an analysis of what type of person the detainee is. Both the KUBARK manual and its 1983 successor, for instance, list presumed categories of prisoner personalities. These include the "orderly-obstinate subject" and the "guilt-ridden subject."

Then comes questioning itself. Interrogators must be alert to any sign that subjects are withholding information, note manuals. They should match demeanor to prisoner psychology - "orderly-obstinate" prisoners, for example, are thought to clam up in response to table-pounding.

Rapid-fire nonsense questions are one way to disorient a prisoner and wear down resistance, noted the CIA in 1983.

FM 34-52
The Army's FM 34-52 Intelligence Interrogation manual, still in use today, lists a number of approaches. "Emotional hate," for instance, tries to build on any grievance the prisoner might have, through such statements as, "You owe them no loyalty because of the way they've treated you." The "fear-up" approach tries to exploit preexisting fears, according to the manual, without actually lying about the consequences of noncooperation. The "file and dossier" method builds a paper case against a detainee, often with padding to make it look thicker, to trick the prisoner into believing it would be explosive if released to family members or the public.

None of the techniques outlined in FM 34-52 should be construed as allowing physical or mental torture, or any other form of mental coercion, says the manual.

Yet the abuse of prisoners in Iraq shows that the harsh practices that were supposed to have ended decades ago have continued. New iterations of interrogation techniques have been issued by the Pentagon - many of them echoing the harsher practices listed in the earlier CIA manuals.

The investigations into what happened at Abu Ghraib, and why, are widening to look at the military intelligence side of the equation, as well as looking at suspected abuses and even deaths at military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo.

Meanwhile, the fallout continues. So far, seven members of the military police who participated in the abuses have been charged. On Monday, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, in charge of 16 Iraq prisons when the abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred, was indefinitely suspended, pending results of further investigations.

The Pentagon has also announced that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the forces in Iraq, will leave Baghdad this summer. Gen. George Casey Jr., the Army's second-ranking general, has been tipped as his replacement.

Gen. George Fay's report, examining the military intelligence role in the abuses, is expected within the next 10 days.

Once Bush and Cheney are impeached, America can genuinely speak of moral values. Too men of our young men and women died as a result of these two guys' ruch to an unprepared war. They know how to protect the oil wells, but left our troops to face danger and death! Innocent women and children died for Bush and Cheney's greed! Inhumane torture is never forgivable. It's a lesson all has learned from the Holocaust!

Here is a statement from another Vets group that joined with the ACLU in their FOIA request for government documents concerning the torture scandal.

Statement of Seth Pollack, Chairman, Veterans for Common Sense

October 7, 2003

Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), a Washington D.C. based, non-profit, United States veterans’ organization, is committed to providing a voice of reason on issues of war and national security from the unique perspective of those who have served their country in uniform.

VCS is comprised of those who have fought in our country’s wars. We are very concerned that in its desire for victory, our current military and civilian leadership may have forgotten the prohibitions under domestic and international law against the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. We submit this Freedom of Information Act Request to determine whether our concerns are valid, and if so, to begin the process of bringing those responsible to account.

Domestic and international law prohibit torture absolutely. For centuries, warriors have fought conflicts with certain assumptions regarding appropriate conduct. These standards of behavior provide an essential counter-force to the immediacy of combat, where the desire for victory and the passion of war can lead even the most reasonable soldier astray. They protect the honor of the nation and protect the warrior from a lifetime of agony and regret by providing rules relating to issues such as the treatment of non-combatants, choice of weapon systems and the proper treatment of enemy prisoners of war. Any deviation from these rules by our nation may be used to justify torture of our troops by foreign powers.

A strong and capable military is only one facet of national security; just as important is the global perception of America and our role in the world as a leader in human rights, dignity and respect. Accordingly, it is our government’s positive responsibility to fight the “war on terror” while maintaining the standards of conduct established under domestic and international law.

Here is an easy link that will take you to the documents that the ACLU has obtained through FOIA and through their lawsuit against Rumsfeld et al.

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFre...?ID=17572&c=206

The site includes:


LEGAL PAPERS
> Legal basis
> Rumsfeld complaint (pdf)
> Karpinski complaint (pdf)
> Sanchez complaint (pdf)
> Pappas complaint (pdf)

TORTURE DOCUMENTS
Government documents released under the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act suit
BIOS
> Plaintiffs involved
> Press conference speakers

NEWS RELEASES
> Rumsfeld Is Sued Over U.S. Torture Policies
English,

COALITION PARTNERS
> Human Rights First
> Lieff Cabraser Heimman and Bernstein, LLP

This is just one of the ACLU press releases. It is from back in December.

Special Ops Task Force Threatened Government Agents Who Saw Detainee Abuse in Iraq, Documents Obtained by ACLU Reveal

December 7, 2004


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@aclu.org

Iraqi Detainees Had Burn Marks and Bruises; Harsh Techniques Appear to Have Continued Even After Abu Ghraib Scandal

NEW YORK - Documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union reveal that a special operations task force in Iraq sought to silence Defense Intelligence Agency personnel who observed abusive interrogations and that the Department of Defense adopted questionable interrogation techniques at Guantanamo over FBI objections.

"The more the government is forced to reveal, the more we learn that individuals in U.S. custody, many of whom have not been accused of wrongdoing, were tortured and abused," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "These documents tell a damning story of sanctioned government abuse -- a story that the government has tried to hide and may well come back to haunt our own troops captured in Iraq."

The release of these documents follows a federal court order that directed the Defense Department and other government agencies to comply with a year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

The documents the ACLU released today, posted online at www.aclu.org/torturefoia, include:

A June 25, 2004 memo from Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, Defense Intelligence Agency chief, entitled "alleged detainee abuse by TF 62-6," describing how DIA personnel who complained about abuses were threatened, had their car keys confiscated and e-mails monitored, and were ordered "not to talk to anyone in the U.S." or leave the base "even to get a haircut."
The June 25 memo also describes how the task force’s officers punched a prisoner in the face "to the point he needed medical attention," failed to record the medical treatment, and confiscated DIA photos of the injuries. The date of the incident is unclear.
FBI emails showing a rift between the Department of Defense and the FBI on the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees. One email notes that Major General Miller "continued to support interrogation strategies [the FBI] not only advised against, but questioned in terms of effectiveness." Another e-mail to Thomas Harrington, an FBI counterterrorism expert who led a team of investigators to Guantanamo, records "somewhat heated" conversations with Pentagon officials in which they admitted that DOD’s harsh interrogation methods did not yield any information not obtained by the FBI. A December 2003 e-mail notes that the FBI’s Military Liaison and Detainee Unit (MLDU), which "had a long standing and documented position against use of some of DOD’s interrogation practices," had requested certain information "be documented to protect the FBI."
Notes describing 15 interviews of FBI personnel who were at Abu Ghraib prison between Oct.-Dec. 2003, some of whom observed nudity, sleep deprivation and humiliation of detainees. A summary of these interviews was previously released.
E-mail from an FBI Behavioral Analysis Advisor who observed "aggressive" and "extreme interrogation practices" at GTMO, noting that he and his colleagues had summarized these observations in communications between October and May of 2002.
These and other documents were released by the ACLU one day after the Associated Press reported on a detailed letter from FBI counter-terrorism expert Thomas Harrington to Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder describing "highly aggressive" interrogations and mistreatment of terror suspects at Guantanamo as far back as 2002. The AP also reported on the Harrington e-mail indicating a rift between DOD and the FBI over interrogation methods.

"While these documents confirm the systemic nature of detainee abuse, it appears that the government is still withholding many more documents that shed light on which high-ranking officials are responsible for that abuse," said ACLU attorney Amrit Singh. "The public must know the full truth about the U.S. government’s involvement in this scandal."

The disclosures come in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other civil liberties and human rights organizations after the Defense Department and other federal agencies failed to release records in response to FOIA requests. The requests sought records concerning the interrogation and treatment of detainees and the extrajudicial "rendition" of detainees to countries known to use torture.

Singh said the ACLU is continuing to press the government to disclose more documents and will return to court if necessary to ensure that every relevant document is released.

The lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Singh, Jameel Jaffer, and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Art Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky and Jeff Fogel of CCR.

Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

By Deborah Davies

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for BBC Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

The prison guards stand over their captives with electric cattle prods, stun guns, and dogs. Many of the prisoners have been ordered to strip naked. The guards are yelling abuse at them, ordering them to lie on the ground and crawl. ‘Crawl, motherf*****s, crawl.’

If a prisoner doesn’t drop to the ground fast enough, a guard kicks him or stamps on his back. There’s a high-pitched scream from one man as a dog clamps its teeth onto his lower leg.

Another prisoner has a broken ankle. He can’t crawl fast enough so a guard jabs a stun gun onto his buttocks. The jolt of electricity zaps through his naked flesh and genitals. For hours afterwards his whole body shakes.

Lines of men are now slithering across the floor of the cellblock while the guards stand over them shouting, prodding and kicking.

Second by second, their humiliation is captured on a video camera by one of the guards.

The images of abuse and brutality he records are horrifyingly familiar. These were exactly the kind of pictures from inside Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that shocked the world this time last year.

And they are similar, too, to the images of brutality against Iraqi prisoners that this week led to the conviction of three British soldiers.

But there is a difference. These prisoners are not caught up in a war zone. They are Americans, and the video comes from inside a prison in Texas

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for Channel 4 that will be broadcast next week.

Our findings were not based on rumour or suspicion. They were based on solid evidence, chiefly videotapes that we collected from all over the U.S.

In many American states, prison regulations demand that any ‘use of force operation’, such as searching cells for drugs, must be filmed by a guard.

The theory is that the tapes will show proper procedure was followed and that no excessive force was used. In fact, many of them record the exact opposite.

Each tape provides a shocking insight into the reality of life inside the U.S. prison system – a reality that sits very uncomfortably with President Bush’s commitment to the battle for freedom and democracy against the forces of tyranny and oppression.

In fact, the Texas episode outlined above dates from 1996, when Bush was state Governor.

Frank Carlson was one of the lawyers who fought a compensation battle on behalf of the victims. I asked him about his reaction when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last year and U.S. politicians rushed to express their astonishment and disgust that such abuses could happen at the hands of American guards.

‘I thought: “What hypocrisy,” Carlson told me. ‘Because they know we do it here every day.’

All the lawyers I spoke to during our investigations shared Carlson’s belief that Abu Ghraib, far from being the work of a few rogue individuals, was simply the export of the worst practices that take place in the domestic prison system all the time. They pointed to the mountain of files stacked on their desks, on the floor, in their office corridors – endless stories of appalling, sadistic treatment inside America’s own prisons.

Many of the tapes we’ve collected are several years old. That’s because they only surface when determined lawyers prise them out of reluctant state prison departments during protracted lawsuits.

But for every ‘historical’ tape we collected, we also found a more recent story. What you see on the tape is still happening daily.

It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

In one horrific scene, a naked man, passive and vacant, is seen being led out of his cell by prison guards. They strap him into a medieval-looking device called a ‘restraint chair’. His hands and feet are shackled, there’s a strap across his chest, his head lolls forward. He looks dead. He’s not. Not yet.

The chair is his punishment because guards saw him in his cell with a pillowcase on his head and he refused to take it off. The man has a long history of severe schizophrenia. Sixteen hours later, they release him from the chair. And two hours after that, he dies from a blood clot resulting from his barbaric treatment.

The tape comes from Utah – but there are others from Connecticut, Florida, Texas, Arizona and probably many more. We found more than 20 cases of prisoners who’ve died in the past few years after being held in a restraint chair.

Two of the deaths we investigated were in the same county jail in Phoenix, Arizona, which is run by a man who revels in the title of ‘America’s Toughest Sheriff.’

His name is Joe Arpaio. He positively welcomes TV crews and we were promised ‘unfettered access.’ It was a reassuring turn of phrase – you don’t want to be fettered in one of Sheriff Joe’s jails.

We uncovered two videotapes from surveillance cameras showing how his tough stance can end in tragedy.

The first tape, from 2001, shows a man named Charles Agster dragged in by police, handcuffed at the wrists and ankles. Agster is mentally disturbed and a drug user. He was arrested for causing a disturbance in a late-night grocery store. The police handed him over to the Sheriff’s deputies in the jail. Agster is a tiny man, weighing no more than nine stone, but he’s struggling.

The tape shows nine deputies manhandling him into the restraint chair. One of them kneels on Agster’s stomach, pushing his head forward on to his knees and pulling his arms back to strap his wrists into the chair.

Bending someone double for any length of time is dangerous – the manuals on the use of the 'restraint chair’ warn of the dangers of ‘positional asphyxia.’

Fifteen minutes later, a nurse notices Agster is unconscious. The cameras show frantic efforts to resuscitate him, but he’s already brain dead. He died three days later in hospital. Agster's family is currently suing Arizona County.

His mother, Carol, cried as she told me: ‘If that’s not torture, I don’t know what is.’ Charles’s father, Chuck, listened in silence as we filmed the interview, but every so often he padded out of the room to cry quietly in the kitchen.

The second tape, from five years earlier, shows Scott Norberg dying a similar death in the same jail. He was also a drug user arrested for causing a nuisance. Norberg was severely beaten by the guards, stunned up to 19 times with a Taser gun and forced into the chair where – like Charles Agster – he suffocated.

The county’s insurers paid Norberg’s family more than £4 millions in an out-of-court settlement, but the sheriff was furious with the deal. ‘My officers were clear,’ he said. ‘The insurance firm was afraid to go before a jury.’

Now he’s determined to fight the Agster case all the way through the courts. Yet tonight, in Sheriff Joe’s jail, there’ll probably be someone else strapped into the chair.

Not all the tapes we uncovered were filmed by the guards themselves. Linda Evans smuggled a video camera into a hospital to record her son, Brian. You can barely see his face through all the tubes and all you can hear is the rhythmic sucking of the ventilator.

He was another of Sheriff Joe’s inmates. After an argument with guards, he told a prison doctor they’d beaten him up. Six days later, he was found unconscious of the floor of his cell with a broken neck, broken toes and internal injuries. After a month in a coma, he died from septicaemia.

‘Mr Arpaio is responsible.’ Linda Evans told me, struggling to speak through her tears. ‘He seems to thrive on this cruelty and this mentality that these men are nothing.’

In some of the tapes it’s not just the images, it’s also the sounds that are so unbearable. There’s one tape from Florida which I’ve seen dozens of times but it still catches me in the stomach.

It’s an authorised ‘use of force operation’ – so a guard is videoing what happens. They’re going to Taser a prisoner for refusing orders.

The tape shows a prisoner lying on an examination table in the prison hospital. The guards are instructing him to climb down into a wheelchair. ‘I can’t, I can’t!’ he shouts with increasing desperation. ‘It hurts!’

One guard then jabs him on both hips with a Taser. The man jerks as the electricity hits him and shrieks, but still won’t get into the wheelchair.

The guards grab him and drop him into the chair. As they try to bend his legs up on to the footrest, he screams in pain. The man’s lawyer told me he has a very limited mental capacity. He says he has a back injury and can’t walk or bend his legs without intense pain.

The tape becomes even more harrowing. The guards try to make the prisoner stand up and hold a walking frame. He falls on the floor, crying in agony. They Taser him again. He runs out of the energy and breath to cry and just lies there moaning.

One of the most recent video tapes was filmed in January last year. A surveillance camera in a youth institution in California records an argument between staff members and two ‘wards’ – they’re not called prisoners.

One of the youths hits a staff member in the face. He knocks the ward to the floor then sits astride him punching him over and over again in the head.

Watching the tape you can almost feel each blow. The second youth is also punched and kicked in the head – even after he’s been handcuffed. Other staff just stand around and watch.

We also collected some truly horrific photographs.

A few years ago, in Florida, the new warden of the high security state prison ordered an end to the videoing of ‘use of force operations.’ So we have no tapes to show how prison guards use pepper spray to punish prisoners.

But we do have the lawsuit describing how men were doused in pepper spray and then left to cook in the burning fog of chemicals. Photographs taken by their lawyers show one man has a huge patch of raw skin over his hip. Another is covered in an angry rash across his neck, back and arms. A third has deep burns on his buttocks.

‘They usually use fire extinguishers size canisters of pepper spray,’ lawyer Christopher Jones explained. ‘We have had prisoners who have had second degree burns all over their bodies.

‘The tell-tale sign is they turn off the ventilation fans in the unit. Prisoners report that cardboard is shoved in the crack of the door to make sure it’s really air-tight.’

And why were they sprayed? According to the official prison reports, their infringements included banging on the cell door and refusing medication. From the same Florida prison we also have photographs of Frank Valdes – autopsy pictures. Realistically, he had little chance of ever getting out of prison alive. He was on Death Row for killing a prison officer. He had time to reconcile himself to the Electric Chair – he didn’t expect to be beaten to death.

Valdes started writing to local Florida newspapers to expose the corruption and brutality of prison officers. So a gang of guards stormed into his cell to shut him up. They broke almost every one of his ribs, punctured his lung, smashed his spleen and left him to die.

Several of the guards were later charged with murder, but the trial was held in their own small hometown where almost everyone works for, or has connection with, the five prisons which ring the town. The foreman of the jury was former prison officer. The guards were all acquitted.

Meanwhile, the warden who was in charge of the prison at the time of the killing – the same man who changed the policy on videoing – has been promoted. He’s now the man in charge of all the Florida prisons.

How could anyone excuse – still less condone – such behaviour? The few prison guards who would talk to us have a siege mentality. They see themselves outnumbered, surrounded by dangerous, violent criminals, so they back each other up, no matter what.

I asked one serving officer what happened if colleagues beat up an inmate. ‘We cover up. Because we’re the good guys.’

No one should doubt that the vast majority of U.S. prison officers are decent individuals doing their best in difficult circumstances. But when horrific abuse by the few goes unreported and uninvestigated, it solidifies into a general climate of acceptance among the many.

At the same time the overall hardening of attitudes in modern-day America has meant the notion of rehabilitation has been almost lost. The focus is entirely on punishment – even loss of liberty is not seen as punishment enough. Being on the restraint devices and the chemical sprays.

Since we finished filming for the programme in January, I’ve stayed in contact with various prisoners’ rights groups and the families of many of the victims. Every single day come more e-mails full of fresh horror stories. In the past weeks, two more prisoners have died, in Alabama and Ohio. One man was pepper sprayed, the other tasered.

Then, three weeks ago, reports emerged of 20 hours of video material from Guantanamo Bay showing prisoners being stripped, beaten and pepper sprayed. One of those affected is Omar Deghayes, one of the seven British residents still being held there.

His lawyer says Deghayes is now permanently blind in one eye. American military investigators have reviewed the tapes and apparently found ‘no evidence of systematic abuse.’

But then, as one of the prison reformers we met on our journey across the U.S. told me: ‘We’ve become immune to the abuse. The brutality has become customary.’

So far, the U.S. government is refusing to release these Guantanamo tapes. If they are ever made public – or leaked – I suspect the images will be very familiar.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo – or even Texas. The prisoners and all guards may vary, but the abuse is still too familiar. And much is it is taking place in America’s own backyard.

Deborah Davies is a reporter for Channel 4 Dispatches. Her investigation, Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons, was shown on Wednesday, March 2, at 11.05pm.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

Abu Ghraib, Afganistan, Guantanamo are American prisons on steroids.

Snuffysmith, no retreat, no surrender,
I think it’s great what you two have going on here, can you tell me where we can go to discuss any possibilities of what we citizens might try in response to these illegal government actions. Somehow somewhere somebody needs to be accountable, as impossible as that seems, we should pursue it anyway.
Do you think it would be progressive to hear discussions from vets who might have been witness to these types of things from back in the day. Americans torturing suspects is not at all a new concept, maybe the methods are new, I can’t attest to that, but I can say that our military does have some experience derived from previous conflicts.

was this ever posted?

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFre...?ID=17868&c=206

Army Memo Released By ACLU Suggests Perjury In Lt. Gen. Sanchez Sworn Testimony on Torture

March 31, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking him to open an investigation into possible perjury by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the theater commander at the outset of the Iraq War. The ACLU said that a memo sent by Lt. Gen Sanchez flatly contradicts sworn testimony given by him before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which he denied authorizing highly coercive interrogation methods.

"Lt. Gen. Sanchez’s testimony, given under oath before the Senate Armed Services committee, is utterly inconsistent with the written record, and deserves serious investigation," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "This clear breach of the public’s trust is also further proof that the American people deserve the appointment of an independent special counsel by the attorney general."

Although the Washington Post first disclosed its existence, the memorandum at issue was initially withheld from public release by the Defense Department under national security grounds. The ACLU obtained a physical copy of the memorandum, however, under an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and released a hard copy on Tuesday.

The memorandum, dated September 14, 2003, was signed by Lt. Gen. Sanchez and laid out specific interrogation techniques, modeled on those used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for use by coalition forces in Iraq. These include sleep "management," the inducement of fear at two levels of severity, loud music and sensory agitation, and the use of canine units to "exploit [the] Arab fear of dogs."

During sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lt. Gen. Sanchez flatly denied approving any such techniques in Iraq, and said that a news article reporting otherwise was false.

Specifically, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) asked Sanchez, "today's USA Today, sir, reported that you ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison." To which Sanchez replied, using the acronym for Coalition Joint Task Force-7, "Sir, that may be correct that it's in a news article, but I never approved any of those measures to be used within CJTF-7 at any time in the last year."

"We deserve to know if our military commanders are being honest when reporting to Congress and the American people what’s been done in our country’s name," said Christopher E. Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "The attorney general clearly has to bring us those answers by appointing an independent investigator, and possible perjury is a good place to start."

Earlier this month, the ACLU and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit charging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody. The action was the first federal court lawsuit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of the charges are based on documents obtained through the FOIA lawsuit. The ACLU has also filed separate lawsuits naming Brig. Gen. Karpinski, Col. Thomas Pappas and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

Paulie posted it in a thread and I posted it in the torture thread.

yikes I'm falling behind

ACLU Plans to Bring Torture Issue to the UN
By Joel Wendland


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Related stories: Human Rights 4-04-05, 9:51 am

The magnitude of revelations of torture committed at Abu Ghraib and other US-run detention facilties, among other human rights problems, will be among the issues raised by a delegation sent by the 400,000-member American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the UN Commission on Human Rights. "The delegation seeks to bring issues of torture and detention ... to the Commission’s attention," says a recent ACLU statement.

"If the U.S. government truly wants to be a beacon of liberty and freedom around the world," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson, "it must abide by the same universal human rights principles it requires of the rest of the world." The UN commission is meeting now in Geneva, Switzerland.

New evidence of widespread prisoner abuse havs surfaced despite failues of the Bush administration to comply fully with a federal court order to release thousands of pages of documents related to the Pentagon's role in the treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The court order resulted from a June 2004 lawsuit filed by the civil liberties organization and other human rights organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Veterans for Peace, after the Pentagon refused to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Papers filed in the suit characterized the Department of Defense's failure to comply with the FOIA request as "a deliberate and unlawful withholding of information from the public."

Since the court order, the Bush administration has released about 30,000 pages, but the civil liberties organizations say that documents that seem to provide the clearest evidence of prisoner abuse have been delayed to reduce press scrutiny.

Some documents were released recently to coincide with the Easter weekend, several days after the court's deadline, in order to minimize press coverage of the contents of the documents, says the ACLU, which has taken the lead in examining and publicizing most of the Pentagon's papers.

In an effort to spin the torture scandal its way, the Pentagon also released much of the material to selected reporters with less critical opinions of the US' role in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The contents of the documents showed that US soldiers and miltiary intelligence officials engaged in treatment of prisoners that violates various treaties and conventions against torture and abuse.

Released documents report killings, beatings, excessive exercise of prisoners while handcuffed, physical punishment of uncooperative prisoners, extreme isolation, mock executions, physical and sexual humiliation, and more.

Some documents use the word torture, in fact, to describe the activities soldiers were ordered to carry out.

So far, at least 24 cases of murder of prisoners are being or have been officially investigated in Afghanistan and Iraq with 12 commited in US prison facilities.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which aided in the lawsuit, says, "at least 26 prisoners who died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 were likely the victims of criminal homicide.” CCR adds that the Army and the Pentagon aren't doing enough to investigate and punish soldiers involved.

So far, out of the dozens of specific cases that have been reported, only a handful of low-level soldiers have been brought to trial or punished. For example, just last week Army Captain Rogelio Maynulet left a court martial smiling, a free man, although he was convicted of personally shooting to death a captured wounded Iraqi man near the city of Najaf. Two subordinate enlisted men were also convicted and will serve between one and three years in prison.

Courts martial that have punished low-ranking soldiers for their conduct is warranted, but so far have simply been used to cover up the responsibility of higher officials, including generals, Donald Rumsfeld, and Alberto Gonzales, says CCR.

The civil rights organization argues that the August 2002 memo from Jay Bybee to Alberto Gonzales, which stated that the President could authorize torture in the name of national security and that defined torture so narrowly that even conduct found to have happened in the highly publicized cases at Abu Ghraib would not come within the definition.

Gonzales acknowledged in his Attorney General confirmation testimony to the US Senate that he agreed with the Bybee memo at the time it was written. This memo became the basis for April 2003 DOD working group report upon which interrogation techniques were apparently based.

Last week, the ACLU revealed a document signed by the highest ranking general in Iraq, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, outlining interrogation techniques that complied with this Pentagon's working group's findings.

A clear line that exists from the widespread brutal activites taking place in US prison facilties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and other places all the way up to members of the Bush cabinet is being obscured by highly publicized trials of very low-level personnel and repeated claims of "a few bad apples."

CCR is calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to conduct a full, independent and public inquiry into the role of high-ranking U.S. officials in the abuse and torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere around the world.

So far, CCR has filed a number of lawsuits against members of Bush's cabinet, most recently Donald Rumsfeld, in order to hold higher-ranking officials responsible for their particpation in the abuse of prisoners held by the US.

The Pentagon's policy, despite a self-authored and self-serving report released weeks ago in which the Pentagon exonerated itself, originated in the bowels of the Justice Department, was finely tuned by Pentagon bureaucrats, and was obediently carried out by soldiers in the field.


--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/ar...eview/899/1/32/

URL: http://www.aclu.org/International/Internat...m?ID=17910&c=36

Global Lens Focused on U.S. Torture and Detention Policies
April 4, 2005

GENEVA - The American Civil Liberties Union today called for immediate action by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to address the abuse and torture of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at other U.S.-controlled detention centers.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@aclu.org

ACLU Seeks to Hold U.S. Government to Universal Standards of Human Rights

GENEVA - The American Civil Liberties Union today called for immediate action by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to address the abuse and torture of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at other U.S.-controlled detention centers.

A delegation of attorneys from the ACLU arrived in Geneva this week to attend the 61st meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The ACLU delegation seeks to bring issues of torture and detention, racial profiling, and the exploitation of migrant domestic workers to the Commission’s attention.

"Senior officials in the Bush administration adopted policies that were entirely inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, and customary international law," said Jameel Jaffer, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "Those unlawful policies, some of which are still in place, led directly to the maltreatment of hundreds of prisoners."

Through litigation under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU has obtained more than 30,000 documents concerning the detention, mistreatment and confinement of prisoners apprehended by the U.S. after September 11, 2001. The documents, which reinforce previous reports and testimonies, establish beyond any doubt that prisoners under U.S. control are being abused and even tortured. The documents also show that the abuse and torture of prisoners is not irregular or isolated but rather widespread and systemic.

The documents are online at www.aclu.org/torturefoia.

"Nearly a year after the Abu Ghraib torture and abuses came to public light, serious violations of human rights continue to be committed in U.S. controlled detention centers around the globe," said Jamil Dakwar, a senior human rights attorney with the ACLU. "No country is above the law, and the United States should not be permitted to violate fundamental human rights in the name of national security."

Citing serious violations of fundamental human rights, the ACLU makes several urgent recommendations to the Commission on Human Rights, including:

A reaffirmation of the absolute prohibition of all forms of torture and a reaffirmation that no circumstance whatsoever may justify the violation of this principle;
A global call upon the United States to take effective measures to prevent acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in all places under its jurisdiction and control, to ensure that all acts are thoroughly and impartially investigated, and to hold accountable those officials who encouraged or sanctioned such acts;
Support for the request that the United States permit U.N. human rights experts and monitors to "visit, together and at the earliest possible date, those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violation in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Guantanamo Bay military base and elsewhere.
The full list of recommendations as part of the ACLU’s written statement on torture and detention is available on line at: http://www.aclu.org/International/Internat...m?ID=17904&c=36.

On March 1, 2005 the ACLU and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit charging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with direct responsibility for the abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. military custody. The action was the first federal court lawsuit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of the charges are based on documents obtained through the FOIA lawsuit. The ACLU has also filed separate lawsuits naming Brig. Gen. Karpinski, Col. Thomas Pappas and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. Details about the Rumsfeld lawsuit are online at www.aclu.org/rumsfeld.

The ACLU recently created a new Human Rights Working Group specifically dedicated to holding the U.S. government accountable to universally recognized human rights principles. The Human Rights Working Group is charged with incorporating international human rights strategies into ACLU advocacy on issues relating to national security, immigrants’ rights, women’s rights, and racial justice.

The ACLU is a national, non-partisan, non-governmental organization with more than 400,000 members dedicated to protecting the individual liberties, rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. The ACLU was founded in 1920 and is now the largest U.S.-based civil liberties organization. It has offices in all 50 states and employs over 150 permanent staff attorneys and 2,000 cooperating attorneys, litigating over 6,000 cases annually.

Mr. Dakwar is available in Geneva at (0) 79 470 16 83

http://www.aclu.org/International/Internat...m?ID=17910&c=36

UN Torture Envoy Confident of Visit to Guantanamo
Mon Apr 4, 2005 01:45 PM ET
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GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. investigator into torture said on Monday he was confident the United States would grant his request to visit its base at Guantanamo Bay, where rights activists say detainees face inhumane treatment.
Some nine months after the request was made, Austrian law professor Manfred Nowak said there were signs the U.S. would agree to let him and other U.N. human rights envoys travel to the naval base in Cuba.

"I should say that I am fairly confident that at least to Guantanamo Bay a visit can still be carried out this year, but there is no invitation yet," he said in a brief statement following a meeting with U.S. officials.

The envoys, including the U.N.'s investigator into arbitrary detention, asked last June to inspect conditions in Guantanamo and prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces hold suspected militants.

But a U.S. official in Geneva, where the U.N. Commission on Human Rights is holding its annual session, merely confirmed a meeting had taken place with the envoys and that Washington would consider their request.

"The next step is that the envoys must get back to us with more details of the request, and then we will respond appropriately," said the official, adding that there had been a "good discussion" at the meeting.

The investigators, known as rapporteurs, issued their request last year soon after the publication of photographs from the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad showed prisoners, some in hoods, being sexually humiliated by soldiers and intimidated by dogs.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the United States holds some 400 prisoners in Afghanistan, over 7,000 in Iraq and some 550 in Guantanamo, where many have been detained for over three years without trial.

Washington admits some abuses, but says that they were the individual actions of a small number of soldiers, some of whom have already been tried or face military courts.

But ACLU, which has taken the U.S. administration to court to force the release of thousands of documents on the detentions, said the papers showed "abuse and torture of prisoners is not irregular or isolated, but rather widespread and systematic."

In a statement, it urged the Commission, whose six-week annual session runs until April 22, to demand that the United States halt all torture and inhumane treatment and agree to the visit by the rapporteurs.

"Nearly a year after the Abu Ghraib torture and abuses came to public light, serious violations of human rights continue to be committed in U.S.-controlled detention centers," said Jamil Dakwar, an ACLU lawyer.


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t...storyID=8080843

TV confession show prompts Iraq probe

By Luke Baker

Baghdad - Iraq's human rights ministry is investigating allegations of abuse in the making of a popular television series that shows insurgents confessing to crimes including rape, kidnapping and execution.

Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said the probe focused on evidence of verbal abuse of suspects, but could be extended to include physical abuse and torture, accusations that have been levelled at Iraq's security forces.

"Individuals have raised concerns after seeing verbal abuse of suspects as well as bruises on their bodies and that sort of thing," Amin told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Some defendants have appeared with cuts and bruises on their faces
"We are looking at all these TV shows right now and we are studying them from a human rights point of view. Things should be done in accordance with human rights standards and principles and we are going to make sure that those norms are respected."

Amin said a report would be made to the interior and justice ministries after the investigation.

The TV series, called Terrorism In The Grip Of Justice, airs almost nightly on Iraqiya, Iraq's US-funded national network, and shows men sitting before an interrogator, whose face is not show, confessing to crimes in precise detail.

Some defendants have appeared with cuts and bruises on their faces and what looked like bloodstains on their clothes.

They confess to criminal and militant acts including kidnap, rape, the execution of hostages, planting bombs and contract murder, sometimes for as little as $10 (about R60). Some have said they were acting on the orders of Syrian agents.

'We are doing our utmost, but it's going to take time'
The programme, which has been running for several weeks, has attracted a wide following and been credited with unmasking the insurgency by making it appear less intimidating, prompting more people to come forward with information and intelligence.

The success of the show, together with the historic January 30 election, has led to a more than 20 percent fall in insurgent attacks over the past two months, US officials say.

But concerns have been raised about forced confessions, and family members have come forward to swear that relatives are being wrongly accused or that alleged victims are still alive.

Amin said while he was determined to ensure Iraq's security forces acted within the law, the government was also under intense popular pressure to show results against the insurgency.

Many viewers of the programme are not content just to see insurgents confess, they want to see them executed too, he said.

"There is a dominant culture of negative human treatment in this society, where people have been through decades of oppression and torture, rape and execution," said Amin, a Kurd who was forced to flee Iraq during Saddam Hussein's regime.

"We have inherited the legacy of a ruthless dictatorship and it's not going to go away overnight. It takes time and it takes resources in educating people... It's not a bed of roses."

In a report released in January, US-based rights group Human Rights Watch alleged systematic torture of detainees by Iraq's US-trained security forces, denial of access to detainees by families and lawyers as well as other abuses.

Earlier this year, Iraqi police were accused of torturing to death three members of a Shi'a militia in Baghdad, a case for which government ministers have since apologised.

Amin has met representatives from the European Union, the United Nations and the Swiss and German governments to enlist their help in training Iraqi police and interrogators in human rights law and related issues.

"We are knocking at various doors and we are trying to improve the situation. There is an urgent need to train people," he said, adding that 25 people would leave this month for Germany and the EU would take 700 people later this year.

"I hope we can get rapid international support because we don't want any more negative reports from international NGOs about the situation," Amin said, condemning all forms of abuse.

"We are doing our utmost, but it's going to take time."


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&cli...23B262&set_id=6

April 4, 2005, 11:16AM



Prosecutions wind down at Fort Hood
No one ranked higher than staff sergeant faces charges in the Abu Ghraib case
By JOHN W. GONZALEZ

Reflecting on the abuses he saw soon after arriving at Abu Ghraib prison, such as Iraqi men cowering naked or wearing women's panties, an Army Reserve commander admitted to investigators: "Maybe I should have looked into it."

But a lack of proof that any of the abuses in the Baghdad prison were ordered by higher-ups has meant that no one ranked higher than staff sergeant has been charged in the Abu Ghraib prosecutions that are winding down at Fort Hood.

Last month, another government probe said abuses at Abu Ghraib were the unauthorized actions of a few low-ranking soldiers from Maryland's 372nd Military Police Company and the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion. Though several officers have been reprimanded and more prosecutions are possible, only two Abu Ghraib courts-martial are remaining, for a private and specialist.

"These two will be the last at Fort Hood," base spokesman Dan Hassett confirmed recently.

The seven soldiers already convicted of Abu Ghraib abuses include a staff sergeant, a sergeant, four specialists and a private. They were found guilty of assaults, battery, indecency, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of inmates, conspiracy, lying to investigators and other military crimes. The lead instigator of abuses, Spc. Charles Graner Jr., drew the harshest punishment, a 10-year sentence.

Convicted
• Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II: Pleaded guilty, sentenced to eight years, reduced to private and dishonorably discharged.
• Sgt. Javal Davis: Pleaded guilty, sentenced by jury to six months in prison and dishonorably discharged.
• Spc. Roman Krol: Pleaded guilty, sentenced by judge to 10 months and bad conduct discharge.
• Spc. Charles Graner Jr.: Found guilty and sentenced by jury to 10 years, demoted to private and dishonorably discharged.
• Spc. Megan Ambuhl: Pleaded guilty at summary court-martial, reduced to private and separated from Army.
• Spc. Armin J. Cruz Jr.: Pleaded guilty, sentenced to eight months, reduced to private and bad conduct discharge.
• Pvt. Jeremy Sivits: Pleaded guilty, sentenced to one year, bad conduct discharge.
Awaiting trial
• Pvt. Lynndie England:
May 2
• Spc. Sabrina Harman:
May 11
All defendants were members of the 372nd Military Police Company, except Cruz and Krol, who were from the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion.


Few able to shift blame
Despite claims they were ordered to "soften up" detainees for interrogators, none of the convicted soldiers succeeded in shifting blame to intelligence operatives who dominated the prison's most hellish wing, where "high value" detainees, including combatants, were kept.


"If they were ordered by someone to do it in a clear way, the criminal culpability would go to the person giving the order, but that seems not to be the case," said South Texas College of Law Professor Robert F. Holland, a former military judge.

In May, Pvt. Lynndie England and Spc. Sabrina Harman face courts-martial on charges they mistreated detainees.

Their unit's four-month Abu Ghraib mission ended in January 2004 after Spc. Joseph Darby, a fellow MP, slid an envelope under the door of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. The package contained compact discs of hundreds of digital photos, many depicting abuse. Graner had nonchalantly shared the images with Darby.

The most damning photos were snapped on Nov. 7-8, 2003, when seven detainees accused of rioting at another section of Abu Ghraib were transferred to the wing. Inmates said they were stripped and forced into humiliating positions as guards photographed and posed with them.


Report cites other abuse
A Pentagon investigation of MP abuses said the widely circulated photos captured only part of the soldiers' misconduct. "Between October-December 2003 ... numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees," the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba said. Detainees were forced to perform or simulate sex acts, falsely threatened with electric torture and terrorized with unmuzzled dogs, it said.


The Taguba report cited "credible" evidence that soldiers poured phosphoric liquid on a detainee, beat another with a chair until it broke, threatened inmates with rape, death and injury, and sodomized a detainee with a chemical light stick and broomstick.

Although the abuses were portrayed as unilateral actions of low-ranking soldiers, those troops said they were guided — if not ordered — by military intelligence and CIA agents. They also blamed breakdowns in command, and lack of resources and prison training for MPs. The Taguba report verified the lack of training and said key senior leaders "failed to comply with established regulations, policies and command directives."

A separate probe led by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay said "while senior level officers did not commit the abuse at Abu Ghraib they did bear responsibility for lack of oversight of the facility ... These leaders failed to properly discipline their soldiers. These leaders failed to learn from prior mistakes and failed to provide continued mission-specific training." But "neither Department of Defense nor Army doctrine caused any abuses," that report concluded.

Investigators found many intelligence soldiers had "requested, encouraged, condoned or solicited MP personnel to abuse detainees," and some had participated in abuses and violated interrogation rules. In previous courts-martial, several MPs claimed they were told to yell at and deprive detainees of sleep, manipulate meal schedules and force detainees into stressful positions and stances. A female MP said she was told to walk in on a showering male detainee, point at his genitals, laugh and walk away.


Commander reprimanded
Among those diverting blame toward intelligence soldiers, agents and contractors was the 372nd MP Co. commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese. He was reprimanded for failing to supervise his soldiers and failing to enforce the Geneva Conventions.


Like the detainee's affidavit, Reese's redacted statement to investigators was among hundreds of documents released this month at the request of the ACLU. He said when he arrived at Abu Ghraib, he was told one wing "belonged" to military intelligence but MPs would control access.

"During one of my visits ... I was shocked when I noticed that the detainees in Wing 1 were naked. There was one with women's underwear. I questioned that and (blank) told me that the MI folks told him that was an MI procedure," Reese's statement said.


'An acceptable practice'
He continued: "I did think there was something wrong ... I just figured they knew what their procedures were and that was an acceptable practice ... I never did question this to any MI person. Maybe I should have looked into it."


Among others reprimanded for problems at Abu Ghraib were 205th MI Brigade commander Col. Thomas Pappas; 320th MP Battalion commander Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum; former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib, Lt. Col. Steve L. Jordan; and 800th MP Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski. Reese, Phillabaum, Jordan and Karpinski were relieved of their commands.

High-ranking superiors, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, were absolved. A probe led by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III reaffirmed this month there was no deliberate high-level policy that fostered abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Now the debate over culpability is shifting to civil court. The ACLU and Human Rights First have filed suit alleging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and subordinates "authorized, ratified and failed to stop the unlawful treatment of detainees in U.S. custody."

john.gonzalez@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/front/3116516

They are not happy with the Bush Administrations torture policies in Utah either.

Article Last Updated: 4/04/2005 12:07 PM


Prisoner Abuse: U.S. human rights report skirts torture of terror suspects


Salt Lake Tribune

The State Department's renewed criticism of Pakistan and China for their human rights abuses is plainly justified. But it would carry greater moral authority in foreign capitals if our own government had not sought to justify, and then cover up, the torture of prisoners of war in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In reporting last week on U.S. efforts to bolster human rights in 98 countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration is "on the right side of freedom's divide" and is obligated to "help those who are unlucky enough to have been born on the wrong side of that divide."
Rice's remarks did eloquent service to the idea held dear by most Americans that this country is, or should be, the most exemplary advocate for the rights and dignities that are the bedrock of free societies.
It is a demanding role, one that requires us at times to recognize, however painfully, when our failure to adhere to ideals of justice makes our criticism of authoritarian regimes ring hollow.
The Bush administration's ultimate casting of its invasion of Iraq as a mission to bring freedom and democracy to much of the Middle East is undermined by the piecemeal unfolding of the prisoner abuse scandal that erupted a year ago amid images of hooded and abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
Last week, for example, Army officials announced they had decided, against the recommendation of military investigators, not to prosecute 17 soldiers in the deaths of three prisoners. So far, 11 members of the U.S. Army face murder or other charges relating to some of the 27 detainee deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan reported by the military.
Rice's nearly 300-page report made no mention of our prisoner abuse scandal. Amnesty International praised the report's initiatives but said the scandal is hurting U.S. credibility. The human rights organization singled out the administration's practice of ferrying terrorism suspects to the very countries that the State Department has condemned for torturing prisoners.
Given the unlikelihood of a forthright and independent investigation of the scandal, Rice's worthwhile campaign to shore up human rights around the world will, unfortunately, carry an unavoidable scent of hypocrisy.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2638847

Bob Herbert responded to my e-mail. Here's what he said:

"Thanks for your thoughtful email. It was greatly appreciated. Please be assured that I read every message but because of the volume I cannot respond individually to each one.
Take care,
Bob Herbert "

Reading between the lines, I think he wants to date me.

-Pegatha

Riot at US detention centre in Iraq
April 05, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
PRISONERS at a US-run detention camp in southern Iraq rioted last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today.

“There was a riot at Camp Bucca on April 1. An ICRC delegation was there that day on one of its regular prisoner visits and it is now following up the situation,” said Christophe Beney, the head of the ICRC's Baghdad delegation.
Earlier, a representative of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's movement had revealed that some detainees rioted at Camp Bucca near the southern port of Umm Qasr on Friday after one of them had been denied medical treatment.

Advertisement:
The Sadr representative accused US soldiers of putting down the disturbance with rubber bullets, wounding an undetermined number of detainees.

Asked about the Sadr movement's account, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesman for the US-run detention centres in Iraq, said he was not aware of any such event or riot.

“There have been no reports of mistreatment of detainees,” Rudisill told AFP. “Nothing like that happened down there. “Nobody is denied medical attention down there.”

Sadr follower Saheb al-Ameri, secretary general of the Shahidallah (God) charitable organisation, said the latest unrest was provoked by the refusal of prison authorities to give medical treatment to a detainee who had fallen sick and who was a member of the Sadr movement.

Other detainees became violent because of this and US soldiers then fired rubber bullets and beat some prisoners up, he said.

Since the riot, the detainees have had no water or electricity and were living in tents burnt during the violence, he added.

Ameri said the riot was uncovered during a visit to Camp Bucca by members of the Sadr office.

“We condemn these acts and we ask that human right organisations intervene quickly,” he added.

Camp Bucca, home to 6,054 detainees, was the site of a huge riot on January 31 that spread through four compounds, housing more than 2,000 detainees, and ended with US soldiers firing bullets into a crowd and killing four detainees.

The April riot comes almost one year after details emerged of the torture of detainees by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison, which dealt a crippling blow to US efforts to win sympathy in Iraq.

The US military arrested hundreds of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia men during a revolt led by the radical cleric from last April to October.

The latest numbers of detainees in US custody in Iraq is 10,708, Rudisill said, revising a toll of more than 12,000 prisoners that he had given on Saturday.

Camp Bucca is the largest prison in Iraq located in a barren desert plot where temperatures can soar to 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit).

The US military wants to expand and transform Bucca, named after a firefighter who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre, into a long-term detention facility for the most serious offenders that would include those held in Abu Gharib.

The army had planned to tear down the facility after the official end of hostilities in May 2003, but scrapped this idea due to the scale and intensity of an insurgency that flared up afterwards.

http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,1...3-23109,00.html

Sanchez is involved and needs to be held accountable, as does another general sent over by Rumsfeld and within one month Sanchez's position on detainees changed three times. This links it RIGHT TO RUMSFELD! I want that miserable SOB tried in the Hague!

Please come post in our torture thread. We are tracking all of these issues.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...topic=24131&hl=

Actors in the Insurgency Are Reluctant TV Stars
Terror Suspects Grilled, Mocked on Hit Iraqi Show
By Caryle Murphy and Khalid Saffar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; Page A18


BAGHDAD -- Iraq's hottest new television program is a reality show. But the players are not there by choice. And they don't win big bucks, a new spouse or a dream job.

Instead, all the characters on "Terrorism in the Hands of Justice" are captured suspected insurgents. And for more than a month, they have been riveting viewers with tales of how they killed, kidnapped, raped or beheaded other Iraqis, usually for a few hundred dollars per victim.

Seated before an Iraqi flag, the dejected and cowed prisoners answer questions from an off-camera inquisitor who mocks their behavior. Some sport bruised faces and black eyes. Far from appearing to be confident heroes battling U.S. occupation, they come across as gangsters.

"I watch the show every night, and I wait for it patiently, because it is very revealing," said Abdul Kareem Abdulla, 42, a Baghdad shop owner. "For the first time, we saw those who claim to be jihadists as simple $50 murderers who would do everything in the name of Islam. Our religion is too lofty, noble and humane to have such thugs and killers. I wish they would hang them now, and in the same place where they did their crimes. They should never be given any mercy."

Broadcast on al-Iraqiya, the state-run network set up by the U.S. occupation authority in 2003, "Terrorism in the Hands of Justice" has become one of most effective arrows in the government's counterinsurgency propaganda quiver.

"It has shown the Iraqi people the reality of those insurgents, [that] they are criminals, killers, murderers, thieves," Interior Minister Falah Naqib said last week.

Sabah Kadhim, an Interior Ministry spokesman, added, "The last few weeks have been incredible in terms of tips coming in from the public."

Officials launched the program, Kadhim said, after realizing that Iraqis did not believe that insurgents were being arrested. "Talking to people in the street, they say, 'Is it really true? . . . Why don't you show it?' " he recalled. "The demand for this came from the people."

The bruised faces and the death of at least one prisoner after his appearance on the show have raised questions about the men's treatment in custody. Kadhim denied the prisoners were being abused. "There is absolutely no motive for us to torture them," he said.

In recent reports, the State Department and Human Rights Watch have criticized the use of torture by Iraqi police.

"In light of our recent findings about the prevalence of torture in Iraqi prisons," said Joe Stork, a Washington-based spokesman for Human Rights Watch, "we have serious concerns that these confessions were not also coerced and that the Iraqi authorities failed to provide essential due process protections."

"Televised confessions are almost always suspect," Stork added. "Recent examples in Iran and Saudi Arabia clearly involved a high level of coercion and degrading treatment."

Such concerns have not dimmed the program's popularity.

"We had not planned for the tapes, but suddenly we had what you might call a scoop," said al-Iraqiya's Baghdad station director, Ahmed Yasseri. As a result, he said, "we have overtaken the other stations. These tapes have captured the attention of Iraqis."

To read the entire article go to the Washington Post website


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...2-2005Apr4.html

For my own personal comment on this article please go to my blog

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...wblog&blogid=10

Wolfowitz is well recognized as the "Architect of Iraq." And that's not a complimentary title.

Pegatha, this one made me LOL.

Good thread, no retreat. This torture situation is just horrendous and we better be doing something about it.

Here, as requested, is the trasnscript of an interview Gen Clark did with Chris Matthews on Hardball last January.

Transcript of full interview is here:
http://www.securingamerica.com/?q=transcri...ball/2005-01-04

Here is the piece having to do with the Gonzalez nomination and the prisoner abuse issue:

Let me ask you about Alberto Gonzales, the president‘s counsel. He‘s up for—the president has put him up for attorney general. He‘s the man that laid out the guidelines, if you would call them guidelines, on torture of prisoners and the power of the presidency during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you think he‘s fit for the job?

CLARK: No.
How can the American people have confidence in a man like Gonzales after what he‘s written for the president of the United States? He‘s basically said the Geneva Convention was irrelevant. He basically said that torture is something that‘s very limited, that you could be in terrible pain and that you still wouldn‘t be being tortured.

MATTHEWS: Yes. He said we could have cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners.

CLARK: And not have it be torture.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CLARK: And Mr. Gonzales has basically said the power of the presidency is unlimited and he can do anything he wants.
How can we feel confident as Americans that we‘re living under the rule of law when the attorney general has violated what we believe to be the law?

MATTHEWS: Well, let‘s just get this straight, so we don‘t sound like we‘re goody-two-shoes here. You‘re a military man. You‘ve commanded troops, many of them. You‘ve been in combat in Europe. What are the limits of interrogation, as you understand it to be?

CLARK: Geneva Convention, no question about it.
I mean, we would never have violated the Geneva Convention. You don‘t shoot prisoners. You don‘t do false—trick executions. You don‘t rough them up and beat them up.
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Did we threaten to throw people out of helicopters in Vietnam?

CLARK: I have heard those rumors. I never saw it. And if it was ever done, I hope it was punished.
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Did we hose people with hoses in their mouths until they talked?

CLARK: Not in any of my commands that I know of.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

CLARK: And I‘ll tell you this.
In 1999, when we had three Americans captured by the Serbs at the start of the Kosovo campaign, they were put on television and one of them had a big black eye and looked like he was beaten up. We were outraged.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CLARK: And...

MATTHEWS: So you don‘t think water-boarding, as it‘s called, where you basically threaten a guy with drowning, you make him think he‘s going to drown, is acceptable?
(CROSSTALK)

CLARK: Absolutely not.

MATTHEWS: So Gonzales is not your man.

CLARK: I think strict Geneva Convention, strict adherence to the law.

MATTHEWS: Thank you.

CLARK: We put that law in place to protect our soldiers.
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You can‘t officially do it anymore, but—you‘re retired. But do you think a lot of military men of your rank, flag rank, do you think that‘s a common view? McCaffrey certainly had it last night. Is this a general view you hear from military men?

CLARK: This is what we believe in.
We—look, we fought for the Geneva Convention. It was put in place to protect our soldiers, our values and our institutions.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CLARK: We can‘t win the war on terror if we give up what we stand for as the American people.

MATTHEWS: Would you testify against Gonzales on the Hill if they asked you?

CLARK: Well, I would testify against anybody who wrote those kinds of things. I don‘t know Gonzales personally. But how he could have written these documents is outrageous.

MATTHEWS: Strong words. Thank you, Wesley Clark.

Here, also, is what Gen Clark had to say about the scandal in his Democratic Radio Address on 5/8/2004:

This week the world has been shocked and angered, and America’s moral leadership’s been undercut, by the terrible pictures of a small number of our US military people abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The President apologized; he’s recognized and stated that these acts were 'stains on our honor'. And it’s right that he’s done so.

But apologies are not enough. These criminal acts of abuse must be investigated fully and those responsible must be held accountable under law. We must fix our training and procedures so this cannot happen again. Amends must be made to Iraqis who suffered these humiliations through real and symbolic gestures, such as the dismantling of Abu Ghraib prison itself.

The issues at stake here go to the very heart of the American mission in Iraq. For, by our own claims, we’re different. We came to liberate, not to occupy. We came to 'free', not to imprison. With our character, we don't torture, or maim, or coerce. And if the mission was endangered by the prospects of our use of heavy force against insurgents in Fallujah and Najaf – and it was so endangered. It is no less endangered by the loss of credibility caused by the misconduct of a few American soldiers. This is a mission in trouble.

http://www.securingamerica.com/?q=speeches/2004-05-08

And finally, here is transcript from Meet The Press segment on prisoner abuse that Gen Clark appeared on in May 2004. I remember, after watching this segment when it aired, feeling sick to the pit of my stomach. I hadn't felt as bad since right after 9/11. I just felt this was such a horrific situation that we'd gotten ourselves into and didn't see how it could be rectified...and then it seemed to have slid under the radar. It must be addressed. How can anyone look to us as any kind of example when this stuff is going on? It makes me sick again just to think of it.

I remember listening to a radio show about the Jose Pedilla situation and hearing a human rights worker in Pakistan saying how these things make it so hard for her to do her job because the people she's trying to influence come back at her with "well, look what happens in the US". I imagine the same holds true with the prisoner abuse. It's bad for the prisoners unfairly abused, it's bad for our image around the world, it's bad for others trying to enact reforms, it's bad for our soldiers if, God help them, any of them are captured, it's bad for the young men and women who are serving honorably....It's just bad all around...

Oh, I actually was quite impressed with Senator Graham in this discussion.

http://www.securingamerica.com/?q=transcri...ress/2004-05-09

Prisoner Abuse -- Meet the Press (May 9, 2004)
Reprinted with permission.
Meet the Press
NBC News
May 9, 2004 transcript

GUESTS: Sen. John Warner, (R-Va.), Chairman, Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, (D-Mich.), Ranking Member, Armed Services Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.), Armed Services Committee, Gen. Wesley Clark (Retired), Fmr. NATO Supreme Allied Commander - Europe

MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert - NBC News

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday, the world shocked by these pictures of abuse. The president speaks out:

(Videotape):
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: It's a stain on our country's honor and our country's reputation.
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The secretary of defense apologizes:

(Videotape):
SEC'Y DONALD RUMSFELD: Senator, those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of the U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology.
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The Congress asked questions:

(Videotape):
SEN. JOHN McCAIN, (R-AZ): My question is: Who was in charge of the interrogations?
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: What now? The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican John Warner and Democrat Carl Levin. A colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. And the former NATO supreme allied commander, General Wesley Clark.

Then, what will be the political fallout of the scandal? And the very latest on the race between George W. Bush and John Kerry. With us, for the Democrats, James Carville, for the Republicans, Mary Matalin.

But first, we are joined by the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner and Senator Carl Levin. Also with us is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and the former NATO supreme allied commander, General Wesley Clark.

Welcome all.

Chairman Warner, let me start with you. Who is responsible for the torture of the Iraqi prisoners? Who is in charge of the interrogation?

SEN. JOHN WARNER, (R-VA): You know, Tim, I'm going to be straightforward with you. We've tried to probe that at our hearing. I spent a considerable period of yesterday talking with the seniors at the Pentagon. It is still not known. There is an Article 15 procedure that's been instituted by General Sanchez and was brought over to the number two Army intelligence officer and he's working on his report to find that answer right now. He leaves, I think, today to go to Germany where the--there's been the redeployment of those intelligence officers to try and get the answers and bring them back to Washington.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Levin, The Washington Post yesterday said, "We believe that Mr. Rumsfeld bears much of the responsibility for creating the legal and political climate in which the prison abuses occurred and that his failure to respond to previous reports of abuses or appeals for reforms made possible the catastrophe of Abu Ghraib."

What's your reaction to that?

SEN. CARL LEVIN, (D-MI): I think that's true. I think responsibility lies partly on his doorstep but partly on the doorstep of a lot of other people and I think the role of the military intelligence here is really critical. They were in charge of the interrogation. This is much more systemic than just a few guards abusing prisoners. This was part of an effort--a systemic effort, according to General Taguba, to extract information from these prisoners. And this was part of a new intelligence policy which goes right on up to the Pentagon and perhaps even beyond. I think some of the environment here was actually set at the White House when they said it was a bunch of legalisms to discuss whether or not the Geneva Conventions would apply to prisoners directly or whether they would be treated consistent with the Geneva Conventions or in the same way but not precisely according--they were splitting legal hairs about the application of Geneva Conventions and it seems to me that sent exactly the wrong message to the intelligence people and to the guards themselves.

MR. RUSSERT: You believe the president then is ultimately responsible?

SEN. LEVIN: I think he helped to create the atmosphere by the way in which he called the Geneva Convention discussion relative to Afghanistan a matter of legalism. It's not legalism. It goes right to the heart of this matter.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham, the Red Cross wrote this in the--the other day in The Wall Street Journal. "Red Cross Found Widespread Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners. A confidential and previously undisclosed Red Cross report delivered to the Bush administration earlier this year concluded that abuse of prisoners in Iraq in custody of U.S. military intelligence was widespread and in some cases `tantamount to torture.'"

What that is saying is that last fall, abuse was taking place and the administration, the Pentagon was put on alert early this year about it, by the Red Cross.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R-SC): I think that's probably the core issue here is we just don't want a bunch of privates and sergeants to be the scapegoats here. And I don't want any political person to be the scapegoat. I think we are dealing with system failures. When you say this is a few bad apples, in terms of the values that we represent, these are a few bad apples. In terms of the million--thousands of people serving in Iraq, these are a few bad apples. But I think it's clear to me that we had system failure.

General Karpinski, the military police commander, has in her statement apparently said that her troops were following the lead of the military intelligence community. That's a very serious allegation and I don't know if we know that's correct or not, but there's a lot to be looked at here and who knew what when and how people acted, dereliction of duty is certainly something we need to look at and I don't know where this is going to go, but I'm very open minded to make sure that nobody, regardless of rank or status is taken off the list to be looked at.

MR. RUSSERT: General Clark?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I'm very encouraged that the Congress is taking a very strong look at this. I think there are systemic failures here. But I think it does come, as Senator Levin says, from a broader perception, an announcement within the administration, really, that international law is not that important. It's legalisms. What counts is American force. And, you know, those Geneva Conventions were put in place to protect Americans. They were put in place to protect our men and women in case they be taken. And the people who were detained in Iraq, the prisoners there, the detainees, they were all covered under the Geneva Convention--they should have been.

And so there's more than a systemic failure. There's a failure of leadership that goes right to the top. This is a presidential leadership problem. He is the commander in chief. He announces it virtually every day on the campaign trail and he, himself, must take responsibility for this because it reflects his command influence.

MR. RUSSERT: The...

SEN. WARNER: Tim, could I just interrupt? We've got to be cautious because I'm convinced that the Department of Defense is doing everything they can to get the facts out in the public. I was assured yesterday that all the new photos are being reviewed by the lawyers and so forth and will be forthcoming to the Congress.

We've got to be careful to speculate at this point in time because we've got 99.9 percent of the men and women of the armed forces valiantly, loyally and at some sacrifice performing-- great sacrifice performing their duties today. We've got to be cautious. We're going to have another hearing of the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday bringing a considerable portion of additional evidence. We will eventually get to the bottom. But let's be careful on speculating what we don't know for facts now.

MR. RUSSERT: Secretary Rumsfeld has written throughout his career "Rumsfeld's Rules" and this is one of them: "Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance."

General Clark, do you think Secretary Rumsfeld should resign?

GEN. CLARK: Well, I think there's really two issues on this. One is his effectiveness and he said he would resign if he felt he couldn't be effective. But I think it's really a question of the credibility of the U.S. mission and how the United States is perceived in the world. I don't think his effectiveness has been compromised. I think he can still give orders; I think people will still take them. There's no issue with that. The real question is: "How is the United States perceived and how seriously are we perceived to be taking this issue?"

I think it would be very patriotic if Secretary Rumsfeld resigned. But I do think that the issue goes beyond the secretary of defense. I don't think we should indict the men and women in the armed forces. I think 99.9 percent of them are doing a great job over there and I hope the American people will support them. I certainly do. But I do think that when something like this happens that the prima facia notion of this is this goes right to the top. What did the president know? What was the atmosphere that the president created? How hard was he pushing?

We know there was a lot of pressure to get intelligence information from these interrogations. And the Pentagon was the action agency on this working with the Central Intelligence Agency in crafting the rules. But the atmosphere in which the Geneva Conventions were more or less set to one side, apparently, would have come from the top.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham, would it be patriotic for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign?

SEN. GRAHAM: I think Secretary Rumsfeld has been an effective secretary of defense and I didn't come here to beat on Senator Kerry or to defend any political position. This is not about Republican and Democratic politics. The president's right. We're all stained. So the effort to turn every soundbite into an attack on Bush, I think misses the point.

Let me talk one minute about the law.

MR. RUSSERT: What about Secretary Rumsfeld? Should he stay?

SEN. GRAHAM: I think Secretary Rumsfeld should stay if he believes he can be effective. I think he can be effective. Hats off to the military. Taguba report is an excellent start. There's been system failure. But this idea about giving al-Qaeda Geneva Convention status is a bad idea. I support the president. This is not about the Geneva Convention. You do not need the Geneva Convention to govern what happened in those prisons based on photos. Our own military law prevents our people from treating people in the way that you've seen. This is not about the Geneva Convention. This is about people abusing the law that already exists governing the military.

MR. RUSSERT: Vice President Cheney said that Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a great job; the best secretary of defense ever and we should just let him do his job.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, something that was said, attributed to the vice president--I don't know if it's true or not--really bothers me. Says, "Get off his back." Senator Warner's hearing is not being on Secretary Rumsfeld's back. The hearing we're going to have Tuesday is not being on Secretary Rumsfeld's back. The Congress has an independent duty to find out what happened in that prison. It affects us all. So the vice president's comments, I don't know if they actually came from him or not, is just as inappropriate as calling for the resignation of the secretary and politicizing this even before he testifies. Nobody's on their back. We're doing our job.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Levin, what's your sense of Secretary Rumsfeld? Can he continue to be effective as secretary of defense or should he step down?

SEN. LEVIN: If I thought there'd be a policy change as a result of his stepping down, I'd call for it. But that to me is the underlying issue, as to whether or not we can change course here. The president has laid out two stark alternatives: either staying the course or cutting and run. And there's a third alternative which is to correct our course. And if I thought that Secretary Rumsfeld's departure would correct our course and make this less of a unilateral, American effort, if there were a much greater effort to internationalize this, to truly reach out to other countries to help us give advice to a new government, not just to be the sole adviser after June 30 to that new government, I would be in favor of that resignation. But I don't see that that is what would happen. Instead, we have found a course which, it seems to me, is full of errors, full of mismanagement right from the beginning of this war. So I'm not calling for Rumsfeld's removal because I think that would not represent a change in the direction in reaching out to other countries and a correction of the many errors of mismanagement that have taken place during this war.

I agree, by the way, with everybody that 99.9 percent of our troops are doing the right thing. What these actions have done, this leadership failure has done, is to stain the honor and the reputation of honorable men and women in the military and that's one of the real tragedies, it seems to me.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Warner, do you believe Secretary Rumsfeld will survive this?

SEN. WARNER: Well, I'd like to answer in the following way. I've known Rumsfeld for many years. When I was secretary of the Navy, I served under three secretaries of defense and in the 25 years I've been in the Senate, I've worked all--with the others. This secretary, Don Rumsfeld, is a man of conscience. He's strong. He's effective and I can continue to work with him, I assure you.

I want to support our president. The president says he's going to stay and I join you, Lindsey, we're going to support our president and keep him there. But let me remind you, those who are calling for the resignation: We're in two wars--Afghanistan and Iraq. To pull out the top man at this time and try and go through the complicated procedures of clearances, finding a new individual, bringing him in, bringing in that new individual staff in the few months before the election. Someone better weigh that carefully against these calls for his resignation.

SEN. GRAHAM: Tim, can I...

MR. RUSSERT: Let me just turn to the real issue here and that is who is responsible, who's being blamed, who's being court-martialed. This was from The Washington Post on Saturday: "Mr. Rumsfeld claimed that guards at Abu Ghraid had been instructed to follow the Geneva Conventions, but the investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba has documented that no such instructions were given."

And here's the Taguba report and I'd like to read it: "I find that prior to its deployment to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 320th MP Battalion and the 372nd MP Company had received no training in detention/internee operations. I also find that very little instruction or training was provided to MP personnel on the applicable rules of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War... Moreover, I find that few, if any, copies of the Geneva Conventions were ever made available to MP personnel or detainees."

And when you read that--that came out in March--you now understand how these pictures and video came forward. And this takes a little while to read, but it's very important because the American people have to know the genesis of it. This is how The New York Times reported it: "Soldier's Families Set In Motion Chain of Events on Disclosure. Ivan Frederick was distraught. His son [Staff Sgt. Ivan I. Frederick II], an Army reservist turned prison guard in Iraq, was under investigation earlier this year for mistreating prisoners, and photographs of the abuse were beginning to circulate among soldiers and military investigators. So the father went to his brother-in-law, William Lawson, who was afraid that reservists like his nephew would end up taking the fall for what he considered command lapses...

"The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted [retired Army Colonel David] Hackworth's Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for `60 Minutes II.'

"`The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on "60 Minutes,"' he said. `But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case.'"

What does that say to you, General?

GEN. CLARK: Well, there is a systemic problem here, and we do need to get to the bottom of it. We do need intelligence information. Our soldiers have to maintain standards of conduct. And General Taguba's report, I think, got to many of the key issues that are involved; more needs to be done. But beyond the specific issue that's here involved and who was responsible and how do we prevent this in the future is the larger issue of the success or failure of the mission in Iraq. And that's what this prisoner abuse calls into question. We know there was no linkage between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11. We know now there was no imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction, the last claim of the administration is to do good in Iraq by providing democracy, an opportunity for democracy and higher standards. And here we are with this compromising the higher standards that we believe in. So it's a very, very significant issue as we try to win the hearts and the minds of the people in Iraq and promote our views of the right way to govern around the world.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham, six members of the armed forces are facing potential court-martial and no one's dismissing their alleged conduct.

SEN. GRAHAM: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: But where did the dog leashes come from? Where did the hoods come from? Where did this notion that by talking about sexual behavior you could break down the Arab mind? From the minds of Army reservists?

SEN. GRAHAM: I've never been in the military as a military lawyer. I've never been in combat, but I do have some understanding of the military legal system. And bells went off in my head when Senator McCain was asking questions of the Pentagon, "What were the rules? Who set the terms of interrogation?" I am convinced from reading a summary of the report that there is system failure here.

I'm very worried that the interrogation techniques were not in violation of the Geneva Conventions. That's not my concern. That they were in violation of military law and human decency.

To Mr. Lawson, here's what I will tell you, sir. Anybody who is charged with a crime will be provided free legal defense counsel. I have been a military defense counselor and prosecutor. They will go before a judge and a panel of officers and they can request enlisted personnel if they choose. They will be professionally handled. The defense counsel will fight for their rights. And being ordered to do something is a defense, as long as it is a lawful order.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Levin, do you believe that these six GIs who have been court-martialed are going to take the wrap for higher-ups?

SEN. LEVIN: Not if we can help it. They were trying--in my judgment, in the Taguba report's judgment, more importantly--they were part of a process of extracting information from prisoners, an effort using totally abominable and despicable means to obtain information and extract information from inmates. Thank God for the American people who are not going to tolerate these kind of methods, who will take up and be critical of the power in this country and in their military so that we can try to stop the little guys from taking the fall for people who are responsible.

In my--I think it's pretty clear what happened here, that these guards were told to soften up these inmates, and if they did so, that that would help to obtain information and to extract information from these inmates. It's pretty clear from the pictures themselves where you have people standing around looking-- it's a very organized, methodical effort which is going on here. This is not just a few guards in some kind of an aberrant conduct. This is a much more systemic problem here, which was pointed out by the Taguba report. And the military intelligence, including, I believe, the CIA, there--we assume the other government agencies referred to in the Taguba report, have got to be held accountable, right up the chain. Follow the trail to where it leads.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator John McCain was at the hearing on Friday and he talked about the tone of the investigation and what has to be achieved and accomplished. Let me show you what Senator McCain said and then come back and talk to you, Senator Warner:

(Videotape, Friday):
SEN. JOHN McCAIN, (R-AZ): We risk losing public support for this conflict. As Americans turned away from the Vietnam War, they may turn away from this one unless this issue is quickly resolved with full disclosure immediately. With all due respect to investigations ongoing and panels being appointed, the American people deserve immediate and full disclosure of all relevant information so that we can be assured and comforted that something that we never believed could happen will never happen again.
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Warner, Secretary Rumsfeld testified that there's more video, more pictures. Will those be made available to the public, who ultimately will sit in judgment of the conduct of the administration and the Pentagon?

SEN. WARNER: The first comment about John McCain--he sits right next to me on the committee--I remember that era of Vietnam. I was secretary of the Navy and, indeed, the public did drift away from supporting the troops and the Congress and so forth. I hope that will not happen this time. I don't think it will. I do not see the early stages of anything like that. But to answer your question, I specifically talked to the Pentagon several times yesterday. They assured me that all of the information will be forthcoming to the Congress, but it will be on disks, it will be kept in our room, S407, because it's of a classified nature at the moment for members to see. Now, when it may get into the public domain, I'm not able to answer that question.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham, there's speculation that this is politics, that White House officials were quote anonymously saying, "Well, if we allow Congress to see it and then senators and congressmen will come out and soften up the impact on the public by saying, `You wouldn't believe these pictures,' and by the time they're ultimately released, the shock value will have diminished." Is this what you're hearing?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I guess in terms of the photos, you know, this command influence argument is a real argument. In a military legal system--and General Clark has probably performed this role, commanders prefer charges, commanders refer charges. So commanders can't say things that are going to taint the court-martial. That's a great concept, but this is really not about that. These photos have to be discussed in terms of our national security interests. If there are more photos out there detailing abuse and terrible behavior, if there's a videotape out there, for God sakes, let's talk about it, because men and women's lives are at stake given how we handle this. So I want to get it all out on the table. I don't think that will create a command influence problem.

This is not just about humiliation, Tim. The allegations in this report involve rape and murder. Please, don't leave this whole scenario thinking that this is just about a humiliating experience. This is about system failure. This is about felony offenses. And if there's more to come, let's get it out, as a nation work through it and show the world that Republicans and Democrats may disagree on the policy and the war in Iraq, but we have the ability to make sure those accountable are going to be held accountable. And it's just not going to be six privates and sergeants. Other people are going to be held accountable. But Republicans and Democrats need to come together to prove to the world that our system works. Let's get it out.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Levin, should the public see it at the same time Congress is able to see it?

SEN. LEVIN: Absolutely. It's best that this be seen for what it is. Judgments then can be made by people. Any effort to hide this kind of material is just not going to work. We have an open society. We are proving it, I believe, by proceeding to investigate the way we are. I think that that's a net plus. And the only way we can redeem ourselves, it seems to me, and to prove that we stand for the right values, is to enforce those values, and doing that in a very open and thorough and prompt process is what will help sustain us in the end and perhaps help us also to prevail in terms of what we're seeking now to achieve in Iraq. But that mission has been made far, far more difficult as a result of these actions and as a result of the climate which has been created here.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to talk about that mission in our remaining minutes. The front page of The Washington Post today, "Dissention grows in senior ranks on war strategy. U.S. may be winning battles in Iraq but losing the war, some military officers say." And this is John Murtha, a Democrat, a Vietnam veteran, strong supporter of the war in Iraq. "Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told his Democratic colleagues that he feared the war in Iraq is unwinnable if the U.S. military does not dramatically increase troop levels, provide more ground support and seek significant international involvement."

"But Murtha...expressed serious doubts that those remedies are even faint possibilities, given current military deployments, a lack of support from NATO allies and widespread outrage over the mistreatment of Iraqis prisoners of war."
"Coming from a senior appropriator with close ties to the Pentagon, Murtha's bleak analysis led many colleagues to surmise that he believes a democratic Iraqi is a lost cause."

General Clark, do you share that pessimism?

GEN. CLARK: I think there's a greater than 50/50 chance, let's say a 2:1 chance, of a catastrophic early end to this mission.

MR. RUSSERT: What does that mean?

GEN. CLARK: That means the Iraqi people will simply say, "We want the Americans out of here." You'll see a large outpouring of public animosity in Baghdad and elsewhere, a million Iraqis demonstrating in the streets of Baghdad against us. And, Tim, we're only going to be there and be effective if the majority of the Iraqi people want us there. That's what this mission's success hinges on. All of the issues, international involvement, more troops and all that--all of it is measured by: Do the Iraqi people believe that we're actually helping and contributing to their betterment or are we causing problems?

And the Iraqi people are, step by step, turning against this mission. What we need to do right now is a major change in policy. We need to unload John Negroponte after the 30th of June. He cannot run that country as the American ambassador. We've got to have an international assistance organization like we did in the Balkans, where other nations can participate, and the Iraqis will understand that it's the world trying to help them; it's not America telling them what to do.
SEN. WARNER: You know, I've got to disagree with that strongly. We must continue to go as planned on the 30th and turn over this limited sovereignty.

Negroponte is one of the finest men, fortunately, that's willing to step forward and take on this. Wes, you and I have known each other a long time. We've got to give this thing a try. The U.N. is heavily involved now. They're working on the selection of the new members of the next round of government that takes over on July 1st.

And, Tim, as to this article, when I saw this early this morning, I immediately went to the Joint Staff, right to the top, and I assure you that officers have the right, under Goldwater-Nickles, which I co- authored, to go directly to the president once informing the chairman that they're concerned. Thus far, none of our senior chiefs have exercised their right to go to the president and express their dissatisfaction with what's taking place.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator Graham, we have at the United Nations main personnel, Mr. Brahimi...

SEN. GRAHAM: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...someone who said that Israel's policy is poison and the United States is part of that.

SEN. GRAHAM: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: We have Saddam's former military in charge of security in Fallujah. Are you concerned that the dream of a democratic state in Iraq is, in Congressman Murtha's words, "a lost cause"?

SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah, I'm concerned. The war on terror started even before September the 11, 2001, but that was a defining event. We're in Iraq for a reason. We just didn't wake up one day and "Let's go invade Iraq." The president, I think after September 11, inventoried the threats, and Saddam Hussein was one of those threats.

But if we lose here, I'll just lay it on the line the best I can--if we're unable to bring a democratic form of government in some form to Iraq, then that will be like Dunkirk. This is a worldwide effort and the only way we'll finally win this war is to have freedom-loving, democratic principles adopted by people in the Mideast and let's join together and stop beating on each other politically.

Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation may happen, it may not. That's not the focus. And as to the White House, please don't say things like you should get off his back. Nobody is on his back. We have an independent duty to look at this. To win Iraq is essential. We're there whether you want us to be or not, General Clark. We're there.

GEN. CLARK: True.

SEN. GRAHAM: And it's got to end on the right terms. And the only way it can end effectively is for the people of Iraq, who I think want the same thing you and everybody here wants, a chance to raise their kids in freedom. It can happen, but we could be our own worst enemy.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Levin, when you hear "win in Iraq," what does that mean to you?

SEN. LEVIN: It means that trying to help the Iraqi people achieve some kind of a stable and democratic country, but what it means is changing course. We've got to now proceed with the June 30 assumption of sovereignty by some kind of an entity that the U.N. will help to create hopefully. But General Clark is absolutely right; in proceeding to that date, which we are, in order to make it work, you've got to have some kind of a broader international entity to support that transfer and that new grouping there. It cannot just be an American ambassador running that place with just the appearance of an Iraqi sovereign government. There's got to be some reality to that government, and that means an international grouping of nations supporting it, not just the United States running the show there.

And we've failed so far to rally the international community. It was one of the grave errors that was made right at the beginning. There's been a series of errors ever since, but if there's any chance of this working, it seems to me it's to now rally, attempt to rally the international community, not just in helping to identify an entity to assume sovereignty, but in then after June 30, helping to advise that entity to help it succeed. It's going to take more than an American ambassador dominating that country.

SEN. WARNER: We are taking those steps. Carl, you know you and I have discussed this. Brahimi are helping to select the members of the successor government. I think our government is open to that, and Negroponte, having served at the United Nations, is probably the one best qualified to bring in that closer cooperation with the international community.

MR. RUSSERT: Might it take even more American troops?

SEN. WARNER: We do not know at this time. Abizaid, he said he's going to stay at the level, Carl, of 135,000 for another fiscal year.

SEN. GRAHAM: Tim, on that note, one of the things you find in this report, that the MPs guarding these detainees were told they were going to go home. That was yanked away. Morale is low. I think we need to look at the Guard and Reserve forces. I think they're overstressed. I think we need to look and see if we have enough people in uniform to meet all of our obligations, just not Iraq, and that's long overdue.

MR. RUSSERT: Expand the size of the military.

SEN. GRAHAM: I think we need more troops, because the obligations of the United States are just not in Afghanistan and Iraq...

SEN. WARNER: And you know we're doing in our bill that you and I worked on this week.

SEN. GRAHAM: Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman, and I give you high credit.

SEN. WARNER: Well, we're doing it.

SEN. GRAHAM: But we need to look at whether or not we've got enough people in uniform.

MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Senator Warner...

SEN. WARNER: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: ...Senator Levin, Senator Graham, and General Clark, thank you all.

Thanks for posting this excellent interview.

April 6, 2005
White House Has Tightly Restricted Oversight of C.I.A. Detentions
By DOUGLAS JEHL

ASHINGTON, April 5 - The White House is maintaining extraordinary restrictions on information about the detention of high-level terror suspects, permitting only a small number of members of Congress to be briefed on how and where the prisoners are being held and interrogated, senior government officials say.

Some Democratic members of Congress say the restrictions are impeding effective oversight of the secret program, which is run by the Central Intelligence Agency and is believed to involve the detention of about three dozen senior Qaeda leaders at secret sites around the world.

By law, the White House is required to notify the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of all intelligence-gathering activities. But the White House has taken the stance that the secret detention program is too sensitive to be described to any members other than the top Republican and Democrat on each panel.

The issue is expected to be discussed at a hearing scheduled for Thursday, at which Porter J. Goss, the director of central intelligence, is to testify in closed session before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The detention program remains so highly classified that the members of Congress would discuss the restrictions that surround it only in the most general of terms.

"These restricted briefings should be expanded," said Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Since the C.I.A. first took custody of Qaeda members in 2002, other government officials said, the only lawmakers on the House panel and its Senate counterpart whom the White House has permitted to be briefed on the issue have been the chairmen and ranking minority members.

"If we're going to do our jobs, we have to be informed," Mr. Holt said in an interview. "The two members of Congress who sometimes get briefed on these things have enough to do. It's too much to expect them to do oversight on things they can't talk about to anyone else, including other members."

The limited nature of the C.I.A. briefings has not been publicly disclosed. But Mr. Goss and Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, alluded to them in the Armed Services Committee hearing last month in which they defended the practice as having fulfilled the C.I.A.'s obligations.

Mr. Roberts said he believed that Congress "has been fully informed of what the C.I.A. is doing in terms of interrogating captured terrorists," through what he called "our ongoing briefings with staff and members as the classification does permit." But he acknowledged what he called "some of the questions raised by members," some of them on the Intelligence Committee.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Roberts, Sarah Little, said the senator had "occasionally" objected to the degree of access to sensitive information the administration allowed to committee members, and had sometimes won agreement to a change in practice.

A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise, said Mr. Goss, as a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, "takes very seriously his responsibility to keep appropriate overseers informed, and we do so."

A White House official said, "The administration takes very seriously our obligation to keep those responsible for intelligence oversight fully informed."

The authority to classify information rests with the White House and its designees, and the tools of Congress to challenge such designations are limited to the power it controls over the federal budget. The restrictions that the White House has imposed on briefings about the C.I.A. detention program were described by Republican and Democratic Congressional officials as particularly severe.

Since the detention program was established in 2002, the officials said, the C.I.A. detention effort has been classified as a "special access program," a category that puts it off limits even to most of those with top secret security clearances. In general, such restrictions have been applied only to covert operations and ongoing espionage investigations, Congressional officials say.

A former senior intelligence official said the main reason for the secrecy was to prevent information about where the prisoners were being held from being publicly disclosed. Such a disclosure, the official said, would almost certainly cause host governments to force the C.I.A. to shut down the detention operations being carried out on their soil.

To date, Congress has not opened any inquiry or held hearings on the C.I.A.'s detention program, despite indications that agency personnel were involved in abuses of some prisoners. That record is in contrast to the public scrutiny that the Congressional armed services committees have imposed on the military's involvement in interrogation and detention, including the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The restrictions also appear to have had the effect of limiting public discussion about the C.I.A.'s detention program. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month, Mr. Goss turned aside questions about the detention program on grounds that the C.I.A. had already answered them, through the briefings provided to the leaders of the intelligence panel.

"As far as I know, there has been no question that has been asked that has not been answered to the committee," Mr. Goss said, adding that he knew that the chairman, ranking member and some staff members from each panel "have been briefed in on the aspects of the transfer, the detention, the interrogation and the techniques."

The list of those who have been fully briefed on the program may be limited to the eight members of Congress who have served as the chairmen or ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees since early 2002. That list includes all four members who are currently in those positions: Mr. Roberts and Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Republican chairmen of the two committees, and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrats.

In many cases, the Republican and Democratic staff directors from the two panels have been permitted to sit in on the C.I.A. briefings, Congressional officials said. But like the members of Congress, those staff members are also bound by rules that prevent them from discussing the subject with others.

In a telephone interview, Ms. Harman would not comment on specific briefings, but said that "as a general matter" she believed that "many more subjects need to be briefed before the full committee."

In the Senate, Mr. Roberts and his Republican majority have blocked an effort by Mr. Rockefeller to open a formal inquiry into the C.I.A. detention and interrogation practices. That has angered Democrats, who have said that such an inquiry would allow all 15 members of the committee access to information that has been restricted to the limited briefings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/national...artner=homepage

Thanks for your comment. I did invite our military forum members to join in our discussion, not because I felt that they had witnessed torture but, because they might give a unique perspective on the military quotes in the newspapers and memos. Plus, I think this issue is very important to our military. Most military members don't like this any more than us civilians.

With regards to the military and torture, I think that the evidence actually suggests that the CIA was much more involved in the more coercive interrogations. In fact, the Army interrogation manual specifically forbids torture and has for a long time. Historically the CIA manuals have advocated harsher techniques than what the military allow. The Bush Administration, not the military appears to be the driving force behind the change in tactics.

I hope that you will participate in our torture discussion thread. There are many more articles there that will give you a better understanding of what we can do. Hopefully tomorrow I will also be opening an action thread where we can post our letters and responses to Congress & the TV media.

Here is the link to our torture discussion

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...showtopic=24131

Does UK turn a blind eye to torture?

Gordon Corera
BBC security correspondent



In its latest report looking at UK policy in the war on terror, the parliamentary foreign affairs committee has called for straight answers from the government over any British role in the highly controversial US "extraordinary rendition" policy.

The committee expressed frustration at the lack of clarity from the government about any possible involvement in a process in which the US covertly, and without any legal process, seizes terrorist suspects and flies them for interrogation to third countries - some of which are known to use torture.

One member of the committee described the policy as "effectively torture by proxy".

Questions have been raised recently about whether Britain has any knowledge, or role, in the process.


It's safe to say the UK has been a major staging post for the US-owned jets on their way to or back from carrying out renditions
Stephen Grey

Stephen Grey is a journalist who has investigated the subject with access to flight schedules.

He claims the two planes linked to the CIA that have been most active in extraordinary renditions - a Gulfstream 5 and a Boeing 737 business jet - have been regular visitors to the UK, although there is no evidence detainees were on board at the time.

"It's effectively an operational base," Mr Grey told the BBC.

"I count at least 40 flights into and out of the country just for the Gulfstream 5."

According to Mr Grey, airports visited by both planes include Glasgow, Prestwick, and Luton among civilian airports, and Mildenhall, Northolt and Brize Norton among military airports.

The 737 was most recently in Glasgow on the morning of 7 February, when it called in on its way to Baghdad, Mr Grey said.

"It's safe to say the UK has been a major staging post for the US-owned jets on their way to or back from carrying out renditions," he said.

"Have prisoners actually been moved through UK airspace? We don't know because, as far as I am aware, the government has never carried out any investigation into this."


We've posed specific questions and we've not received specific answers
Donald Anderson MP

The foreign affairs committee found itself frustrated when it tried to mount its investigation into the subject.

The committee wrote a letter to the Foreign Office on 25 February asking a series of detailed questions about UK practices, the possible use of British airspace or territory, as well as whether the government regarded the use of such methods as legally and morally acceptable.

But the government failed to answer the questions "with the transparency and accountability required on so serious an issue", the committee's latest report said.

The chairman of the committee, Labour MP Donald Anderson, told the BBC: "We've posed specific questions and we've not received specific answers."

Sir John Stanley, the senior Conservative on the committee, also said the government had been trying to "deflect" him in answers to parliamentary questions.

The committee also repeated a request for the government to clarify the broader question of whether it receives or acts upon information extracted through torture by other countries.

Critics argue this would encourage the use of torture by those countries.

In a statement, the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insisted that the government did not condone torture or instigate others to use it and was working to eradicate it.

But he added that if credible information which could stop a terrorist attack was received, it could not be ignored.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4414491.stm

I just posted a BBC story in the torture articles thread. I really think that the torture issue is going to eventually break wide open. There is strong political pressure in England and many independent organization here in the U.S. are also pressing this issue. The only thing missing is MSM TV coverage and more pressure from the Democrats.

The truth about torture
By Kate Townsend
Producer, We Have Ways of Making You Talk



The government has said it is "vehemently opposed to torture as a matter of fundamental principle" following claims by a group of MPs that Britain may be using intelligence from tortured prisoners abroad to fight the terrorist threat at home.
In the past though, torture has been a common tactic for interrogation, and its former practitioners say it was one of the most effective.


The Beatles music may not be an obvious tool of torture, but combine loop playing of Yellow Submarine with holding an individual under water, and it tests the endurance of most people. Hugo Garcia, the man who brought his victims to the edge of oblivion in this way, is convinced that anyone can become a torturer.

Most torturers, like Garcia, remain convinced that they are ordinary people acting under extraordinary circumstances. They do not consider themselves monsters, but instead remain convinced that you, too, would have tortured in their shoes.

The public distances itself from images of abuse recently inflicted by occupying troops in Iraq, but many of the people who've dealt out electrocutions, mock drownings and beatings believe such techniques are effective - that torture works in getting people to talk. And some retired torturers insist they would not hesitate from doing the same today.

Glamour

The stories of most torturers prove how easy it is to turn the average man into abuser. Indoctrination is often the first step towards torture. Hugo Garcia was attracted to the glamour of detective shows on television and joined the Uruguay army. He and his colleagues were told that communist insurgents were threatening the country.

They were taught the "submarino" - a technique for nearly drowning prisoners, and told it was their duty to target the opposition. In this context, the young Garcia entered the torture arena, safe that the state would take responsibility for his actions.


I think torture is as much a part of war as death is
Donald Dzagulones
Former torturer

Other regimes have been less explicit in promoting torture, but have given their approval implicitly, by failing to punish abusers. The torturer can be safe in the knowledge that they will not be held accountable for their deeds.
On arriving in Vietnam, the impressionable American conscript Donald Dzagulones witnessed a superior prodding a pencil into the open wound of an injured Vietcong to gain information. When nobody objected, Dzagulones realised "anything goes" and embarked on a tour of duty where, as a US Army interrogator, he inflicted electrocution on one prisoner and used dogs to intimidate other captured suspects.

Mr Dzagulones remains convinced to this day that torture is an inevitable part of war.

"I would never dream now of doing the things that I did when I was in Vietnam," he says. "The brutality doesn't stop when the shooting stops. I think torture is as much a part of war as death is."

Suffocation

During Algeria's fight for independence in the 1950s, French Resistance fighter Paul Aussaresses felt it was his duty to electrocute Arab nationalists.

Like many former torturers, he still believes it is the most effective way to gather intelligence in a so called "ticking bomb" case. He claims to have stopped Algerian bomb makers from killing French civilians by extracting confessions though electrocution and suffocation with a water saturated towel. They were methods he'd adapted from the Nazis.

The belief that torture works is justification enough for most torturers. Some experts claim that information divulged under force is always unreliable, but many who've practised torture say they have the experience to prove otherwise.


I can take anyone on and make them talk, that's no problem
Paul Van Vuuren
Former torturer

Torture, they say, is the fastest and most reliable means of forcing prisoners to divulge information.
During the apartheid era in South Africa, Gideon Nieuwoudt, one of South Africa's most notorious torturers, used a range of techniques on his ANC victims and retains a philosophical perspective.

"It's like a piano: you make use of the black notes and the white notes to make a sweet melody," he says.

He has no doubt the beatings he inflicted on detainees forced them to talk: "The people will never give you anything without torture, that I can assure you."

Former colleague Paul Van Vuuren lost count of the number of people he tortured under apartheid, but is still proud of his skills.

"There are all these movies about Rambo and stuff where they put electricity on his bodies and he's not talking. That's "expletive deleted". There is no-one in the world; I haven't yet seen one guy that don't talk. I can take anyone on and make them talk, that's no problem."

Double life

Mr Van Vuuren, who was part of a hit squad snatching activists from the townships, had to remove any emotional connection with his victim.

"I can't say I am sorry because then I am lying. At that stage he was an object and we had to extract information out of him and we would do it to the best of our ability."

A sense of moral righteousness also eases the path to torture. Mr Nieuwoudt claims he was following God's orders by using torture to maintain the apartheid regime. But he, like many torturers, chose to keep his vocation a secret from his family.

Many torturers cite the pressure of leading a double life as the hardest aspect of their profession.

Mr Garcia in Uruguay was carried along with the belief shared by his colleagues that the prisoners were evil and, given the opportunity, would do the same to him. It was only when he witnessed the torture of a family friend that he began to question what he was doing, exposed the regime and fled the country.

Most torturers, however, continued their trade until the regime change. For many, stopping torture was not an option - peer pressure, political indoctrination and a conviction of its effectiveness ensured their participation. But the very demise of the governments under whose name they tortured is testimony itself to the fact that torture, in the long term, rarely sustains a regime.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4412065.stm

Rendition: Outsourcing Torture

uploaded 06 Apr 2005


One could be easily confused by the new usage of the word Rendition. The traditional meaning of the word means to translate or offer a form of artistic/dramatic work. Most will remember the rather antiseptic sounding phrase “ethnic cleansing” which was applied to the genocide of Muslims in the Serbian led Balkan wars of a few years ago. The term for exporting terrorist “suspects” to countries that use torture routinely in the interrogation of prisoners is now termed by the American administration “Rendition”. The theory goes that unscrupulous regimes will help in the information gathering process in ways that are effective but unpalatable for the domestic audience.

One reason that the outsourcing of torture has come to light is through the case of a Syrian-born man, Maher Arar, who was seized at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in September 2002 as he was traveling back to his home in Canada. He was then sent to Syria under the CIA's program of "extraordinary rendition" and, whipped repeatedly on the hands with two-inch-thick electrical cables. Arar’s case came to light, when many others haven’t because ultimately the Syrians returned him a year later having found no connection between him and any illegal activity. But for every case like Maher Arar who was eventually released, how many are never heard from again in the dungeons of Egypt, Syria, Israel or Uzbekistan?

Judging by the flight routes taken by a CIA controlled Gulfstream V executive jet that has been used to ferry the unfortunate victims hither and tither, the usage of this odious practice is gaining in popularity in the US.
Proponents of torture in the US, argue that when it comes to national security in a post 9/11 world anything goes. A common but flawed argument goes along the lines of “if we had Mohammed Atta in our hands prior to 9/11 would it not be justified to use whatever means to extract information from him?”. The answer should be obvious. The use of torture in addition to being immoral does not provide surety over what the torture victim says. Maher Arar is a good case in point. When his torturers failed to hear what they wanted they merely increased the punishment. It got to the point that Arar would admit to anything, in his words "You just give up. You become like an animal”. Similarly how could anyone seriously trust the US security services to identify suspects accurately with their appalling track record?

Furthermore, how could any evidence raised in such circumstances be useful? Craig Murray the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan has repeatedly made this point, stressing that any intelligence provided by the disgraced Uzbek regime is unreliable due to the widespread use of torture by the Karimov regime. Another deplorable practice also now seen in the UK is the practice of arrest without charges being placed nor even the allowance of legal representation or the right to defend oneself, factors which are common to the US torture through rendition practice. This message of contempt for Muslims by the officialdom in the West is coming across loud and clear. The CIA and the Foreign office know full well that torture will not lead to surety of intelligence, but it certainly helps their campaign of intimidation, and in the propaganda war against Islam.

That torture is universally condemned including by the UN Convention on Torture does not seem to be a consideration of the Americans. The notion that International law needs to be adhered to is also a quaint notion in times of unilateral and pre-emptive action. It is also worth noting that the US is quite happy to send prisoners to Syria, one of its so called “axis of evil” triumvirate. Its highlighting of this “axis” always looked like a smokescreen to obscure its real target which was Iraq. The US’s involvement and influence in Syria has been ever present for many years.

The use of torture is not only illegal and immoral but opposition to it is commonly seen as a distinguishing feature of a civilized society. This says more about the decline that we have witnessed in the leading nation of the world. That the US sees itself as a beacon of light and moral probity for the free people of the world is really quite laughable. Once a people descend into the torture pit, they’re really just arguing about circles in Hell.

There is one other definition of the word Rendition worth noting: “an explanation of something that is not immediately obvious”

Source: KCom Journal

http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?...D=11058&TagID=1

Jails

In recent months, the best news reporting on Afghanistan has focused on the detention and jailing practices of Americans in that country and has been based largely on limited investigations conducted by one or another part of our government. A December Washington Post piece by R. Jeffrey Smith (General Cites Problems at U.S. Jails in Afghanistan), while discussing "a wide range of shortcomings in the military's handling of prisoners in Afghanistan," managed to mention that we have "roughly two dozen" (count 'em: 24) prisons in that country. Smith's piece began:


"A recent classified assessment of U.S. military detention facilities in Afghanistan found that they have been plagued by many of the problems that existed at military prisons in Iraq, including weak or nonexistent guidance for interrogators, creating what the assessment described as an "opportunity" for prisoner abuse."
In such pieces, there are always "shortcomings" in American practices or dangerous "opportunities" still available for "abuse." (The word torture is seldom used in the U.S. media in such situations). The major abuses almost invariably turn out to have been largely over by the time the investigation being reported on took place. The Smith piece ends typically: "U.S. forces have 'tightened up procedures for training up our people to handle and care for the prisoners,' Keeton said. They now have standard operating procedures in place, she said, and mechanisms to enforce them." All of which proves true until the next batch of horrors pours out.

A recent Dana Priest piece for the Post (CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment) on long past crimes against Afghans has a similar flavor. ("The CIA's inspector general is investigating at least half a dozen allegations of serious abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, including two previously reported deaths in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and the death at the Salt Pit, U.S. officials said. A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the agency actively pursues allegations of misconduct.") Such acts (or crimes) are normally dealt with in the American press as individual cases -- just as recently stories of the various "extraordinary renditions," global kidnappings of terror suspects, and the like, many of whom then passed through Afghan jails, have trickled out largely as individual tales of terror and mistreatment, even if sometimes then toted up. They are essentially part of what really is the "bad apple" school of journalism, largely based on various military or official investigations of what the military, intelligence agencies, and the Bush administration have done.

To see the larger patterns in this you usually have to look elsewhere. For instance, Emily Bazelon of Mother Jones magazine had this to say (From Bagram to Abu Ghraib):


"Hundreds of prisoners have come forward, often reluctantly, offering accounts of harsh interrogation techniques including sexual brutality, beatings, and other methods designed to humiliate and inflict physical pain. At least eight detainees are known to have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, and in at least two cases military officials ruled that the deaths were homicides. Many of the incidents were known to U.S. officials long before the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted; yet instead of disciplining those involved, the Pentagon transferred key personnel from Afghanistan to the Iraqi prison… Even now, with the attention of the media and Congress focused on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the problems in Afghanistan seem to be continuing."
As it turns out, the problems are indeed continuing and in a form that simply cannot be read about in the mainstream media in this country. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark went to Afghanistan for the British Guardian and traveled the country investigating American detention practices to produce a piece, "One huge US jail", that really should be read in full by every American. They do what any good reporter should do: They attempt to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, take in the overall picture, and then draw the necessary conclusions.

They start by saying, "Washington likes to hold up Afghanistan as an exemplar of how a rogue regime can be replaced by democracy. Meanwhile, human-rights activists and Afghan politicians have accused the US military of placing Afghanistan at the hub of a global system of detention centres where prisoners are held incommunicado and allegedly subjected to torture." Then, based on their own investigations, Levy and Scott-Clark lay out the geography of detention in America's Afghanistan:


"Prisoner transports crisscross the country between a proliferating network of detention facilities. In addition to the camps in Gardez, there are thought to be US holding facilities in the cities of Khost, Asadabad and Jalalabad, as well as an official US detention centre in Kandahar, where the tough regime has been nicknamed 'Camp Slappy' by former prisoners. There are 20 more facilities in outlying US compounds and fire bases that complement a major 'collection centre' at Bagram air force base. The CIA has one facility at Bagram and another, known as the 'Salt Pit,' in an abandoned brick factory north of Kabul. More than 1,500 prisoners from Afghanistan and many other countries are thought to be held in such jails, although no one knows for sure because the US military declines to comment."
They conclude that -- U.S. courts having made Bush administration detention centers in Guantanamo, Cuba, vulnerable to potential prosecution, "what has been glimpsed in Afghanistan is a radical plan to replace Guantanamo Bay… [as an] offshore gulag -- beyond the reach of the US constitution and even the Geneva conventions." They add:


"However, many Afghans who celebrated the fall of the Taliban have long lost faith in the US military. In Kabul, Nader Nadery, of the Human Rights Commission, told us, 'Afghanistan is being transformed into an enormous US jail. What we have here is a military strategy that has spawned serious human rights abuses, a system of which Afghanistan is but one part.' In the past 18 months, the commission has logged more than 800 allegations of human rights abuses committed by US troops."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0405-21.htm