Report: Harsh interrogation OK'd for 1 inmate (Sanchez)

[UpInArms]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-05-18-harsh-tactics_x.htm

WASHINGTON — Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise and inducing fear as interrogation methods against a single Iraqi inmate at Abu Ghraib prison, according to a description in the classified annex of a military report on prisoner abuse in Iraq.

A government official who has read most of the 6,000-page classified portion of a report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba said the document describes a case in which Sanchez, the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, approved specific techniques to induce an Iraqi prisoner to talk. The official described in detail the Taguba report's account of the incident. Access to the classified portions of the report is limited.

The disclosure comes a week after Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's senior intelligence officer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was "not aware of any situation where Gen. Sanchez gave written approval or requested" any of the harsh interrogation methods.

The special interrogation techniques were authorized in guidance used by the U.S. Central Command, which is running the Iraq military operation.

They were put in place in last July, shortly after the end of the major-combat phase of the invasion, as a way of extracting intelligence from reluctant prisoners. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Pentagon lawyers approved use of the harsh techniques, but in practice, they required specific, case-by-case approval by the field commander, Sanchez.

...more...

only one? yeah, right.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Soon this will point to Cambone, Feight

Boykin, Rumsfeld and Bush

Patience

The nightmare has just begun

[UpInArms]

2. tick...tick...tick...

[goclark]

3. Music To My Ears

I will sleep tight waiting to see Humpty Dumpty fall from the wall.

[Tinoire]

6. Feith... Salon article: "JAG: it reaches Douglas Feith"

riverwalker (406 posts)
Fri May-07-04 07:46 PM
Original message
JAG: it reaches Douglas Feith



Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon

Bar Association: Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon Appointees
Salon is reporting that a report compiled by the Committee on International Law of the New York City Bar Association has found that the American military's treatment of detainees and prisoners of war in Afghanistan, Cuba and Iraq violates international law — and the compilers of the report say that the techniques employed by interrogators at prisons such as Abu Ghraib were "sanctioned by Pentagon political appointees."

Joe Conason of Salon reports that Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler and chair of the Committee on International Law was told by "senior" members of the Judge Advocate General Corps that high ranking political appointees were behind the abuse. Says Conason:

http://www.warblogging.com/

Lack of protection

<snip>

Indeed, Horton says that the JAG officers specifically warned him that Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith,one of the most powerful political appointees in the Pentagon, had significantly weakened the military's rules and regulations governing prisoners of war. The officers told Horton that Feith and the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, were creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" that would allow mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Douglas Feith, President Bush's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy — and number three man at the Pentagon — reportedly summed up Protocol One of the Geneva Conventions of 1977 as "law in the service of terrorism".

In the past, Conason writes, all interrogations conducted by military personnel were monitored by a member of the Judge Advocate General corps from behind a two-way mirror. All interrogations were monitored, and the JAG officer was "emplowered to stop any misconduct". But senior Pentagon officials removed that requirement. :wow: Not only did JAG officers no longer monitor interrogations, but private military contractors were allowed to conduct interrogations.

<snip>

After hearing the complaints of the JAG officers, Horton and his bar colleagues wrote to Haynes and the CIA's general counsel in an effort to clarify U.S. policy on the treatment and interrogation of detainees. Those inquiries, he recalls, "were met with a firm brushoff. We then turned to senators who had raised the issue previously, and assisted their staff in pursuing the issue directly with the Pentagon. These inquiries met with a similar brushoff." The Bush administration wanted no meddling by human rights lawyers as it brought democracy and human rights to the benighted region.

<snip>

Horton says that career military officers at the Pentagon were "greatly upset" by what they regarded as the deliberate destruction of traditions and methods that have long protected soldiers as well as civilians. Those officers, and others who may have evidence to offer, are obviously reluctant to step forward and speak because they fear reprisal from the Pentagon and the White House. They have been instructed not to talk to anyone about these issues. It is to be hoped that in the investigations to come -- whether or not Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Feith keep their jobs -- those conscientious officers will be able to tell what they know about the decisions that led to this national disaster.


<snip>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/07/rights/index.html

They're going down. The entire house of cards is CRASHING down.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x49554

[mouse7]

4. That's partially correct... if Sanchez is using scientific notation

1 x 10^5

[PolJugglr]

5. Only one documented in Taguba's report...

not the ONLY one!

[teryang]

7. He tried it once, but didn't inhale

...f**King aburd!