NYT, pg1: Army's Report Faults General (Sanchez) in Prison Abuse

[DeepModem Mom]

ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL
Army's Report Faults General in Prison Abuse
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: August 27, 2004


WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 - Classified parts of the report by three Army generals on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan.

Moreover, the report contends, by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly anyway.

Military officials and others in the Bush administration have repeatedly said the Geneva Conventions applied to all prisoners in Iraq, even though members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo did not, in their estimation, fall under the conventions.

But classified passages of the Army report say the procedures approved by General Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, and the revisions made when the Central Command found fault with the initial policy, exceeded the Geneva guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/27abuse.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. So many ways of avoiding direct language with these creeps

Asked whether General Sanchez's actions opened the door to use of interrogation techniques from Afghanistan, General Kern said, "He didn't close the door, and he should have."

Together, the Schlesinger and Fay reports spell out the sharpest criticism of missteps by American commanders in Iraq involving what they described as a crucial question of making clear to soldiers what was permitted and what was not in interrogation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
(snip/...)

Considering how obsessed some of these people are with the appearance of their strength, and manliness, they surely look weak and spineless trying so hard to sidestep responsibility, and create the impression this loathesome, vicious behavior toward these helpless prisoners was simply the product of a lot of misunderstanding, and missed connections, and general confusion.

They look like the liars they are, and that's WEAK, not like representatives of what they would like to project as the most powerful nation in the history of the world.

[Disturbed]

2. What about...

Gen Miller, Gestapo of Gitmo?

[Judi Lynn]

3. So many heroes, it's hard to keep track of all of them, right?

What greater mission in life can a man have than holding power over a lot of men taken away from home, kept in a state of desperation, and tortured?

Yeah, I'd surely love to see his career scrapbook when he retires.

[ClintonTyree]

4. Dirty Sanchez...................

Someone had to say it.

[BiggJawn]

7. I was going to, but you got here first...

Yep, Dirty Sanchez, the Fall Guy of Abu Ghraib...

[krkaufman]

8. Chuckle. Same Lewis Black-inspired thought.

Before posting, I took a moment to finally look the term up, via Google.

Dear lord.

[BiggJawn]

11. Yeah, that's where I got it.

I think I may have used this term first, sort of like "Rumsferatu"...

When I found out what a "Dirty Sanchez" was, I thought "I have enough troble finding a woman who'd let me poke her there, much less give her a moustache afterwards....

[flordehinojos]

5. Is Sanchez considered a "minority"?

Is Sanchez considered considered a "minority"? (Is George P. a "minority"?) --- is blame being dumped on Sanchez by white boys white washing their hands on him? Dear Ole Ricardo Sanchez!

[Xipe Totec]

6. Let Me See If I Got This Straight...

That panel argued that General Sanchez's actions effectively amounted to an unauthorized suspension of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq by categorizing prisoners there as unlawful combatants.

The Schlesinger panel described that reasoning as "understandable,'' but said General Sanchez and his staff should have recognized that they were "lacking specific authorization to operate beyond the confines of the Geneva Convention.''



So Sanchez is not faulted for using torture per-se, but for using it in the wrong place, at the wrong time. If Sanchez lacked "specific authorization to operate beyond the confines of the Geneva Convention" then, pray tell, who did have that authorization?

And, more importantly, who granted it?

[Roy Robertson]

9. You are right. Sanchez's great sin is that he

"approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan."

So torture, rape and murder are okay in those other places, just not at Abu Ghraib? Am I reading this correctly?

It sounds like my country has a policy of torturing people, and this policy is obviously set at a level higher up than Mr Sanchez.

One of my German teachers was a translator for the US Army at the Nuremburg Trials. What he saw there haunted him for the rest of his days.

We seem not even to care...

[DeepModem Mom]

12. An eloquent post, Roy Robertson -- welcome to DU --

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. order of fault: bush*, rumfilled, boykin, general miller, sanchez.........

but hey, what do i know?