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| Prison
Abuse Scandal |
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"A year
ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that
we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished
a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And
as a result, there are no longer torture
chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq."
President Bush, April 30, 2004 |
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| The
US government has videotapes of boys at Abu Ghraib-Seymour Hersh |
| Hersh
says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing
that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."
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| U.S.
has video-Seymour Hersh |
| He
called the prison scene "a series of massive crimes, criminal
activity by the president and the vice president, by this administration
anyway…war crimes." |
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| Interrogation
abuses were 'approved at highest levels' |
| New
evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at
Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration
will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure
on the White House. |
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| Rumsfeld
gave go-ahead for Abu Ghraib tactics, says general in charge |
| The
former head of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Brig-Gen Janis
Karpinskihas, for the first time accused the American Secretary
of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, of directly authorising Guantanamo
Bay-style interrogation tactics. |
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| Rumsfeld
okayed torture methods: Report |
| Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had approved various methods of interrogating
terror suspects, in a memo under which US military personnel
at Guantanamo Bay could put prisoners in "stress positions"
for four hours, hood them and subject them to 20-hour-long interrogations. |
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| Bush
Claimed Right to Waive Torture Laws |
| President
Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture laws and treaties
covering prisoners of war after the invasion of Afghanistan,
and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized guards to strip
detainees and threaten them with dogs, according to documents
released Tuesday. |
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| Bush
memos show stance on torture |
The
Bush administration's thinking about the use of torture in the
war on terror was on display yesterday after the White House
released a file of documents on the treatment of detainees.
The memos, which date from February 2002 to the beginning of
the Iraq occupation in April 2003, offer a glimpse of the decision-making
process at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the department
of justice and the White House. |
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| Memo
Offered Justification for Use of Torture-Justice Dept. Gave
Advice in 2002-By Dana Priest and R. Jeffrey Smith |
| In
August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House
that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may
be justified," and that international laws against torture
"may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations"
conducted in President Bush's war on terrorism, according to
a newly obtained memo. |
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| Afghan
detainees routinely tortured and humiliated by US troops-by
Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg |
| Detainees
held in Afghanistan by American troops have been routinely tortured
and humiliated as part of the interrogation process, in the
same way as those in Iraq, a Guardian investigation has found. |
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| Contracting
Intelligence-Department of Interior releases Abu Ghraib contract |
| The
Center for Public Integrity has obtained the 11 work orders
worth $66.2 million awarded to CACI International Inc., the
company at the heart of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal
in Iraq. Details of the work orders did not come to light until
last April, when reports emerged of U.S. interrogators allegedly
abusing prisoners at the notorious Baghdad prison. |
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Locked
in Abu Ghraib
The prison scandal keeps getting worse for the Bush administration. |
| If
today's investigative shockers—Seymour Hersh's latest article
in The New Yorker and a three-part piece in Newsweek—are
true, it's hard to avoid concluding that responsibility for
the Abu Ghraib atrocities goes straight to the top, both in
the Pentagon and the White House, and that varying degrees of
blame can be ascribed to officials up and down the chain of
command. Read together, the magazine articles spell out an elaborate,
all-inclusive chain of command in this scandal. Bush knew about
it. Rumsfeld ordered it. His undersecretary of defense for intelligence,
Steven Cambone, administered it. |
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| High-ups
okayed use of dogs: paper - Abuse at Iraqi jail |
| High-ranking
US intelligence officers authorized the use of ferocious dogs
to intimidate prisoners at Iraq's notorious Abu Gharib prison,
newspaper reports said on Friday. A report published in The
Washington Post and other US news outlets said prison authorities
were also asked to remove the muzzles before using the dogs
to threaten prisoners. |
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| Abu
Ghraib & the Milosevic standard-By: Siddharth Varadarajan |
| As
these trials proceed, no one seems interested in finding out
at what level the torture was sanctioned. Above all, there has
been little debate about the command responsibility of Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush in failing
to take steps to prevent the torture and killing of Iraqi prisoners.
What makes the absence of a debate all the more surprising is
the existence of a voluminous paper trail of official memos
that indicates the connivance of the Bush administration in
devising legal arguments to justify the torture of prisoners
captured in its so-called war on terrorism. The memos, generated
by the U.S. Justice Department and the Pentagon between January
2002 and April 2003, suggest systematic attempts were made to
push the envelope on "aggressive interrogation" of
captives. |
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| Meet
the New Boss… by Mark Drolette |
| Why
are so many Americans oblivious to their country's arrogant,
sometimes brutal behavior, actions that are so easily recognizable
to the rest of the world? For the answer, read on. |
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| AN
ARMY OF . . . |
| George
W. Bush's new gulag archipelago, a string of concentration camps,
military and INS prisons that span the globe from North Carolina
to Iraq to Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay to New York
City, has been designed to give torturers the veil of secrecy
they require to carry out their hideous acts as well as the
tacit understanding that they won't be held accountable.
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| Early
Iraq Abuse Accounts Met With Silence |
| Detailed
allegations of psychological abuse, deprivation, beatings and
deaths at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq were met by public silence
from the U.S. Army last October six months before shocking photographs
stirred world outrage and demands for action. |
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| 18,000
Iraqis Illegally Held In Jails and Prison Camps By U.S. |
| According
to the Baghdad-based Organisation for Human Rights, at least
18,000 Iraqis are now being illegally held in jails and prison
camps. The prisoners are held without charge and denied access
to lawyers, family and friends for months on end. April 22,
2004 |
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| General
said to urge use of dogs at prison |
| A
U.S. Army general dispatched by senior Pentagon officials to
bolster the collection of intelligence from prisoners in Iraq
last fall inspired and promoted the use of guard dogs there
to frighten the Iraqis, according to sworn testimony by the
top U.S. intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison. The
idea came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who at the time commanded
the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and was implemented
under a policy approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the
top U.S. military official in Iraq. |
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| Covering
up the coverup, by Alan Dershowitz |
| The
New York Times has reported that a CIA official was told that
Bush had informed the CIA that he did not want to know where
[the high value detainees] were [being held.] If this is true,
it reflects a breakdown of responsibility. |
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‘Definitely
a Cover-Up’
Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement
in Abuse Scandal |
| Dozens
of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists
who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq's
Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army
to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS. |
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| Torture(d)
Logic-by Mark Drolette |
| Q:
What’s worse (much worse, actually) than a U.S. Attorney
General tussling with U.S. Senators over a definition of torture?
A: Finding out the U.S. government has actively sought a way
to commit it. Can anything be done to counter this insanity?
There’d better be, for our country’s soul depends
on it. |
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| Bloggers
doubt Berg execution video |
| Revolting
millions around the world, the video footage of an American
citizen Nick Berg's execution has also raised numerous questions
concerning its authenticity. |
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