Press reporting of the Taguba article by Seymour Hersh

First, go here and read kpete's thread - the article by Seymour Hersh, The General’s Report, from the NewYorker.

Seriously - if you haven't read it yet - READ IT.


*Taguba's forced retirement is a small part of the whole story but makes the headline in some of the articles - and in one article, at least, it's the full story.

That our war criminal government fired a truth-seeker IS news and it IS important, but it isn't the full story. Reading the story from The News Tribune, one would think that was the whole story. It only deals with Taguba's ouster (briefly) - and nothing about Taguba's remarks to Seymour Hersh. There's not even a link to Hersh's article.

Washington Post

Abu Ghraib Investigator Points to Pentagon

"In interviews with New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh, Taguba said that he was ordered to limit his investigation to low-ranking soldiers who were photographed with the detainees and the soldiers' unit, but that it was always his sense that the abuse was ordered at higher levels. Taguba was quoted as saying that he thinks top commanders in Iraq had extensive knowledge of the aggressive interrogation techniques that mirrored those used on high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that the military police "were literally being exploited by the military interrogators."

Taguba also said that Rumsfeld misled Congress when he testified in May 2004 about the abuse investigation, minimizing how much he knew about the incidents. Taguba said that he met with Rumsfeld and top aides the day before the testimony."



New York Times

General Says Prison Inquiry Led to His Forced Retirement


"Lawrence Di Rita, a former top aide to Mr. Rumsfeld, said Mr. Rumsfeld had not viewed the photographs because he had been advised by lawyers that doing so “could materially affect the ongoing criminal investigation.” He said Mr. Rumsfeld finally looked at the pictures the day before his Congressional testimony, the same day he was briefed by General Taguba.

Mr. Di Rita said General Taguba’s assertion that he was ostracized as a result of his investigation “is simply false.” He added, “Secretary Rumsfeld believed General Taguba managed a difficult assignment to the best of his abilities.” General Taguba said some of the most graphic evidence of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib had not been made public, including a videotape he said he had seen of a male soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee."


* The News Tribune

Abu Ghraib Army investigator says he was forced out


“He called me in and said I was no longer part of the team,” Taguba said. “When someone calls you in and says ‘I have to let you go,’ and offers no explanation, you connect the dots.” That same month, he added, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, told him that he would have to retire within a year."


Deccan Herald (India)

Taguba was prevented from investigating 'higher-ups'

"Army Major General Antonio M Taguba who investigated the sexual abuse of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib by US soldiers says Donald Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon officials have prevented him from investigating "higher" authorities."


New York Daily News

General rips Rumsfeld on Abu Ghraib


"Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld misled Congress - or was "in denial" - when he testified that he had no knowledge of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, a retired general said."


And this one

information from occupied iraq - the full article, The General’s Report - How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

take over the US?

But we really don't have an excuse...

Abu Ghraib probe hurt career, general alleges


Same article as the News Tribune - ouster - not whole story.


None of those disturbing details of the Bush administration's war crimes.

Daily developments
Last update: June 16, 2007 – 6:01 PM

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Retired Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, whose career stalled after he investigated the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, compared the U.S. military high command to the Mafia in a report published Saturday. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, quoted Taguba as saying that after his report detailing abuse by U.S. guards was leaked to the media, Gen. John Abizaid told him: "You and your report will be investigated." Taguba told Hersh: "I'd been in the Army 32 years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia."








Which is more than you find in the Houston Chronicle so far - under "OTHER DEVELOPMENTS " on the right hand side

"• Forced out?: Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, has said he was forced into retirement by civilian Pentagon officials because he had been "overzealous" "


Any up-dated articles posted would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

US defense chiefs denied knowledge of Abu Ghraib abuse

"He's trying to acquit himself and a lot of people who are lying to protect themselves," the magazine quoted him as saying, referring to Rumsfeld's May 7, 2004 testimony.

The photographs taken by US jailers humiliating prisoners who were naked or hooded, on leashes or piled in a pyramid, rocked the world, becoming one of the few things President George W. Bush has said he regretted about the war.

Taguba said that he described to Rumsfeld what he termed the "torture" of "a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum," the magazine reported.

He said that all high-level officials had avoided scrutiny while the jail keepers were tried in courts-martial."

The Real Taguba Report

"Back in January 2004, when the military first learned about the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, it assigned Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba to investigate. He did, filing draft reports along the way and extensively briefing senior military leaders. But in May, when Donald Rumsfeld testified before Congress after Taguba's report was leaked, he told them he hadn't known anything was going on until a few hours before. Taguba, now safely retired, tells Seymour Hersh how he felt at the time:..."


excerpt from Hersh article

"Taguba came to believe that Lieutenant General Sanchez, the Army commander in Iraq, and some of the generals assigned to the military headquarters in Baghdad had extensive knowledge of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib even before Joseph Darby came forward with the CD."

voted for BushCo twice...own Abu Ghraib.

The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war. A NEWSWEEK investigation

snip...

The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this system of interrogation, according to internal government memos obtained by NEWSWEEK. What started as a carefully thought-out, if aggressive, policy of interrogation in a covert war—designed mainly for use by a handful of CIA professionals—evolved into ever-more ungoverned tactics that ended up in the hands of untrained MPs in a big, hot war. Originally, Geneva Conventions protections were stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But later Rumsfeld himself, impressed by the success of techniques used against Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led to their use in Iraq, even though that war was supposed to have been governed by the Geneva Conventions. Ultimately, reservist MPs, like those at Abu Ghraib, were drawn into a system in which fear and humiliation were used to break prisoners' resistance to interrogation.

"There was a before-9/11 and an after-9/11," as Cofer Black, the onetime director of the CIA's counterterrorist unit, put it in testimony to Congress in early 2002. "After 9/11 the gloves came off." Many Americans thrilled to the martial rhetoric at the time, and agreed that Al Qaeda could not be fought according to traditional rules. But it is only now that we are learning what, precisely, it meant to take the gloves off.

The story begins in the months after September 11, when a small band of conservative lawyers within the Bush administration staked out a forward-leaning legal position. The attacks by Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these lawyers said, had plunged the country into a new kind of war. It was a conflict against a vast, outlaw, international enemy in which the rules of war, international treaties and even the Geneva Conventions did not apply. These positions were laid out in secret legal opinions drafted by lawyers from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and then endorsed by the Department of Defense and ultimately by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, according to copies of the opinions and other internal legal memos obtained by NEWSWEEK.

The Bush administration's emerging approach was that America's enemies in this war were "unlawful" combatants without rights. One Justice Department memo, written for the CIA late in the fall of 2001, put an extremely narrow interpretation on the international anti-torture convention, allowing the agency to use a whole range of techniques—including sleep deprivation, the use of phobias and the deployment of "stress factors"—in interrogating Qaeda suspects. The only clear prohibition was "causing severe physical or mental pain"—a subjective judgment that allowed for "a whole range of things in between," said one former administration official familiar with the opinion. On Dec. 28, 2001, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel weighed in with another opinion, arguing that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction to review the treatment of foreign prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The appeal of Gitmo from the start was that, in the view of administration lawyers, the base existed in a legal twilight zone—or "the legal equivalent of outer space," as one former administration lawyer described it. And on Jan. 9, 2002, John Yoo of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel coauthored a sweeping 42-page memo concluding that neither the Geneva Conventions nor any of the laws of war applied to the conflict in Afghanistan. MORE...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/

How could congress have given the Okay to Gonzo's conformation as attorney general after all of this? We see now what a mistake that was.

that he was confirmed as AG was criminal.

Army General Advised Using Dogs at Abu Ghraib, Officer Testifies

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Page A18

Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller told top officers during an advisory visit to Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison that they needed to get military working dogs for use in interrogations, and he advocated procedures then in use at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court testimony yesterday.

Maj. David DiNenna, the top military police operations officer at Abu Ghraib in 2003, said that when Miller and a team of Guantanamo Bay officials visited in early September 2003, Miller advocated mirroring the Cuba operation.

"We understood he was sent over by the secretary of defense," DiNenna testified by telephone. DiNenna said Miller and his team were at Abu Ghraib "to take their interrogation techniques they used at Guantanamo Bay and incorporate them into Iraq."

DiNenna's testimony at a preliminary hearing for two Army dog handlers provided additional confirmation that the Guantanamo teams brought their aggressive interrogation tactics to Iraq in the weeks before abuse was committed there. While methods employed at Abu Ghraib -- including hooding, nudity and placing prisoners in stress positions -- have been characterized by senior defense officials as rogue, abusive horseplay on the night shift, some of them had been authorized for experienced interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. Dogs, seen menacing detainees at Abu Ghraib in grisly photographs, were also used in Cuba under Miller's command. MORE...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/27/AR2005072702083.html

Nothing has ever happened to the real criminals at fault at Abu Ghraib. The "Adult Leadership" gave the go ahead for everything IMHO.

General in Abu Ghraib Case Retires After Forced Delay


“He has had a very, very distinguished career,” said Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, in brief comments about General Miller to reporters on Monday.

At his retirement ceremony Monday, General Miller received the Distinguished Service Medal, which is awarded for exceptionally commendable service in a position of great responsibility, Army officials said.

John Sifton, a lawyer who is a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said giving the medal to General Miller “is not just a disappointment, it’s an outrage.”

General Miller, Mr. Sifton said, “has a lot of questions he hasn’t answered” about the policies he drafted at Guantánamo Bay and the recommendations he made in Iraq.

Published on Thursday, May 20, 2004 by the Guardian/UK
The Religious Warrior of Abu Ghraib
An Evangelical US General played a Pivotal Role in Iraqi Prison Reform

by Sidney Blumenthal

Saving General Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October. After it was revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence had been regularly appearing at evangelical revivals preaching that the US was in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling "Satan", the furore was quickly calmed.

Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, explained that Boykin was exercising his rights as a citizen: "We're a free people." President Bush declared that Boykin "doesn't reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration". Bush's commission on public diplomacy had reported that in nine Muslim countries, just 12% believed that "Americans respect Arab/Islamic values". The Pentagon announced that its inspector general would investigate Boykin, though he has yet to report.

Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of a secret operation to "Gitmo-ize" (Guantánamo is known in the US as Gitmo) the Abu Ghraib prison. He had flown to Guantánamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld's orders.

Boykin was recommended to his position by his record in the elite Delta forces: he was a commander in the failed effort to rescue US hostages in Iran, had tracked drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia, had advised the gas attack on barricaded cultists at Waco, Texas, and had lost 18 men in Somalia trying to capture a warlord in the notorious Black Hawk Down fiasco of 1993. Much More...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0520-03.htm

Abu Ghraib..."Is God's Work"

General who likened war on terror to battle with Satan to retire

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An army general who led the Pentagon's effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden and once likened the war on terror to a Christian struggle against Satan is retiring, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.


Lieutenant General William Boykin's departure ends a legendary 36 year career, most of it as a special operations warrior and member of the army's elite Delta Force counter-terrorism unit.

Boykin is retiring in August, said Major Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman

He also got a medal and a day long celebration.

Gonzo is still AG and serving at Bush's pleasure!

None of the real criminals took any heat.

Case Closed? I doubt it...

Edit...Today all the Bible thumping Bush voters, are at church as happy as clams with themselves, and standing up testifying to Gawd Almighty, about how they are and have been all along, the salt of the Earth...but we seekers of the truth, know better than that.

and I'll believe they'll pay for their crimes after they are actually in prison (without a reduced sentence)

Other photos and video too. And they haven't said anything. None of them.

Don

I remember that after the "public" hearings, they were given a private viewing of more film clips. The Senators who exited that room were ashen faced, and ALL (Democrats & republicans) were in shock and mumbling, "This is not the end of this matter"!
Unfortunately, that WAS the END of the matter.

I remember Hillary and Biden promising JUSTICE. Too bad. Just another cover-up and curtain of SILENCE after the video bytes for the sucker voters back home.

On a happier note, I SAW coverage on CNN with Wolfie this morning. The winds have changed direction, and NOW Wolfie thinks this is a BIG deal.

I'll look for articles about who did and didn't see the pictures/videos.

Republicon chickenhawks leading this false war are lacking in all honor, as they prove over and over again

Stop the occult cabal of Commander AWOL and Dickie "Five Military Deferments" Cheney and their wholesale
immoral brutality

Talk about "evil" and "evil doers" = republicon chickenhawks and their darkside occult cabals

Republicons are against every high moral virtue that once defined America

n/t

for natural life

And the majority wouldn't even have a clue what you're talking about when you mention Abu Ghraib.

and many are OK with relegating it all to the past as quickly as possible, so they can use the "we can't change the past" cop-out as a means to absolve themselves from the responsibility of holding their government accountable for not holding the guilty accountable.

Too many are all too willing to buy into the "few bad apples" lie because it comforts them and allows them to pretend that torture isn't government policy.

and then there are those that will never - ever - look at anyone in government the same again if Bush Inc go free.

From the article "Brainwashing America" by Dr. Norman Livergood a former department head at the US Army War College:

Mind-set 2: I will do whatever my civilian and military commanders tell me to do, without reflection on whether or not what they are ordering is permitted by the Constitution (since I want to get ahead in the military).

:scared:

K&R for Solly!!!

Here is what you will come away from the article knowing. Bush could not get complete control over the CIA so he went to the Military's special operations people to do the torture. The CIA was aware of it and complained privately but were not only ignored but by passed. The people used can for the torture can not be found, can not be identified. In effect Bush has his own SS, hidden and under no control but the White House. They have priority over any other military operations and they operate as if no law applies to them.

This general stumbled over it and was fired for what he knew, not what he told.

For what he could expose...for what the evidence exposed

Americans turn up heat on al-Qaeda

at the bottom of the article - this

"In Washington the army general who investigated the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal has said he was forced into retirement by civilian Pentagon officials because he had been overzealous.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Major-General Antonio Taguba said the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior civilian and military officials had treated him brusquely after the investigation into the jail outside Baghdad was completed in 2004. He also said that early last year he was ordered, without explanation, to retire within a year."

90 minute documentary broken into 6 segments for ease of viewing or see the transcript link.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/view/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/etc/script.html

"In "The Torture Question", FRONTLINE traces the history of how decisions made in Washington in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 -- including an internal administration battle over the Geneva Conventions -- led to a robust interrogation policy that laid the groundwork for prisoner abuse in Afghanistan; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and Iraq."

accountable? Unfortunately, I think we know the answer.

;(

It sickens me

‘Pentagon chiefs unaware of Abu Ghraib abuse’


"Taguba said that he described to Rumsfeld what he termed the ”torture” of “a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum,” the magazine reported."

"- But Rumsfeld testified before Congress the following day that he had no idea of the extent of the abuse, Taguba told the New Yorker magazine in an interview. - "

K&R

I just want them all in prison.

Seems too much to ask....

:mad:

General says he was forced out over Abu Ghraib report

"Taguba criticized Rumsfeld for claiming not to know about the extent of the abuse and that he had not seen photographs documenting it until months after the army began an investigation into the allegations in January 2004. Taguba said senior Pentagon officials had been briefed on the case and given accounts of the pictures early in the investigation.

When he briefed Rumsfeld the day before a May 7, 2004, congressional hearing, he said Rumsfeld had complained then about not having a copy of his report. But Taguba said he had submitted copies to superiors two months earlier."

Sy talked fast to get his points out while Wolf read statement from Bush and Larry DiRita contradicting Hersh's points about why Bush waited to call for an investigation and DiRita's harsh comment to Taquba in the Pentagon locker room.

Says to me that Blitzer didn't want to have Hersh on...checked the the NewYorker article with the Bush Crime Family got the statements and he cut off Sy after the short inverview by reading the DiRita statement and said "thanks for being here, Sy." The impression was to be left with the viewer that both DiRita and Bush said Sy was a liar or Taguba was a liar. Wolfe did it on purpose without giving Sy a chance to counter.

Anyway...that's probably the last we will see of Sy on the Cables, unless Tweety decides to have him on.

Bloggers will have to keep it alive!

Much appreciated!!

The Crooks out of Washington ASAP! They are doing horrid criminal acts in our name!

They Knew. Lies to Cover a Rogue Administration

"Protect the big picture" he says. What exactly was - and is - the "big picture?" Certainly part of that picture was to keep the Bush Administration out of the picture. It amazed me at the time, and it amazes me still, that Bush and Cheney could task Alberto Gonzales with writing a legal legitimation of torture, and why the U.S. was not bound by the Geneva Convention, then argue they never legitimated torture. Likewise Rumsfeld's quipping remarks regarding the "interrogation techniques" as not that bad. So folks knew. In fact, it seems likely that torture was ordered from the top."


Abu Ghraib Investigator Details Pentagon Cover-Up: ‘I Thought I Was In The Mafia’

"A Pentagon consultant on the war on terror also said that the “basic strategy was ‘prosecute the kids in the photographs but protect the big picture.’”

making sure the things he wants to happen, happen.

Nothing written down, all done in "case law policy" mode, in his terminology.

Always maintaining "plausible deniability" for himself and "plausible culpability" for some underling by making sure someone junior to him is on the record officially approving or directing something.

Rummy and Cheney are masters (and teammates) at this, and the only difference between them and the Mafia is that the Mafia look like two-bit hustlers compared to them.

Transcript : Taguba, Cambone on Abu Ghraib Report- Tuesday, May 11, 2004; 2:28 PM - U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the the treatment of Iraqi Prisoners Tuesday



Senator John Warner :

"Speaking for myself, I feel our president, our secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the other officers of our military have very correctly and properly addressed the seriousness of these issues and I commend them. "


CAMBONE:
"Terrorists don't care about the Geneva Convention, nor do they abide by its guidelines. They deliberately target civilians, for example, and have brutalized and murdered innocent Americans.

To grant terrorists the rights they so cruelly reject would make a mockery of the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless President Bush did order -- did order that detainees held at Guantanamo be treated humanely and consistent with the convention's principles and, in fact, those detainees in the war on terror are being provided with many of the privileges typically afforded to enemy prisoners of war."

Rumsfeld Testifies Before Senate Armed Services Committee

SPEAKERS:

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va). Chairman
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.)
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)
Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.)
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine)
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.)
Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.)
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)
Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas)
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) Ranking Member
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.)
Sen. Josheph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.)
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.)
Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii)
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)
Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.)
Sen. Evan Bayn (D-Ind.)
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Senate Majority Leader

WITNESSES:

Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense
Gen. Richard B. Myers, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
Les Brownlee, Acting Secretary of the Army
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Staff, United States Army
Lt. Gen. Lance L. Smith, Deputy Commander, United States Central Command
Dr. Steve Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence


Rumsfeld quotes (war criminal)

RUMSFELD: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, in recent days there has been a good deal of discussion about who bears responsibility for the terrible activities that took place at Abu Ghraib. These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility

RUMSFELD: The pictures I've seen depict conduct, behavior that is so brutal and so cruel and so inhumane that anyone engaged in it or involved in it would have to be brought to justice.


(Senator)ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I mean in no way to diminish the seriousness of what has occurred here, but it seems very clear to me that the task before Congress is to determine whether or not these abuses are a result of flaws in the system or if this was a matter, as has been indicated, of individuals that simply broke the rules.

With that in mind, I'd like to know, Mr. Secretary, were any of the abuses that occurred in Iraq encouraged, condoned or committed by Department of Defense regulations or policy? Were any local or unit level policies in effect that would have encouraged or condoned or permitted these abuses?

RUMSFELD: Certainly not to my knowledge. And when one looks at the abuses and the cruelty, the idea that you would have regulations that would permit or condone or encourage that type of thing is just not comprehensible.

Rumsfeld Shouldn't be Fired, He Should be Indicted
by Matthew Rothschild

“Secretary Rumsfeld has publicly admitted that . . . he ordered an Iraqi national held in Camp Cropper, a high security detention center in Iraq, to be kept off the prison’s rolls and not presented to the International Committee of the Red Cross,” the report noted. The Geneva Conventions require countries to grant the Red Cross access to all detainees. “

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0418-24.htm






Further Evidence Rumsfeld Implicated in War Crimes
Please read this important post by Marty Lederman, Army Confirms: Rumsfeld Authorized Criminal Conduct.

Here's a key section, but there's more:

The Army's charges against Jordan reflect the view, undoubtedly correct, that the use of forced nudity or intimidation with dogs against detainees subject to military control constitutes cruelty and maltreatment that Article 93 makes criminal. It doesn't matter whether they are or are not "torture," as such; nor does it matter whether the armed forces should be permitted to use such interrogation techniques: As things currently stand, they are unlawful, as even the Army now acknowledges.

But then how can we account for the actions of the Secretary of Defense and his close aides?

On November 27, 2002, Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes, following discussions with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, General Myers, and Doug Feith, informed the Secretary of Defense that forced nudity and the use of the fear of dogs to induce stress were lawful techniques, and he recommended that they be approved for use at Guantanamo.
(The lists of techniques to which Haynes was referring can be found in this memorandum.) On December 2, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld approved those techniques for use at Guantanamo -- and subsequently those techniques were used on detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani.

In other words, the Secretary of Defense authorized criminal conduct.

...

Today's Army charge under UCMJ Article 93 against Lt. Col. Jordan -- for conduct that the SecDef actually authorized as to some detainees -- demonstrates that Rumsfeld approved of, and encouraged, violations of the criminal law.
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/04/further_evidence_rumsfeld_implicated_in_war_crimes.html

Thanks for adding the story and links!!!

Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush


An Aug. 1, 2002, memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel(under Ashcroft), addressed to Gonzales, said that torturing suspected al Qaeda members abroad "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogation" conducted against suspected terrorists.

The document provided legal guidance for the CIA, which crafted new, more aggressive techniques for its operatives in the field. McClellan called the memo a historic or scholarly review of laws and conventions concerning torture. "The memo was not prepared to provide advice on specific methods or techniques," he said. "It was analytical."

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday refused senators' requests to make public the memo, which is not classified, and would not discuss any possible involvement of the president.

Documents link Rumsfeld to prisoner's interrogation



WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld closely monitored the late 2002 interrogation of a key Guantanamo Bay prison detainee at the same time that the prisoner was subjected to treatment that a military investigator later called ''degrading and abusive," according to newly released documents.

The documents, portions of a December 2005 Army inspector general report, disclosed for the first time that Rumsfeld spoke weekly with the Guantanamo commander, Major Geoffrey Miller, about the progress of the interrogation of a Saudi man suspected of a connection to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The intense attention Rumsfeld and Miller were paying to the interrogation raises new questions about their later claims that they knew nothing about the tactics interrogators used, which included a range of physically intense and sexually humiliating techniques similar to those in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq.

Over a six-week period, according to subsequent investigations, the detainee was subjected to sleep deprivation, stripped naked, forced to wear women's underwear on his head, denied bathroom access until he urinated on himself, threatened with snarling dogs, and forced to perform tricks on a dog leash, among other things.

What Rumsfeld knew

"April 14, 2006 | Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in the late 2002 interrogation of a high-value al-Qaida detainee known in intelligence circles as "the 20th hijacker."

snip

During the same period, detainee Mohammed al-Kahtani suffered from what Army investigators have called "degrading and abusive" treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved.

snip

Little more than two years later, during an investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantánamo, Rumsfeld expressed puzzlement at the notion that his policies had caused the abuse."

Abu Ghraib Tactics Were First Used at Guantanamo



"Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee."

:thumbsup:

:)

although i wrote it at my own blog... does that still count?
http://www.atlargely.com/2007/06/sy_hersh_does_i.html

charged with War Crimes?

:hi:

Ah, the WMD fixers...no relationship whatsoever with the Plame affair, right?

;)

4-5 man team shadowing TF21... i have to wonder if this is the what he is hinting at toward the end of the article... if you re=read my piece... it sounds rather similar in what they were able to do and through the extent of backchannels and such...

not sure if we need to get into Plame here:)

Course it counts!!!

The harder they come, the harder they fall: one and all?

Or, conversely, is the system the bitch of whoever knows how to grab enough parts, and knock out enough others, to take control and make all functions serve the masters instead of the chumps without said knowledge?

U.S. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller

Maj. Gen. Miller, as commander at the tightly-controlled prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, should be investigated for his potential responsibility in the war crimes and acts of torture committed against detainees there. (And later at Abu Ghraib)

http://hrw.org/photos/2005/torture/miller.htm

Last I checked on June 17, 2007 - there were 14.

Keep in mind I'm in Germany

Taguba claims Pentagon knew of abuse

"Taguba retired in January"

Don't you love it?

White House denies prior knowledge of Abu Ghraib abuse

"The White House on Sunday insisted that President George W. Bush first learned about abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison from media reports, contrary to assertions by a former top general that Bush likely knew about the scandal before it broke.

"The President said over three years ago that he first saw the pictures of the abuse on television," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel in Crawford, Texas, where Bush is spending the weekend at his ranch.

Stanzel was responding to questions about a New Yorker magazine report quoting the top military investigator of the Abu Ghraib scandal, retired Army Major General Antonio Taguba, as saying "the president had to be aware" of the abuse of prisoners by US military guards at the facility."

let's see, believe a proven Liar or a well respected retired general? Thats a tough one!:eyes:

Pakistan Dawn, Pakistan
US officials denied abuse information

Taipei Times, Taiwan
General claims retirement forced after Abu Ghraib

Melbourne Herald Sun
US denies prior knowledge of abuse


The Brunei Times
'Rumsfeld denied knowledge of Abu Ghraib abuse'

Middle East Times
Abu Ghraib investigator hit by fallout


Telegraph.co.uk
Generals 'knew of Abu Ghraib abuse'


PRESS TV, Iran
White house 'knew of Abu Ghraib abuses'

Taguba's forced retirement should be an impeachable offense in and of itself. The crass politicization of everything this administration does is a disgrace to our nation.

America will always be the war crime nation that allowed its war criminals to go free

(Solly I couldn't find your post on this last night so I did an individual post...but am reposting on this thread as of last night what I'd seen in the Tee Vee media about this. Note that CNN repackaged Sunday's broadcast with a reporter showing pictures for the Monday Situation Room with Blitzer)

Edited on Mon Jun-18-07 06:02 PM by KoKo01
and since CNN's Blitzer interviewed Sy on his Sunday show...that they allowed Brian Ross to re-air the report with the photo's (from the past) with comments from Sy from Blitzers Sunday interview...gives CNN a report card of "B." ...or "E" for Effort.

PBS gave him a short piece where the interviewer seemed disbelieving of the report,(I'd give them a "D") Matthews seemed incredulous that nothing has been done about this in all this time and mentioning that SY told him at beginning of show that IRAN is NEXT! (I'd give Tweety report a "C") Tweety seemed very tired...and the report was "dumbed down" with bad guys and when did "Rummy" (Sy used Rummy) know.

Just to let you all know because a DU poster asked about how the "M$M" was reporting on Hersh's incredible story in the New Yorker Magazine that broke over the weekend.