NBC News reports an exclusive --a new prison scandal in Iraq. The unit involved is the Delta Force:

U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees. The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos.

According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists — but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards.

...the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation.

One senior Pentagon official has denied the charges. Others have clammed up and refused to comment. But other officials say Rumsfeld tried to get the BIF tactics brought to Abu Ghraib:

The House of Representatives today voted to tear down Abu Graib prison in Iraq. The vote was 308-114 to include the tear-down provision in a $422 billion defense spending bill.

After the tear-down, we would pay to build a modern detention center in its place. The bill requires the consent of the new Iraqi Government because by the time the bill passes the Senate, it will be after June 30 and no longer our decision to make, says Congressman Curt Weldon, a Republican co-sponsor of the bill.

Really? That's not what the Walll Street Journal and New York Times have reported. Via Eric Alterman at Altercation:

If you are not buying the Journal every day during this scandal, you are missing the best non-Hersh reporting to come out of it. For instance today the Times has a much less informative and more administration friendly version of the story that Journal readers read a week ago, in which U.S. authorities admit in the fine print that the June 30 handover will be a ruse and that Americans will be running Iraq as much as ever. Today’s top story: “U.S. Generals Say No System Exists For Abuse Reports.”

Like Eric says, "don't feel guilty about skipping the editorial pages."

Whoops, never mind.

An American lawyer who was arrested two weeks ago in connection with the terror attacks in Spain was set free Thursday after evidence pointed to another suspect in the deadly train bombings. Brandon Mayfield, 37, was released soon after Spanish officials said fingerprints found on a bag near the bombing site were that of an Algerian. U.S. authorities had previously said the prints were Mayfield's. The bag contained detonators similar to those used in the March 11 blasts, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000 others.

In Madrid late Thursday, authorities said the fingerprints found on the plastic bag belonged to an Algerian, Ouhnane Daoud. The bag was found in a van hours after the morning rush-hour blasts. The van had been left near the train station from which three of the four bombed trains had departed.

TalkLeft welcomes California Democrat Barbara Boxer who has taken out an ad in our new "premium" spot under the TL logo. Ms. Boxer is a progressive Democrat. We need her in Congress.

Democrats can take back the Senate this year, but only if every incumbent gets re-elected. Help re-elect a progressive champion today!

Please be generous in giving to her campaign.

Don't miss this article by Jesse at the Stakeholder (DCCC weblog) about Rumsfeld and Chalabi. Atrios has a visual aid. Roger Ailes shares some memories. Kevin Drum takes bets, his money's on Chalabi.

Sign the Petition for Rumsfeld's removal. [Hat tip to Stirling Newberry at Newberry for Congress who also comments on the strange bedfellows.]

In light of the ongoing revelations about the U.S. abuse of Iraqi and Afghani prisoners, we thought we'd let you know:

Law Professor Celia Rumann has just published a timely article on the Founding Fathers’ prohibition on extreme interrogation. Tortured History: Finding Our Way Back to the Lost Origins of the Eighth Amendment, 31 Pepperdine L. Rev. 661 (2004) traces the history of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause to such documents as Massachusetts’ “Body of Liberties” (1641), English Bill of Rights of 1689, and Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765) as the Founders’ original check on forcing confessions through torture and “bodilie punishments.”

Prof. Rumann also argues that the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause is not rendered redundant by this theory, but was intentionally added as a check on admission into evidence of forced confessions, whatever the compulsion.

Pepperdine Law Review does not offer articles on-line but you can order by sending an e-mail to lawreview@law.pepperdine.edu. You can also access it at Lexis.com, for a fee.

Good news from Vermont, via NORML:

Senate Bill 76, which enacts legal protections for people using marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer or multiple sclerosis, passed that Senate yesterday by a vote of 20-7. (See article.) Governor James Douglas, despite his previous opposition, has promised to allow it to become law without his signature.

Vermont now becomes the tenth state to legalize marijuana for medical use,
and only the second to do so through the legislative process. Vermont joins
Maine as the only medical marijuana states on the East Coast.

The article says Vermont becomes the 9th rather than 10th state to pass such a law because it doesn't count Arizona's law:

The other states are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state already have laws allowing marijuana for medical needs. Arizona passed an initiative to allow marijuana by prescription, a largely symbolic law because federal law prohibits doctors from writing such prescriptions.

Ten down, forty to go.

Update : Drug War Rant comments, "patients will be allowed to grow 3 plants -- perfect for the medical marijuana patient who gets sick occasionally."

New York Lawyer Lynne Stewart is charged with terror related offenses arising from her representation of blind Sheik Abdel Rahman, convicted in the 1995 UN bombing case. She is being defended by the impressive Michael Tigar. Jury selection began yesterday, and already, the spectre of 9/11 is raising its head, even though her case has nothing to do with it.

Ms. Stewart is accused, along with two other defendants, of helping Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman communicate messages from his jail cell to the Islamic Group, a terrorist organization he once headed. She is also accused of violating restrictions the government imposed on Mr. Abdel Rahman, her client, and making false statements about her actions.

Her lead defense lawyer, Michael E. Tigar, has said the government is trying to curb Ms. Stewart's rights to represent clients linked to terrorism. Mr. Abdel Rahman was convicted in 1995 of plotting to destroy the United Nations headquarters and other New York landmarks.

The jury will be anonymous. It will be an interesting trial, and it has consequences, not just for Ms. Stewart, but for all lawyers and their clients:

Via Atrios....and we are as outraged as he is. This just turns our stomach:

A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators. The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.

The Financial Times selects ten possible candidates for Kerry's VP slot. --along with descriptions and pros and cons.

Who among them, if chosen, would make you actively campaign for the ticket? Which of them, while getting your vote, would not get you excited enough to become involved in the election process and actively campaign or contribute? Are there any that would cost Kerry your vote?

John Edwards, North Carolina Senator
Bill Richardson, New Mexico Gopvernor
Dick Gephardt, Missouri congressman and former House Minority leader
Bill Nelson, Florida Senator
Evans Bayh, Indiana Senator and former governor
Bob Graham, Florida Senator and former governor
Tom Vilsack, Iowa Gov
Wesley Clark, retired US general
John McCain, Arizona Senator (Republican)
Max Cleland, former Georgia Senator

Our faves: Edwards and Clark, in that order.

The U.S. today raided the house of Ahmad Chalabi, a former ally and U.S. appointed member of the new Iraqi Governing Council. Chalabi was home. They were searching for 15 members of the Iraqi National Congress, which is Chalabi's party.

For years, Chalabi's INC received money from the Pentagon, in part for intelligence passed along by exiles about Saddam's purported weapons of mass destruction. Chalabi has been criticized since large stockpiles of such weapons were never found.

What were they searching for?

A senior coalition official said on condition of anonymity that an Iraqi judge issued warrants "for up to 15 people" on allegations of fraud, kidnapping and "associated matters." Several people were arrested, and Chalabi was not a suspect, he said....

U.S. officials declined to comment on the raid. Privately, however, American authorities have said Chalabi is interfering with a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime skimmed billions of dollars in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.

Chalabi was upset:

I am America's best friend in Iraq," Chalabi told a news conference. "If the (coalition) finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home, you can see the state of relations between the (coalition) and the Iraqi people."

More on Chalibi here.

According to a Department of Justice official:

The CIA has sent three cases to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution against agency personnel accused of involvement in the deaths of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan....The deaths last year have been linked to CIA officers and contractors.

Case Number 1:

The earliest case was a June 2003 prisoner death at a U.S. holding facility in Afghanistan's Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan. On June 23, the military announced the death, which may have involved a CIA contractor.

Case Number 2:

....the role of a CIA officer and agency contractor in the November death of a prisoner at the now-famous Abu Ghraib facility outside Baghdad.

Case Number 3:

Also that month, Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a former commander of Saddam's air defenses, died after complaining he didn't feel well during an interrogation in Qaim, Iraq. A CIA officer may have been involved.

What about the June 6, 2003 death of an Iraqi detainee ?

What about this soldier who abused a prisoner and in December, 2003 got a sanction (keeping his pension)?

What about these soldiers who received a discharge from the military rather than face a court martial for their abuse of an Iraqi soldier in January, 2004?

What about these cases of abuse?