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Newly Declassified Report: Bush Officials Approved Torture

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 07:00:00 AM EST
Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, torture, Abu Ghraib (all tags)
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The CIA wasn't the only agency involved in torture of detainees. A newly declassified report by the Senate Armed Services Committee shows that high level Bush officials approved the brutal interrogation techniques used by the military at overseas prisons. So now there's confirmation that the military, not just the CIA CIA were involved, and that Rumsfeld's denials were full of it.

The Senate report documented how some of the techniques used by the military at prisons in Afghanistan and at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in Iraq — stripping detainees, placing them in “stress positions” or depriving them of sleep — originated in a military program known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape, or SERE, intended to train American troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations. [More...]

According to the Senate investigation, a military behavioral scientist and a colleague who had witnessed SERE training proposed its use at Guantánamo in October 2002, as pressure was rising “to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” Officers there sought authorization, and Mr. Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques.

The report showed that Mr. Rumsfeld’s authorization was cited by a United States military special-operations lawyer in Afghanistan as “an analogy and basis for use of these techniques,” and that, in February 2003, a special-operations unit in Iraq obtained a copy of the policy from Afghanistan “that included aggressive techniques, changed the letterhead, and adopted the policy verbatim.”

From there it spread to Abu Ghraib where Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez approved the techniques.

Sen. Carl Levin said tonight:

“This report, in great detail, shows a paper trail going from that authorization” by Mr. Rumsfeld “to Guantánamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq,” Mr. Levin said.

The ACLU and Human Rights First brought lawsuits against Rumsfeld, Sanchez and others in 2005. The case was dismissed in 2007. No accountability, once again.

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    Newly Declassified Report: Bush Officials Approved Torture | 18 comments (18 topical)

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    Rumsfeld's Denials . . . (5.00 / 3) (#1)
    by Doc Rock on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 04:58:50 AM EST
    . . . never had a shred of credibility. He was one of the most arrogant and dissembling senior managers in government, ever!

    I never trusted Rumsfeld (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by Fabian on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 05:52:43 AM EST
    So I'm not surprised to see this.  

    Our military is even more messed up than I thought.

    (Heartily sick of hearing "..interrogation procedures/tactics" on the news.)

    Parent

    I was reading a large reporting (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 07:12:15 AM EST
    of Abu Ghraib and remember there was aas Rumsfeld memo found in the "special" prisoner area where the "bad apples" worked, and it outlined some of the interrogation techniques we call to question today.  It was taped to a door or a wall or something.  That was when I knew it was everywhere, because nobody but nobody replicates like our military does.  It is part of what has led to their success.  Nothing like a memo from the head cheese to spawn giant proportion replications and the army is damned proud of how well it replicates and if you can't replicate well you suck and should probably go home and be a civilian.

    Parent
    If they broke the law (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by Mikeb302000 on Wed Apr 22