Senate Probe Blames Top Bush Officials For Detainee Abuses

Senate probe blames top Bush officials for detainee abuses

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/57631.html

By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday singled out former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, and other top aides for approving inhumane interrogation techniques that were used on detainees at Guantanamo, sites in Afghanistan and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

U.S. abuses against detainees led to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, according to testimony by the former general counsel of the Navy, Alberto Mora. "There are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively, the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo," Mora testified.

The long awaited report said the techniques used were "based, in part, on Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to elicit false confessions" from captured American prisoners and adapted for use against U.S. detainees.

Instructors from the Pentagon agency that trains soldiers in resisting such treatment were sent to Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq to assist in adopting of the methods, it said.

The abusive techniques — water boarding, nudity, stress positions, exploiting phobias, and treating detainees "like animals" — were "at odds with the commitment to humane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody" and inconsistent with the goal of collecting accurate information, the report concluded.

It traced the abusive practices to President George W. Bush's written determination in February 2002 that the 1949 Geneva Conventions didn't apply to suspected al Qaida and Taliban detainees. Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and other Cabinet officers took part in meetings where specific interrogation techniques were discussed, the report said.

The report, which took 18 months to compile, said that Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay "was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." His approval of a memo from Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes "contributed to the use of abusive techniques," including using military dogs, forced nudity and stress positions in Afghanistan and Iraq, it said.

Myers' decision to cut short a legal and policy review of the techniques "undermined the military's review process," the report said. Haynes' effort to cut short the legal and policy review was "inappropriate and undermined the military's review process," it said.

Others criticized included:

Col. Randy Moulton, the commander of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which trains soldiers to resist abusive interrogations. It said Moulton, "who had no experience in detainee interrogations," had authorized instructors in the Army's "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" or SERE program to actively participate in interrogations using abusive tactics. This "was a serious failure in leadership that led to the abuse of detainees" in U.S. custody.

According to an executive summary of the report, the commander at Guantanamo, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who introduced the techniques, ignored warnings from Pentagon and FBI investigators that the techniques were "potentially unlawful" and that their use would strengthen detainee resistance. Miller, it said, also helped bring harsh interrogation methods to Iraq during visits in August and September 2003.

The report also charged Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq, with a "serious error in judgment" for approving the use of military working dogs and stress positions, which it said were "a direct cause of detainee abuse in Iraq."

It's not clear whether the committee's report and recommendations will lead to legal proceedings against any of the officials named or whether the incoming Obama administration will pursue allegations of possible crimes committed during the administration's war on terror.

Senate report: Rumsfeld to blame for detainee abuse

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Senate..._for_1211.html

12/12/2008

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration "conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees," claims a Senate Armed Services Committee report issued Thursday.

According to the committee, prisoners were tortured in the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib, the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other US military installations. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) were responsible for the content of the Senate's findings.

The report determined that placing the blame on "a few bad apples," as Bush administration officials attempted to do in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, is inappropriate.

The policies were adopted after government assessments determined waterboarding and other torture techniques were "100 percent effective" at breaking the wills of US officers who underwent the military's Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape program.

The report finally claims that Rumsfeld's torture policies "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies and compromised our moral authority."

Leading lawyer calls for Rumsfeld prosecution

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Leadin...tion_1212.html

John Byrne
Published: Friday December 12, 2008

The President of the legal nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, has resumed calls for a formal prosecution of ex-Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld following revelations by a Congressional report that Rumsfeld was to blame for the Pentagon's policy allowing torture.

In a statement, he said that the report reaffirms findings he spelled out in his book published this September, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution. Ratner's group was the first to volunteer an attorney to meet with one of the CIA's "ghost detainees."

"The Committee’s report reaffirms that high-ranking administration officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, were directly responsible for the abuse and torture of detainees in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan," Ratner said in a statement to RAW STORY. "The brutal interrogation techniques used on our clients and many others were carried out despite well-documented opposition from military lawyers and others concerned by the illegality and ineffectiveness of the techniques."

"There is no question that Rumsfeld and the others must be held individually accountable, and it must be before a court of law. There must be consequences for their illegal activities," he said. "A special prosecutor should be appointed. To do otherwise is to send a message of impunity that will only embolden future administrations to again engage in serious violations of the law."

A Senate Armed Services report issued Thursday asserted that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration "conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees."

According to the committee, prisoners were tortured in the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib, the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other US military installations. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) were responsible for the content of the Senate's findings.

The report determined that placing the blame on "a few bad apples," as Bush administration officials attempted to do in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, is inappropriate.

The policies were adopted after government assessments determined waterboarding and other torture techniques were "100 percent effective" at breaking the wills of US officers who underwent the military's Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape program.

Ratner says Rumsfeld's being singled out is no coincidence.

"After reviewing thousands of documents, this bi-partisan committee confirmed that senior officials are directly responsible for ushering in one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history and the loss of our moral authority in the eyes of the world," Ratner said. "The report re-asserts that the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody was the result of deliberate decisions made at the top, with explicit approval given by Rumsfeld and other officials for inhumane treatment of prisoners, and was not merely the work of a few bad apples way down the chain of command."

He addds that report notes that techniques used by the Pentagon were "based on Communist Chinese methods employed to obtain false confessions for propaganda. Professional interrogators agree that the fastest way to get the best information from a prisoner is through building trust and rapport, not torture. The recognition of the illegality and unreliability of this kind of evidence is critical in the cases of some of our clients, like Mohammed al Qahtani. Time and time again, we have seen that torture simply does not work, and only undermines our commitment to basic human rights."

"We hope the courts and the next administration take notice and take action," he concludes.

Iraqi group files 200 lawsuits against Rumsfeld, US security firms for torture

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Iraqi_...inst_1215.html

Agence France-Presse
Published: Monday December 15, 2008

AMMAN, Dec 15, 2008 (AFP) - A Jordan-based Iraqi rights group said on Monday it has filed 200 lawsuits against US former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and American security firms for their alleged role in torturing Iraqis.

Ali Qeisi, head of the group the "Society of Victims of the US Occupation in Iraq," said the cases, relating to torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners, have been recently filed in federal courts in Virginia, Michigan and Maryland.

"Around 30 lawsuits have been accepted so far," Qeisi told AFP. The others are still under consideration.

"The torture was systemic, and those responsible for it should be punished and the victims should be compensated," he said.

Qeisi said he himself was tortured by US troops in Iraq during a six-month detention, though he refused to elaborate.

Last year, French, US and German rights groups filed suits for torture against Rumsfeld, who was accused by a US bipartisan Senate report last Thursday of being to blame for abuse of detainees in US custody.

"Rumsfeld's authorisation of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there" and "influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques... in Afghanistan and Iraq," the report concluded.

In a high-profile case involving private security guards, five Blackwater guards were last week charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others with gunfire and grenades in September 2007.

A sixth guard has pleaded guilty to charges of voluntary manslaughter and attempt to commit manslaughter.