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Title: New Army documents reveal US knew of and approved torture before Abu Ghraib scandal
Source:
RAW STORY
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/N ... ments_reveal_US_knew_0502.html
Published: May 2, 2006
Author: RAW STORY
Post Date: 2006-05-02 18:28:03 by Zipporah
Keywords: None
Views: 73
Comments: 9
New Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union today reveal that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered interrogators to "go to the outer limits" to get information from detainees. The documents also show that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. "When our leaders allow and even encourage abuse at the 'outer limits', America suffers," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "A nation that works to bring freedom and liberty to other parts of the world shouldn't stomach brutality and inhumanity within its ranks. This abuse of power was engineered and accepted at the highest levels of our government." Among the documents released today by the ACLU is a May 19, 2004 Defense Intelligence Agency document implicating Sanchez in potentially abusive interrogation techniques. In the document, an officer in charge of a team of interrogators stated that there was a 35-page order spelling out the rules of engagement that interrogators were supposed to follow, and that they were encouraged to "go to the outer limits to get information from the detainees by people who wanted the information." When asked to whom the officer was referring, the officer answered "LTG Sanchez." The officer stated that the expectation coming from "Headquarters" was to break the detainees. The ACLU also released an Information Paper entitled "Allegations of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan" dated April 2, 2004, two weeks before the world saw the pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The paper outlined the status of 62 investigations of detainee abuse and detainee deaths. Cases include assaults, punching, kicking and beatings, mock executions, sexual assault of a female detainee, threatening to kill an Iraqi child to "send a message to other Iraqis," stripping detainees, beating them and shocking them with a blasting device, throwing rocks at handcuffed Iraqi children, choking detainees with knots of their scarves and interrogations at gunpoint. The ACLU said the document makes clear that while President Bush and other officials assured the world that what occurred at Abu Ghraib was the work of "a few bad apples," the government knew that abuse was happening in numerous facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 62 cases being investigated at the time, at least 26 involved detainee deaths. Some of the cases had already gone through a court-martial proceeding. The abuses went beyond Abu Ghraib, and touched Camp Cropper, Camp Bucca and other detention centers in Mosul, Samarra, Baghdad, Tikrit, as well as Orgun-E in Afghanistan. "These documents are further proof that the abuse of detainees was widespread and systemic, and not aberrational," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "We know that senior officials endorsed this abuse, but these officials have yet to be held accountable." Last week, the government authenticated that two videos released by the Palm Beach Post in March 2005 were videos that the government was withholding from the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act request. The videos are part of a set that has come to be known as the "Ramadi Madness" videos and were made by members of the West Palm Beach-based Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment. The two scenes the government authenticated are called "See Haj Run" and "Blood Clot." They depict scenes of urban battle and persons being captured and detained by U.S. forces. Among the more than 9,000 pages of Defense Department documents made public by the ACLU today are several investigations detailing cruel and degrading treatment and killings. The investigations include: Today's documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case. To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released detailing the torture and abuse of detainees. The ACLU recently launched a new powerful search engine for the public to access the documents at http://www.aclu.org/torturefoiasearch. The search engine allows people to uncover details about abuse that may not have been reported in the media, said the ACLU. The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Amrit Singh, Jameel Jaffer and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Arthur Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
BREAKING HARD -- FROM AN ACLU RELEASE TO RAW STORY. #
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#1. To: Zipporah (#0)
Interesting trivia: Down Mehico way, torture/brutality is not o.k. exactly, but viewed as sometimes useful/necessary. Undercover work, otoh, is viewed as unethical, as a form of entrapment. Conspiracy, in the American legal sense, doesn't really exist either.
The hassle is in the fact that the military manuals and regulations leave no doubt where the line is drawn. Those always refer to the "Geneva Conventions," as their limit. Offering a Lobster or Steak dinner for information is a far cry from what actually happened. It's apparent that few GIs know a thing about the 'limits,' as they apply to coercion or torture - contrary to the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Those are mandated to be taught. Then there's this Next-Generation Nazism, of the Bush Cabal.
When I was active duty at the Defense Language Institute (1969), there was quarterly training on the Geneva Conventions. Since I don't remember getting such training on Air Force bases, that was presumably because DLI was an Army post.
We know Gen. Miller in Guantanamo had weekly teleconferences with Rumsfeld on the treatment of detainees. I wonder if Gen. Sanchez in Iraz also had them.
May they rot in hell for the abuse of another human being. From the liar in chief on down.....lies, lies, and more lies. Coverups and abuse of power. And the sheeple continue to graze blissfully on DU'd pastures!
Like all 3rd world countries.. corruption is the name of the game.. wait a minute.. I thought we were a 1st world country?? ;P
"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." Frederick Douglass
It's to the point ..that they've chosen their 'pasture' let them graze on it..
"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." Frederick Douglass
but THEN rules and laws don't apply to this Next Generation Nazism gang, do they?
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
As yesterday's "Uno de Mayo" boycott implies, the current 'laws' are strictly "decrees." Senor Gonzales ruled, with his silence - contrary to the provisions of the Patriot Act. Watch what happens with the next round of war protests, in contrast.
Ricardo Sanchez
"Both the loss of the will to define and defend one’s native soil and the loss of the desire to procreate send an alluring signal to the teeming favellas and kazbahs: Come, for no Western nation has the guts to shed blood - alien or its own - in the name of its own survival."
-- Srdja Trifkovic
#2. To: Zipporah, Christine, robin, Zoroaster, BTP Holdings, Arator, Bayonne, Brian S, A K A Stone, Steppenwolf, Bub, mugwort, bluegrass, Bill D Berger, FormerLurker, Uncle Bill, Dakmar, Flintlock, Neil McIver, tom007, aristeides, Burkeman1, Diana, (#0)
#3. To: SKYDRIFTER (#2)
#4. To: Zipporah (#0)
#5. To: Zipporah (#0)
#6. To: Tauzero (#1)
Interesting trivia: Down Mehico way, torture/brutality is not o.k. exactly, but viewed as sometimes useful/necessary. Undercover work, otoh, is viewed as unethical, as a form of entrapment. Conspiracy, in the American legal sense, doesn't really exist either.
#7. To: rowdee (#5)
May they rot in hell for the abuse of another human being. From the liar in chief on down.....lies, lies, and more lies. Coverups and abuse of power. And the sheeple continue to graze blissfully on DU'd pastures!
#8. To: SKYDRIFTER (#2)
Those are mandated to be taught.
#9. To: Christine, Zipporah, robin, Zoroaster, BTP Holdings, Arator, Bayonne, Brian S, A K A Stone, Steppenwolf, Bub, mugwort, bluegrass, Bill D Berger, FormerLurker, Uncle Bill, Dakmar, Flintlock, Neil McIver, tom007, aristeides, Burkeman1, Diana, All (#8)
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