Coming Into Focus: Rumsfeld OK'd Prisoner Program - AP, NewYorker

[buddy28]

Citing numerous Senior CIA officers and DoD Consultants, the May 15th online issue of the New Yorker detailed the conception, implementation and evolution of a Pentagon-approved physically coercive Iraqi interrogation policy that flagrantly breached governing Geneva Convention provisions - which only a few days earlier Donald Rumsfeld had explicitly assured the Senate Armed Services Committee detainees were protected under:


"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, The New Yorker reported Saturday..."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm..._pe/us_prison_abuse_rumsfeld&cid=542&ncid=716

and...

"According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq."
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact


Finally, Rumsfeld's confirmation of Geneva Convention protection extended to all Iraqi detainees offered at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing investigating relevant detainee abuses:

"RUMSFELD:...the president announced from the outset that everyone in Iraq who was a military person and was detained is a prisoner of war, and therefore the Geneva Conventions apply.

And second, the decision was made that the civilians or criminal elements that are detainees are also treated subject to the Geneva Convention...

LIEBERMAN: I appreciate the clarification, because I was not aware of that; that you would say that all those held in prison, including those who were abused here, had the rights of prisoners of war...

RUMSFELD: Absolutely.

LIEBERMAN: ... under the Geneva Convention.

RUMSFELD: Absolutely. That's true..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8575-2004May7_4.html



The New Yorkers investigative report noted the continued 'failure' of US Forces to preempt and quell Iraqi insurgents, largely prompted Rumsfeld and General Myers to personally approve the re-application of an existing counterterrorism Special Access Program (SAP) - whose coercive tactics were traditionally exempt from Geneva Convention Provisions - to the interrogation of Iraqi detainees:

"Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope of the SAP, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Gharib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation."
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact


"...In a separate interview, a Pentagon consultant, who spent much of his career directly involved with special-access programs, spread the blame. “The White House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it to Cambone,” he said. “This is Cambone’s deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program...”
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact


Further, Donald Rumsfelds' Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Dr. Cambone, whom tactical control of the SAP-run Iraqi interrogations was vested, authorized select Military Intelligence officials stationed at Abu Garib operate under SAP jurisdiction:

"Cambone then made another crucial decision, the former intelligence official told me: not only would he bring the sap’s rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap’sauspices. “So here are fundamentally good soldiers—military-intelligence guys—being told that no rules apply,” the former official, who has extensive knowledge of the special-access programs, added."

Cambones decision further substantiates General Tagubas’ key finding Iraqi detainee abuse endorsement was not restricted to just lower-ranking Military Police, but also higher ranking Military Intelligence and possible even CIA officials:

"The internal report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba found that reservist military police at the prison were urged by Army military officers and CIA agents to “set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses,” the New Yorker reports in its May 10 issue."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/03/iraq/main615133.shtml



It is now coming into focus these abuses were not the sole result of a small group of deviant MP's indulging in some isolated orgy of sadistic self-gratification.

But rather the result of tacit approval granted by top Pentagon commanders, led by Rumsfeld and Myers, who exposed Iraqi detainees to coercive and humiliating interrogation tactics that directly contravened Geneva Convention Provisions - which Rumsfeld himself admitted prisoners were granted protection under.


"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...

Mr. Chairman, I know you join me today in saying to the world, judge us by our actions..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8575-2004May7_4.html



How will the countries esteemed Armed Services be judged because of this?

How will America be judged?

 

[casualbb]

That's not just shit hitting the fan... that's a turbine engine chewing up a turd the size of condoleeza rice

 

[Forge]

Woah.

 

[WODIN]

Now would someone please fire his sorry ass!

 

[WODIN]

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact


The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

 

[Hangfire]

Only the naive and the hypocritical are shocked. I know those stories play right into the hands of the Bush-haters, but is there anybody here who really believes that interrogation consists of polite questioning? Is there anybody here who really believes that it should? If the choice is between lives wasted or kid-glove handling of prisoners, the choice is easy.

 

[buddy28]

Only the naive and the hypocritical are shocked.

Why is it naive to expect elected officials fulfill the laws they are sworn to uphold? Or should officials be empowered to dictate which laws apply to them and which laws don't?

but is there anybody here who really believes that interrogation consists of polite questioning? Is there anybody here who really believes that it should?

Nice straw man.

If abusive interrogation tactics directed at POW's were widely lauded by the Intel community, then why did the CIA balk at strong arming Iraqi detainees - many of whom were civilians with no direct links to the insurgence?

"By fall, according to the former intelligence official, the senior leadership of the C.I.A. had had enough. “They said, ‘No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan—pre-approved for operations against high-value terrorist targets—and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets’”—the sort of prisoners who populate the Iraqi jails."
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

If the choice is between lives wasted or kid-glove handling of prisoners, the choice is easy.

Then you become guilty of same tyrannical coercive tactics you claimed to rid Iraq of.

How will that effect Middle Eastern perception of America? How will that save American lives?

 

[Lao Tzu]

I dont get what was going on in Rumsfeld's mind. Someone was guaranteed to break that story sooner or later, tons of soldiers have been complaining for a year and it was only a matter of time before someone listened.

If we were doing this to insurgents i wouldn't mind but many of them are innocent bystanders.

 

[Hangfire]

Why is it naive to expect elected officials fulfill the laws they are sworn to uphold? Or should officials be empowered to dictate which laws apply to them and which laws don't?

It is naive to think that there is never anything more than harsh language used to obtain information from the enemy. We all want to be safe, but we don't want to know what goes on behind closed doors to keep us safe. I'm not outraged by any of the reports of aggressive interrogation techniques used by the U.S. military.

If abusive interrogation tactics directed at POW's were widely lauded by the Intel community, then why did the CIA balk at strong arming Iraqi detainees - many of whom were civilians with no direct links to the insurgence?

"By fall, according to the former intelligence official, the senior leadership of the C.I.A. had had enough. “They said, ‘No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan—pre-approved for operations against high-value terrorist targets—and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets’”—the sort of prisoners who populate the Iraqi jails."

Of course the intelligence community is not publicly embraciong aggressive techniques. That would be stupid. The CIA will interrogate the persons who they believe have useful information, whether it is an army general, a cab driver, or a nun. I can't buy an "expose" that is based entirely on annonymous sources.

How will that effect Middle Eastern perception of America? How will that save American lives?

How could the perception of America be any worse than it was before? Not an issue.

 

[buddy28]

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