abuse scandal
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With the prison abuse reports having recently come out, and now
retired generals and RI Senator Jack Reed calling for an independant
investigation... here's some excerpts from various news reports
published over the last few months, many tending to support the idea
that the abuses were more than simply 'a few bad apples'... for anyone
who's interested.
The excerpts from each different news article is separated by a dash.
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May 18, 2004 ABCNEWS. ..."There's definitely a cover-up," the
witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said....
Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret computer
network used by military intelligence at the prison.
He said the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they
directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners.
"Anything [the MPs] were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take
those commands from the interrogators," he said.

Top military officials have claimed the abuse seen in the photos at
Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs, but Provance says the sexual
humiliation of prisoners began as a technique ordered by the
interrogators from military intelligence....
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Lawyers from the military's Judge Advocate General's Corps, or JAG,
had been urging Pentagon officials to ensure protection for prisoners
for two years before the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came to
light. But, the JAG lawyers say, political appointees at the Pentagon
ignored their warnings, setting the stage for the Abu Ghraib abuses

Under condition of anonymity, one current JAG officer told ABCNEWS
that for the last two years, "the military lawyers have always been
the ones speaking for greater protections and recognitions of rights
for detainees - and the political appointees have argued for no
recognition of rights and careful control of the process. That's an
argument, to date, that the political appointees have won."
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6/8 President Bush, as commander-in-chief, is not restricted by U.S.
and international laws barring torture, Bush administration lawyers
stated in a March 2003 memorandum. The memo was written by a "working
group" of civilian and military lawyers named by the Pentagon's
general counsel.

The 56-page memo to Rumsfeld cited the president's "complete authority
over the conduct of war," overriding international treaties such as a
global treaty banning torture, the Geneva Conventions and a U.S.
federal law against torture.

"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority
to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture)
must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken
pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority," stated the memo,
obtained by Reuters.

These assertions, along with others made in a 2002 Justice Department
memo, drew condemnation by human rights activists...

...A congressional hearing, at which Attoney General John Ashcroft
refused to release the documents...
...The administration says it observes the Geneva Conventions in Iraq
and other situations where the treaty applies and that it treats
terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in a way consistent
with the spirit of the accords.

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6/9 Two U.S. defense contractors were accused in a class-action suit
of conspiring with U.S. officials to torture and abuse prisoners in
Iraq. 9 Iraq citizens were named as plantiffs. The suit alleged
San-Diego based Titan Corp. and CACI International of Arlington,
Virginia, engaged in "heinous and illegal acts" to show they could get
intelligence from detainees, and thereby obtain more government
contracts. Employees from both firms, which provided interrogation and
translation services in Iraq, were named in a report on Iraqi prison
abuse by U.S. Army investigator Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
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...In Iraq, the most important prisoners are kept in a huge hangar
near the runway at Baghdad International Airport, say U.S. government
officials, counterterrorism experts and others. In Qatar, U.S. forces
have been ferrying some Iraqi prisoners to a remote jail on the
gigantic U.S. air base in the desert.

They are part of an elaborate CIA and military infrastructure whose
purpose is to hold suspected terrorists or insurgents for
interrogation and safekeeping while avoiding U.S. or international
court systems Some are even held by foreign governments at the
informal request of the US. some with documented records of torture...

...The CIA general counsel's office developed a new set of
interrogation rules of engagement after the Sept. 11 attacks. The
rules call for field operators to seek approval from Washington to use
"enhanced measures" -- methods that could cause temporary physical or
mental pain.

This transnational transfer of people is a key tactic in U.S.
counterterrorism operations...
...In the past year, an unusual country joined that list of
destinations: Syria. a country the U.S. government has long condemned
as a chronic human rights abuser. Maher, a Syrian-born Canadian
citizen, was detained at JFK International Airport in New York as he
was transferring to the final leg of his flight home to Canada. He
was flown to Jordan, interrogated and beaten by Jordanian authorities
who then turned him over to Syria, according to the lawsuit. Arar said
that for the 10 months he was in prison, he was beaten, tortured and
kept in a shallow grave. After much pressure from the Canadian
government and human rights activists, he was freed and has returned
to Canada.
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...A G.I. sustained a head injury while posing as an uncooperative
detainee during a training exercise at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
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At least five soldiers objected last fall to abuses they saw at the
Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. One demanded to be reassigned. Full
blown investigation began in January. Up the chain of command, the
noncommissioned officers who heard such complaints did little to stop
the mistreatment, according to Army records...
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...when several American POW's were captured near the beginning of the
invasion of Iraq [in March '03], ...Rumsfield said, "You know, under
the Geneva Convention, it's illegal to do things with prisoners of war
that are humiliating to those individuals."...

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6/11 Wash. Post, U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog
handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to
frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last
year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence
officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers
provided to military investigators.
...such use of dogs is an apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions
and the Army's field manual. The military intelligence officer in
charge of Abu Ghraib later told investigators that the use of
unmuzzled dogs in interrogation sessions was recommended by a two-star
general and that it was "okay."
...The sexual abuse happened weeks and even months before the dog
incidents...
Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who was in charge of military intelligence at
the prison, told both soldiers that the use of dogs in interrogations
had been approved, according to the statements.

...In Army memos regarding interrogation techniques at the prison, the
use of military working dogs was specifically allowed -- as long as
higher-ranking officers approved the measures. There is no explanation
in the memo of what the dogs would be allowed to do. The Army
previously has said that the commanding general of U.S. troops in Iraq
-- Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez -- would have had to approve the use of
dogs.
Army's field manual prohibits "acts of violence or intimidation" by
American soldiers.
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...Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of
CIA, ordered military officials to hold a man suspected of being a
senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center in Iraq last
November but not list him on the prison's rolls, senior Pentagon and
intelligence officials said Wednesday. This prisoner and other "ghost
detainees" were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee
of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment and conditions,
officials said."...
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According to reports Rumsfeld in late 2002 authorized interrogation
procedures including "fear of dogs" and "stress positions." Lawyers
for Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers worried that some
interrogation tactics placed Myers in legal jeopardy
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6/18, ..."I did not go there to pressure them to do anything they
weren't doing." White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend
said. ... An Army intelligence officer claims the abuses at Abu Ghraib
took place after interrogators came under pressure from Bush admin
officials. In a sworn statement to Army investigators obtained by USA
Today, Army Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the top military intelligence
officer at Abu Ghraib when abuses occurred, said he was under intense
pressure from the White House, Pentagon and CIA last fall to get
better information from detainees. Jordan's statement said he was
reminded of the need to improve intelligence "many, many, many times"
and the pressure included a visit to the prison by an aide to White
House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, the paper reported.

He also said he had worked out a procedure with CIA interrogators to
hide five or six inmates from Red Cross inspectors in October, the
newspaper reported in Friday editions...
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(from 8/24) ...However, the Schlesinger panel said 300 cases of abuse
were being investigated, many beyond Abu Ghraib....
(This last bit raises the question of why, in the press, Abu Ghraib
continues to be THE STORY, when it would more correctly be presented
as merely the poster-child of prison abuses. So long as Abu Ghraib
remains the story the scenario of "a few bad apples" will continue to
make sense to average news watchers. - End of commentary.)
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Also heard just today that 'ghost detainees' numbered in the dozens,
perhaps nearly 100, previously the number was said to be only 8 or so.