| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
07 May 2004 08:54:42 PM |
| Object: |
What did Bush know and when did he know it? |
Asked when he told President George W. Bush of the torture and deaths,
the defence secretary said he could not remember.
Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said it was
early February or late January.
The White House said earlier that Mr Bush had not seen the pictures
until they were in the media.
From The Financial Times, 5/8/04:
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1083180361667
Rumsfeld stays vague on what and when
By Guy Dinmore and James Harding in Washington
The Watergate question - "What did the president know and when did he
know it?" - is once again the refrain in Washington.
The questioning of Donald Rumsfeld yesterday was not only an
investigation into the abuses inside Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad,
but an attempt to unravel the timeline of disclosures up the chain of
command within the administration.
Again and again, members of Congress demanded to know why they and the
world only found out through ghastly pictures broadcast by the CBS
network on April 28.
Meanwhile, the defence secretary knew of the abuses at least as early
as mid-January, had been told of the pictures at the time, but did not
see them until May 6.
Mr Rumsfeld's answers about what he knew and when he informed the
president were strikingly vague.
Asked when he first heard about pictures of US soldiers humiliating
naked Iraqi prisoners, he told the House armed services committee:
"I don't remember exactly when someone said, rumours, that there were
pictures. . . . That was between January 16 and the CBS show."
In bits, the explanation emerged the pictures were on a computer disk
that was somehow unavailable as it was caught up in the criminal
investigation process, and then leaked to the press.
Mr Rumsfeld said he still had not seen the videos that were said to
also exist.
He was also clearly uncomfortable admitting that he recalled "no
indication" of knowing about torture at Abu Ghraib before Joseph
Darby, a low-ranking soldier, spilled the beans on his colleagues on
January 13.
"I wish we had known more sooner and been able to tell you more
sooner, but we didn't," Mr Rumsfeld said.
Senator Robert Byrd persisted:
"I do not recall hearing a peep out of either of you, secretary
Rumsfeld or General Myers, about this before CBS broke silence."
The senator also demanded to know why a report on abuse by military
intelligence was "left to languish on the shelf at the Pentagon unread
by the top leadership until the media revealed it to the world?"
Mr Rumsfeld had no answer, except to say that a brief press statement
on January 16 did reveal that allegations of torture were being
investigated.
"What was not known is that a classified report with photographs would
be given to the press before it arrived in the Pentagon," he said.
Asked when he told President George W. Bush of the torture and deaths,
the defence secretary said he could not remember.
Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said it was
early February or late January.
The White House said earlier that Mr Bush had not seen the pictures
until they were in the media.
________________________________________________________
What did Bush know and when did he know it?
Harry
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