US Backs Down Over
Immunity For Soldiers
Outrage As Documents Reveal Approved
Interrogation Techniques
By Rupert Cornwell
The Independent - UK
6-24-4
WASHINGTON -- The US bowed yesterday to international outrage over
prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan by abandoning its bid to secure
a United Nations exemption for its soldiers from prosecution by the
new International Criminal Court (ICC).
The about-turn at the UN came less than 24 hours after the White House
released secret internal documents on the treatment of enemy prisoners
- again in an attempt to dispel suggestions that it condoned the abuse
at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
The decision not to seek a new resolution exempting US personnel from
overseas prosecution is an astonishing climbdown for an administration
that had vowed to have no truck with the ICC, and had previously
threatened to veto all UN peacekeeping missions to get its way.
But opposition on the 15-member Security Council was overwhelming,
especially after Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, declared last
week that a resolution sent "an unfortunate signal at any time - but
particularly at this time".
The two moves underline how, despite the punishment being meted out to
the Abu Ghraib guards involved in the abuse, the scandal continues to
damage the Bush administration.
Documents released in Washington set out harsh interrogation
techniques for terrorist and enemy prisoners but - the White House
claims - make clear that outright torture has never been permitted.The
documents contain elaborate lists of permissible, relatively innocuous
sounding, methods of interrogation. But they also reveal that harsher
techniques, including stripping prisoners, placing them in hoods and
using dogs to terrify them, were approved for several months, before
apparently being revoked in April 2003.
In a memo five months after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on
the US, Mr Bush declared that "new thinking into the law of war" was
needed, and that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qa'ida
prisoners in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
But Mr Bush instructed that prisoners be treated "humanely," and in
accordance with the conventions "to the extent appropriate and
consistent with military neccessity". Bush/Cheney campaign managers
hope that the unprecedented release of secret material will draw a
line under the controversy.
But last night Democrats signalled they had no intention of dropping
the issue. Nor do the disclosures answer the underlying question of
whether the administration tacitly condoned tougher techniques that
amounted to torture.
The insouciant mood at the Pentagon is captured in a November 2002
"action memo" in which Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary,
approved the stripping of prisoners and intimidation by dogs.
Authorising detainees to be kept in "stress positions" including
standing, for periods of up to four hours, Mr Rumsfeld scribbed at the
bottom of the page, "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing
limited to 4 hours? DR."
The release of the documents failed to allay the concerns of Democrats
on Capitol Hill. The White House had provided only a "a small subset"
of the relevant documents, Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the
Senate Judiciary Committee, declared, saying: "Much more remains held
back and hidden away from public view".
The documents, for instance, shed no light on the question that has
haunted the administration since the establishment in autumn 2001 of
the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - whether the administration
gave a tacit green light to torture to extract information.
Early last year, the commander at Guantanamo Bay was sent to Baghdad
with the mission of making interrogations of suspected Iraqi
insurgents at Abu Ghraib more "productive". Moreover some prominent US
lawyers, as well as government officials, have argued that in cases
where the information obtained could avert a planned attack, torture
was justifiable. Others contend that this "anything goes" approach
contributed to what happened at Abu Ghraib. Nor does the new material
make clear whether the official policy, as it evolved, applied to the
CIA.
As the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted in May, it emerged that senior al-
Qa'ida figures have been threatened with shooting or drowning under
secret rules approved by the agency and the Justice Department.
Some of the methods used are so harsh, counter-terrorism officials
told The New York Times last month, that the FBI has instructed its
agents to steer clear.
Whether or not the latest disclosures put an end to the controversy,
the damage to Mr Bush may be lasting. A president who has touted his
moral values now risks seeing these values discredited.
* British soldiers accused of mistreating Iraqi civilians could face
public courts martial in Iraq, Ministry of Defence officials said
yesterday.
Martin Howard, the director general of operational policy at the MoD,
said: "The courts martial would ideally be done near the scene of the
crime."
METHODS SANCTIONED BY PENTAGON Hooding Forcing detainees to adopt
'stress positions' for up to four hours Removal of clothing Inducing
stress by using dogs Forced shaving of detainees 20-hour
interrogations Isolation for up to 30 days
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=534639
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