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Rumsfeld OK’d harsh treatment of suspects in U.S. war on terror
USA TODAY
June 23, 2004
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WA****NGTON -- In an extraordinary disclosure of classified material, the
Bush administration released 258 pages of internal documents Tuesday that
****tray harsh interrogation techniques -- including stripping terror
suspects and threatening them with dogs -- as a necessary response to
threats from al-Qaida terrorists.
The release of lists of interrogation techniques and other documents
previously kept secret even from U.S. allies was a bid by the
administration
to quiet harsh criticism over its handling of prisoners in the war on
terror
and the conflict in Iraq.
Though some of the memos argued that Bush had the right to approve
torture,
the administration said it had never done so, and pointed to techniques it
said fell far short of torture. In a separate press briefing Tuesday, the
Justice Department backed away from a memo written in 2002 that appeared
to
justify the use of torture in the war on terror. That memo argued that the
president’s wartime powers superseded anti-torture laws and treaties.
Bush made his most explicit comments yet about the issue Tuesday: "We do
not
condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order
torture,"
Bush said.
The documents reveal Bush, senior administration officials and
hard-pressed
commanders in the field grappling with the need to extract information
about
future terror attacks from suspects skilled at defeating many
interrogation
techniques. In a Feb. 7, 2002, finding, Bush said the Sept. 11 terror
attacks require "new thinking in the law of war."
Bush said al-Qaida members and their Taliban allies in Afghanistan were
not
covered by the protections of the Geneva Convention. But he ordered U.S.
armed forces to treat them "humanely" anyway, and to observe Geneva
Convention standards "to the extent appropriate and consistent with
military
necessity."
Just such a necessity arose months later when the first anniversary of
Sept.
11 brought new fears of terror attack. Intelligence officers at the U.S.
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, told their superiors that Mohamed
al-Kahtani, believed to be the would-be 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11
plot,
was withholding information about new attacks, Daniel Dell’Orto, the
Pentagon’s deputy general counsel told re****ters at a White House briefing
Tuesday.
The alert set in motion a review that culminated with a Nov. 27, 2002,
"action memo" in which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved
interrogation techniques that included "removal of clothing" and "inducing
stress by use of detainee’s fears (e.g. dogs)."
Eventually, after military officers raised moral and legal concerns about
the techniques and the Pentagon conducted an internal review, Rumsfeld
issued revised rules for Guantanamo in April 2003 that omitted the
stripping
and use of dogs.
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Let the name calling begin!!! (its all you libs have)
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