U.S. admits to secret interrogation site in Baghdad

[wubbathompson]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As hundreds of detainees were released from Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, a senior U.S. official Friday confirmed that a previously undisclosed U.S. military interrogation facility at or near Baghdad International Airport does indeed exist.

The official said the site was run in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and all detainees were afforded their rights under that international document.

"That's not to say somebody didn't get their head dunked in the water," he said.

U.S. Special Forces participated in running the site, he added.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/21/iraq.main/index.html

[htuttle]

1. Wha?

The official said the site was run in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and all detainees were afforded their rights under that international document.

"That's not to say somebody didn't get their head dunked in the water," he said.

Is this Senior US Official under the impression that dunking prisoners heads underwater is ALLOWED under the Geneva Convention?

:wtf:

[lumpy]

32. Heads dunked in toilets, no doubt..

x

[saigon68]

34. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY----THEY WILL KILL YOU

Journalists of the al-Jazeera TV channel carry the coffin of their killed colleague Rashid Hamid Wali through the streets of Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites), Friday, May 21, 2004. The Arab satellite station said one of its employees had been shot in his hotel in the southern city of Karbala late Thursday, during a battle between US forces and militiamen loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

[lumpy]

36. Rashid Wali made the mistake

of observing, from his hotel window, US retaliatory US strikes in Karbala. Shot in the head.

[Journeyman]

2. I musta missed that clause in the Conventions. . .

probably under the subhead "Acceptable Party Games": bobbing for french fries, spin the handgrenade, 'witch dunk' in the icewater.

[wtmusic]

9. G3 prohibits any form of coercion. Period.

These fucking idiots know not of which they speak.

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. Let me guess, the walls are yellow and they have white chairs?

Yet another possible location for Berg's killing.

Click here for stunning, insulting, shocking, funny buttons, magnets and stickers

[IndianaGreen]

20. And the prisoners wear orange jump suits??????

I wonder...

[lumpy]

33. Plus a supply of 'insurgent' party

costumes.

[Spazito]

4. The walls of the bush cabal are crumbling, one revelation at a time...

day by day, article by article, photo by photo.

[maddezmom]

5. earlier link...facility called 'BIF"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=570019&mesg_id=570019
Is this one and the same? or is there another?

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maddezmom]

10. wonder how many more they will have to admit to in the next days?

thanks for posting :)

[Spazito]

7. That's the one, they would neither admit nor deny it's existance...

yesterday. They have been forced to admit it's existance which tells me someone has documents or photos.

[mom cat]

8. Since when is dunking in water NOT torture?

Anyone remember dunking of "Witches". Have the inquisitors been reincarnated?

[maddezmom]

12. link- it's not torture if we pretend they were never in US custody

Justice Memos Explained How to Skip Prisoner Rights
~~~~
Another memorandum from the Justice Department advises officials to create a situation in which they could plausibly claim that abused prisoners were never in United States custody.

That memorandum, whose existence was acknowledged by two former officials, noted that it would be hard to ward off an allegation of torture or inhuman treatment if the prisoner had been transferred to another country from American custody. International law prohibits the "rendition" of prisoners to countries if the possibility of mistreatment can be anticipated.

The former officials said that memorandum was explicit in advising that if someone were involved in interrogating detainees in a manner that could cross the line into torture or other prohibited treatment, that person could claim immunity only if he or she contended that the prisoner was never in United States custody.

~~~~~~~

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=571318&mesg_id=571318

[mom cat]

25. Is that why the US doesn't admit Berg was in US custody?

[remfan]

11. Hardly the time for senior US officials to be flippant n/t

[Tight_rope]

13. Lies! Lies Lies! More Lies!

Is anyone counting. I believe we now have enough evidence to Court Marshall Kimmet....prosecute Rummy and Chaney for war crimes and Impeach that Son of a Bush.

:mad:

[NNN0LHI]

14. Kimmitt denied the existence of this facility this morning in Iraq n/t

[Just Me]

15. Wow. Aftermath. Thanks, "wubbathompson", for the post.

The neocons cannot put their fingers in the holes that they created in this dam.

Wow.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Disturbed]

19. Gestapo

Kemmit is a lying, sociopath, Gestapo war criminal.

[floda]

17. I guess the red cross did not go there

then. No family visiting either. The prison is secret and so are the inmates.

[monobrau]

18. cute

I wonder how long before "head ducked in water" becomes electrodes to genitals and nightstick rape.

[lumpy]

35. You know damn well Rumsfeld's

list of Geneva does and don't has been applied.

[crossroads]

21. Another fraternity site?

They are so "upfront" about this stuff! BWWWAAAAAHHAAAAAAHAAAAHAAHAHA
:eyes:

[Mike Niendorff]

22. translation:

"head dunked in water" == "tied up, head forced underwater, brought to the point of near-drowning"

In short: interrogation by torture.

Furthermore, the fact that the speaker is trying to preemptively minimize people's perceptions of this -- by referencing it in flippant, almost prankish terms -- speaks to both his knowledge of the situation and his fear of the repurcussions of that will follow when it comes out.


MDN

[Tinoire]

23. Amazing... In less than 24 hours we went from BIF, a site operated by

Amazing... In less than 24 hours we went from BIF, a Top Secret site operated by Delta Forces, under investigation for the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons

to


a site where it's "not clear if this facility is still being used" but still run "in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and all detainees were afforded their rights where US Special Forces "participate" in running the site.

====

If it's "not clear" of it's being used, how the hell are they so assured that everything is wine & roses inside and that the Geneva Convention is respected? And what happened to the mention of Delta Forces? the hand-picked, trained assassins? The elite cream of the crop?

Oh boy, Carlyle better start investing in spinning wheels and flax because Bush Inc. is going to go through an awful lot of those!


====
BAGHDAD - With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon Inspector General investigation into abuse against detainees.

The target is a top secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos.

According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists – but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards.

These sources say the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug them, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation.

<snip>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5024068 /

[Cooley Hurd]

24. According to CNN...

The buildings in the center are the interrogation center...

Just an FYI...

[maddezmom]

30. is that whole thing the prison?

[Cooley Hurd]

31. I'm not sure, but this is the facility that CNN identified...

...as the BIF. (photo courtesy of keyhole.com)

[MasonJar]

26. Secret means that no oversight by humanitarian orgs or any etc.

have occurred. Imagine what is happening to those poor prisoners, 90% of whom are innocent.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

27. This is probably why the Bushies wanted Haiti

fly those to be tortured over there...a secret "in the back, in the corner, in the dark" kinda place, and not bound by any cumbersome laws on prisoner abuse.

[daleo]

28. I wonder if Bush's Thanksgiving trip included a trip there

The thing about having a torture center at the airport, is that your VIPs can have a look without endangering themselves by actually going into the country.

[lebkuchen]

29. Would explain why army's top medical officers were denied entrance to Iraq

at Turkey time. The original excuse was because Bush was there. So what?