Green light for Iraqi prison abuse came right from the top

[BrklynLiberal]

"soldiers were told to "beat the fuck out of" prisoners. "

Classified documents show the former US military chief in Iraq personally sanctioned measures banned by the Geneva Conventions. Andrew Buncombe reports from Washington
03 April 2005

America's leading civil liberties group has demanded an investigation into the former US military commander Iraq after a formerly classified memo revealed that he personally sanctioned a series of coercive interrogation techniques outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. The group claims that his directives were directly linked to the sort of abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib.
Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal that Lt General Ricardo Sanchez authorised techniques such as the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, stress positions and disorientation. In the documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Gen Sanchez admits that some of the techniques would not be tolerated by other countries.

<snip>

"We think that the techniques authorised by Gen Sanchez were certainly responsible for putting into play the sort of abuses that we saw at Abu Ghraib," Amirit Singh, an ACLU lawyer, told The Independent on Sunday. "And it does not just stop with Sanchez. It goes to Rumsfeld, who wrote memos authorising these sorts of techniques at Guantanamo Bay."
In the September 2003 memo, Gen Sanchez authorised the use of 29 techniques for interrogating prisoners being held by the US. These included stress positions, "yelling, loud music and light control" as well as the use of muzzled military dogs in order to "exploit Arab fear of dogs". Some of the most notorious photographs to emerge from the Abu Ghraib scandal showed hand-cuffed, naked Iraqi prisoners cowering from snarling dogs.

<snip>

When he appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2004, Gen Sanchez flatly refused approving such techniques in Iraq, and said that a news article reporting otherwise was false. "I never approved any of those measures to be used ... at any time in the last year," he said under oath. The ACLU accuses him of committing perjury and has asked the Attorney General to investigate. In a letter to Alberto Gonzales, the group said: "Gen Sanchez's testimony, given under oath before the Senate Armed Services committee, is utterly inconsistent with the written record, and deserves serious investigation. This clear breach of the public's trust is also further proof that the American people deserve the appointment of an independent special counsel by the Attorney General."

<snip>

The Pentagon originally refused to release the memo on national security grounds, but passed it to the ACLU after the group challenged it in court. Mr Rumsfeld last week dismissed suggestions that it had been withheld to save the Pentagon's embarrassment.
But the ACLU said the reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents in which the memo was contained was "evident in the contents", which included reports of brutal beatings and sworn statements that soldiers were told to "beat the fuck out of" prisoners.

more...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=625909

[candy331]

1. Oh my! You don't say.

"It goes to Rumsfeld, who wrote memos authorising these sorts of techniques at Guantanamo Bay."

[peacebird]

2. Heaven forfend! I'm SHOCKED. Shocked, I tell you...

Whoever could have imagined?

:sarcasm:

Seriously - when's the war crimes tribunal?

[indepat]

3. I too am shocked, utterly and absolutely shocked, to realize troops

most often do what they are told to do or do what they know or perceive their commanders want them to do. How novel and shocking. :sarcasm: