Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Poll: 86% Want Universal Coverage; 79% Want Government Option
Poll: 86% Want Universal Coverage; 79% Want Government Option
Jon Ponder | Aug. 26, 2009
Despite the carefully contrived optics — the cell-phone videos of deranged Tea-Baggers, Birthers and Deathers disrupting town hall meetings; the armed “right wing terrorists” posing menacingly outside the meeting halls; and signs depicting Pres. Obama as Hitler — and in spite of Republican propaganda about death panels and the rest, a new poll finds that huge majorities of American voters of all ages* remain solidly behind the Democrats’ two primary goals for health-insurance reform: insuring everyone and offering the public access to the same coverage available to elected officials, federal employees, the military and veterans:
POLL DATA
• Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates PDF
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans support a federal health insurance plan for those who can’t afford or can’t get private insurance, but only 37 percent define “public option” correctly, a new national poll found.
The majority of people polled — 86 percent — say insurance should be available to everyone regardless of health history.
And:
…79 percent say they believe a federal government health insurance option should be available for people to buy.
* Update: To be clear, the survey was paid for by AARP but the survey group of 1,000 Democratic, Republican and independent voters was not limited to AARP members. According to this pdf, the age range of those polled was 61 percent 49 years old and younger, and 39 percent 50 years old and older.
On the downside, the poll, which was sponsored by the AARP and endorsed by Charlie Cook, whose reputation for non-partisanship is unchallenged — read: he leans to the right — found that about a quarter of people confuse the “public option” with single-payer national health plans like those offered by every leading democracy but the United States.
Republicans have ginned up their base to the point that extremists are ready to go to war — to soak the roots of the tree of liberty with the blood of government officials and themselves — in order to preserve trillions of dollars in profits for health plans.
It is likely that most of those who are confused about reform plans are Fox News watchers. A poll released last week found that about three-quarters of Fox watchers believed Republican disinformation and lies about health-insurance reform — including 72 percent who believed illegal aliens would be covered, 79 percent who were convinced that reforms are a government takeover, 69 percent who were sure abortions were covered and a whopping 75 percent who believe in fictitious “death panels” that would order the euthanizing of the elderly and infirm.
Other findings in the AARP poll include:
• More than half of those polled want health insurance reform, but 64 percent don’t want to pay more taxes to expand health coverage to the uninsured.
• Among those with health insurance, 74 percent say they are not willing to pay higher premiums.
• Almost three-quarters of people polled believe employers who don’t provide health insurance should be required to make a contribution to a fund to help uninsured employees purchase their own plan.
• Almost 70 percent of those polled believe in looking for savings in Medicare to pay for health care reform.
In the bigger picture, these poll results illustrate that the Republicans and their masters in the health-insurance lobby have played their hands masterfully — albeit dangerously, in that they have allowed and even encouraged violence to charge the atmosphere of the debate.
There is, of course, a bizarre aspect to the GOP strategy. They have ginned up the anger in their base to the point that extremists are ready to go to war — to soak the roots of the tree of liberty with the blood of government officials and themselves — in order to preserve trillions of dollars in profits for health plans.
Democrats still have a short window of time after the recess to reframe the debate, and while these results are encouraging, time is not on the side of reform.
Jon Ponder | Aug. 26, 2009
Despite the carefully contrived optics — the cell-phone videos of deranged Tea-Baggers, Birthers and Deathers disrupting town hall meetings; the armed “right wing terrorists” posing menacingly outside the meeting halls; and signs depicting Pres. Obama as Hitler — and in spite of Republican propaganda about death panels and the rest, a new poll finds that huge majorities of American voters of all ages* remain solidly behind the Democrats’ two primary goals for health-insurance reform: insuring everyone and offering the public access to the same coverage available to elected officials, federal employees, the military and veterans:
POLL DATA
• Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates PDF
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans support a federal health insurance plan for those who can’t afford or can’t get private insurance, but only 37 percent define “public option” correctly, a new national poll found.
The majority of people polled — 86 percent — say insurance should be available to everyone regardless of health history.
And:
…79 percent say they believe a federal government health insurance option should be available for people to buy.
* Update: To be clear, the survey was paid for by AARP but the survey group of 1,000 Democratic, Republican and independent voters was not limited to AARP members. According to this pdf, the age range of those polled was 61 percent 49 years old and younger, and 39 percent 50 years old and older.
On the downside, the poll, which was sponsored by the AARP and endorsed by Charlie Cook, whose reputation for non-partisanship is unchallenged — read: he leans to the right — found that about a quarter of people confuse the “public option” with single-payer national health plans like those offered by every leading democracy but the United States.
Republicans have ginned up their base to the point that extremists are ready to go to war — to soak the roots of the tree of liberty with the blood of government officials and themselves — in order to preserve trillions of dollars in profits for health plans.
It is likely that most of those who are confused about reform plans are Fox News watchers. A poll released last week found that about three-quarters of Fox watchers believed Republican disinformation and lies about health-insurance reform — including 72 percent who believed illegal aliens would be covered, 79 percent who were convinced that reforms are a government takeover, 69 percent who were sure abortions were covered and a whopping 75 percent who believe in fictitious “death panels” that would order the euthanizing of the elderly and infirm.
Other findings in the AARP poll include:
• More than half of those polled want health insurance reform, but 64 percent don’t want to pay more taxes to expand health coverage to the uninsured.
• Among those with health insurance, 74 percent say they are not willing to pay higher premiums.
• Almost three-quarters of people polled believe employers who don’t provide health insurance should be required to make a contribution to a fund to help uninsured employees purchase their own plan.
• Almost 70 percent of those polled believe in looking for savings in Medicare to pay for health care reform.
In the bigger picture, these poll results illustrate that the Republicans and their masters in the health-insurance lobby have played their hands masterfully — albeit dangerously, in that they have allowed and even encouraged violence to charge the atmosphere of the debate.
There is, of course, a bizarre aspect to the GOP strategy. They have ginned up the anger in their base to the point that extremists are ready to go to war — to soak the roots of the tree of liberty with the blood of government officials and themselves — in order to preserve trillions of dollars in profits for health plans.
Democrats still have a short window of time after the recess to reframe the debate, and while these results are encouraging, time is not on the side of reform.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Memo: ‘Yell,’ ‘Stand Up And Shout Out,’ ‘Rattle Him’
Just in case anyone missed this.
The Fringe GOP movement is taught how to be the problem
rather than the solution by the We Want President Obama
and America to fail Republicans...
Right-Wing Harassment Strategy Against Dems Detailed In Memo: ‘Yell,’ ‘Stand Up And Shout Out,’ ‘Rattle Him’
This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. For example, in one incident, right-wing protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety.
This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. Recently, right-wing demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. Missing from the reporting of these stories is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.
The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:
– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”
– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”
The memo above also resembles the talking points being distributed by FreedomWorks for pushing an anti-health reform assault all summer. Patients United, a front group maintained by Americans for Prosperity, is currently busing people all over the country for more protests against Democratic members. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the NRCC, has endorsed the strategy, telling the Politico the days of civil town halls are now “over.”
Meanwhile, AHIP, the trade group and lobbying juggernaut representing the health insurance industry is sending staffers to monitor town halls and other right-wing front groups are stepping up their ad campaign to smear reform efforts. The strategy for defeating reform — recently outlined by an influential lobbyist to the Hill newspaper as “delay” then “kill” — is becoming apparent. By delaying a vote until after the August recess, lobbyists are now seizing upon recess town halls as opportunities to ambush lawmakers and fool them into believing there is wide opposition to reform.
UPDATE Amy Menefee, communications director of Americans for Prosperity and its anti-health reform group Patients United, wrote to ThinkProgress regarding this post:
"Several blogs have picked up your post: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/recess-harassment-memo/ which mentions Americans for Prosperity's efforts next to your mention of Bob MacGuffie's memo about town hall meetings. Mr. MacGuffie's memo was his own work. I would appreciate your help in correcting the erroneous rumor people have passed around that this memo came from AFP. We have encouraged our members to attend town halls, ask questions and register their opinions about issues including health care -- as all citizens should do. We always promote civil dialogue and do not condone disruptive behavior."
As noted in the post, MacGuffie is a volunteer who actively posts and volunteers with the website Tea Party Patriots. A review of the sponsoring organizations reveals that both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are sponsors of the website as "Freedom Coalition" partners. A few months before joining Americans for Prosperity, Menefee herself worked for the medical device/pharmaceutical industry-funded "think-tank" called the Galen Institute.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/recess-harassment-memo/
The Fringe GOP movement is taught how to be the problem
rather than the solution by the We Want President Obama
and America to fail Republicans...
Right-Wing Harassment Strategy Against Dems Detailed In Memo: ‘Yell,’ ‘Stand Up And Shout Out,’ ‘Rattle Him’
This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. For example, in one incident, right-wing protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety.
This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. Recently, right-wing demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. Missing from the reporting of these stories is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.
The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:
– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”
– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”
The memo above also resembles the talking points being distributed by FreedomWorks for pushing an anti-health reform assault all summer. Patients United, a front group maintained by Americans for Prosperity, is currently busing people all over the country for more protests against Democratic members. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the NRCC, has endorsed the strategy, telling the Politico the days of civil town halls are now “over.”
Meanwhile, AHIP, the trade group and lobbying juggernaut representing the health insurance industry is sending staffers to monitor town halls and other right-wing front groups are stepping up their ad campaign to smear reform efforts. The strategy for defeating reform — recently outlined by an influential lobbyist to the Hill newspaper as “delay” then “kill” — is becoming apparent. By delaying a vote until after the August recess, lobbyists are now seizing upon recess town halls as opportunities to ambush lawmakers and fool them into believing there is wide opposition to reform.
UPDATE Amy Menefee, communications director of Americans for Prosperity and its anti-health reform group Patients United, wrote to ThinkProgress regarding this post:
"Several blogs have picked up your post: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/recess-harassment-memo/ which mentions Americans for Prosperity's efforts next to your mention of Bob MacGuffie's memo about town hall meetings. Mr. MacGuffie's memo was his own work. I would appreciate your help in correcting the erroneous rumor people have passed around that this memo came from AFP. We have encouraged our members to attend town halls, ask questions and register their opinions about issues including health care -- as all citizens should do. We always promote civil dialogue and do not condone disruptive behavior."
As noted in the post, MacGuffie is a volunteer who actively posts and volunteers with the website Tea Party Patriots. A review of the sponsoring organizations reveals that both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are sponsors of the website as "Freedom Coalition" partners. A few months before joining Americans for Prosperity, Menefee herself worked for the medical device/pharmaceutical industry-funded "think-tank" called the Galen Institute.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/recess-harassment-memo/
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Obama Birth Announcement
http://wikileaks.org/leak/obama-1961-birth-announcement-from-honolulu-advertiser.pdf
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Florida's Graham Backs Pelosi On CIA Briefings
All Things Considered, May 15, 2009 · House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused the CIA of misleading her in 2002 about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration.
Now her fellow Democrat, former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, is also disputing the CIA's version of the briefings that he received at the time. Graham was then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, while Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
How Many Briefings?
Graham is known as a meticulous note-taker and has maintained a daily log that fills hundreds of spiral notebooks, which now reside at the University of Florida Library of Florida History.
"Several weeks ago, when this issue started to bubble up, I called the CIA and asked for the dates in which I had been briefed," Graham tells Robert Siegel. "They gave me four: two in April of '02, two in September."
Graham says he consulted his logs "and determined that on three of the four dates there was no briefing held."
He adds: "On one date, Sept. 27, '02, there was a briefing held and, according to my notes, it was on the topic of detainee interrogation."
Graham says the CIA was initially reticent when he told the agency what he had found in his notes.
"They said, 'We will check and call back,'" Graham recalled. "When they finally did a few days later, they indicated that I was correct. Their information was in error. There was no briefing on the first three of four dates."
Graham says the agency offered no explanation regarding how it came up with the other dates.
'No Discussion Of Waterboarding'
The Sept. 27, 2002, briefing occurred about three weeks after the briefing in which the CIA says it told Pelosi about the use of waterboarding, a technique also described as simulated drowning. Graham, like Pelosi, says waterboarding was not mentioned during his briefing.
"There was no discussion of waterboarding, other excessive techniques or that they had applied these against any particular detainees," he says.
Pelosi has charged that she was misled by the CIA. Graham puts it another way.
"Nothing that I can recall being said surprised me or has subsequently proven to be incorrect," he says. "It was a matter of omission, not commission."
Graham says he is not surprised at the CIA's claims, noting that within a week of its Sept. 27 briefing, the agency presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee its National Intelligence Estimate of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was later shown to be flawed.
"I'm not impressed with the credibility of the CIA as it was being led in 2002," Graham says. "I think it had become an agency that instead of following the admonition to speak truth to power, it was trying to speak what it thought power wanted to hear."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104196363
Now her fellow Democrat, former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, is also disputing the CIA's version of the briefings that he received at the time. Graham was then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, while Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
How Many Briefings?
Graham is known as a meticulous note-taker and has maintained a daily log that fills hundreds of spiral notebooks, which now reside at the University of Florida Library of Florida History.
"Several weeks ago, when this issue started to bubble up, I called the CIA and asked for the dates in which I had been briefed," Graham tells Robert Siegel. "They gave me four: two in April of '02, two in September."
Graham says he consulted his logs "and determined that on three of the four dates there was no briefing held."
He adds: "On one date, Sept. 27, '02, there was a briefing held and, according to my notes, it was on the topic of detainee interrogation."
Graham says the CIA was initially reticent when he told the agency what he had found in his notes.
"They said, 'We will check and call back,'" Graham recalled. "When they finally did a few days later, they indicated that I was correct. Their information was in error. There was no briefing on the first three of four dates."
Graham says the agency offered no explanation regarding how it came up with the other dates.
'No Discussion Of Waterboarding'
The Sept. 27, 2002, briefing occurred about three weeks after the briefing in which the CIA says it told Pelosi about the use of waterboarding, a technique also described as simulated drowning. Graham, like Pelosi, says waterboarding was not mentioned during his briefing.
"There was no discussion of waterboarding, other excessive techniques or that they had applied these against any particular detainees," he says.
Pelosi has charged that she was misled by the CIA. Graham puts it another way.
"Nothing that I can recall being said surprised me or has subsequently proven to be incorrect," he says. "It was a matter of omission, not commission."
Graham says he is not surprised at the CIA's claims, noting that within a week of its Sept. 27 briefing, the agency presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee its National Intelligence Estimate of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was later shown to be flawed.
"I'm not impressed with the credibility of the CIA as it was being led in 2002," Graham says. "I think it had become an agency that instead of following the admonition to speak truth to power, it was trying to speak what it thought power wanted to hear."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104196363
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Harsh interrogation techniques ineffective, 'former FBI agent testifies
Harsh interrogation techniques ineffective,' former FBI agent
testifies
By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy Newspapers
A former FBI special agent who interrogated senior al-Qaida captives
told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that harsh
interrogation techniques are "ineffective, slow and unreliable," and
disputed claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others that
they helped uncover major terrorist plots.
Ali Soufan, a veteran FBI investigator, said that CIA officials and
others responsible for the extreme measures inflated the program's
successes and downplayed the consequences of physical abuse.
"The situation was, and remains, too risky to allow someone to
experiment with amateurish, Hollywood-style interrogation methods that
in reality taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the end game and
diminishes our moral high ground," Soufan said.
"It was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our
efforts against al-Qaida," he said.
Former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who in 2005 was
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in a battle to
overhaul the Bush administration's detention and interrogation
policies, joined Soufan in criticizing the use of techniques such as
waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that's widely considered
torture.
Zelikow said the U.S. could combat terrorism without resorting to
extreme methods.
"Others may disagree," he said. "The government, and the country,
needs to decide whether they are right. If they are right, our laws
must change, and our country must change. I think they are wrong."
Cheney has argued that the now-defunct CIA program, which included a
global network of secret prisons, produced valuable intelligence that
thwarted terror attacks and saved American lives.
Cheney, who's scheduled to give a major speech on the subject next
week at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington
policy organization, has called for the release of two classified CIA
memos that he says detail the program's successes.
However, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a member of the Senate Judiciary
and Intelligence committees, said he's seen the two documents and they
don't prove Cheney's case.
Soufan's testimony apparently was the first public appraisal by a
senior U.S. government interrogator who dealt directly with suspected
terrorists in CIA custody.
It came a month after President Barack Obama released four Bush-era
Justice Department legal memos justifying methods that included
confinement boxes, sleep deprivation and slamming detainees into
walls. That reopened the debate over whether top Bush officials should
be investigated and prosecuted for their actions.
Adding to the drama, Soufan testified from behind a screen where the
senators, but not the audience, could see him. Since at least one
photo of Soufan is available on the Internet, the reason for the
security measures wasn't readily apparent.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who's also an Air Force Reserve lawyer,
said the Bush administration erred in its reading of the law but
argued that harsh interrogation techniques sometimes produce valuable
information.
He challenged Soufan to dispute that.
"I can only speak to my experience," the former FBI agent replied.
"That's the point, isn't it?" Graham retorted.
Soufan was a lead FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah, one of the first
major al-Qaida figures to be captured after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks. The initial interrogation of Zubaydah, using the
bureau's traditional, rapport-building techniques, yielded valuable
intelligence, including the role of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.
Then-CIA director George Tenet congratulated the interrogators - until
he learned that they were from the FBI, not the CIA, Soufan said. A
team from the CIA's Counterterrorism Center that included a government
contractor quickly replaced him and his colleagues. They introduced
harsh interrogation techniques, and Zubaydah's cooperation stopped,
Soufan said.
After complaints from officials in Washington about the dried-up
intelligence flow, Soufan and colleagues reverted to the traditional
approach, and Zubaydah began talking again.
To bolster the Democrats' case against torture, Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse, D-R.I., released summaries of Soufan's interrogations of
another al-Qaida figure, Abu Jandal, who was a bodyguard to Osama bin
Laden. Without being tortured, Jandal divulged intimate details and
personal histories of bin Laden's inner circle, the 100 pages of
documents appear to show.
The hearing took place amid an escalating political fracas over what
congressional Democrats knew at the time about the CIA program.
Republicans say that documents call into question House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's contention that she wasn't briefed about waterboarding.
Zelikow called the CIA program "a collective failure, in which a
number of officials and members of Congress (and staffers), of both
parties, played a part."
Zelikow wrote a classified February 2006 memo challenging the legal
reasoning of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The
White House responded by ordering copies of the memo destroyed, but
Zelikow said his six-page document has been retrieved from State
Department files and is undergoing declassification review.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-print/story/1047093.html
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3842
testifies
By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy Newspapers
A former FBI special agent who interrogated senior al-Qaida captives
told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that harsh
interrogation techniques are "ineffective, slow and unreliable," and
disputed claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others that
they helped uncover major terrorist plots.
Ali Soufan, a veteran FBI investigator, said that CIA officials and
others responsible for the extreme measures inflated the program's
successes and downplayed the consequences of physical abuse.
"The situation was, and remains, too risky to allow someone to
experiment with amateurish, Hollywood-style interrogation methods that
in reality taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the end game and
diminishes our moral high ground," Soufan said.
"It was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our
efforts against al-Qaida," he said.
Former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who in 2005 was
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in a battle to
overhaul the Bush administration's detention and interrogation
policies, joined Soufan in criticizing the use of techniques such as
waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that's widely considered
torture.
Zelikow said the U.S. could combat terrorism without resorting to
extreme methods.
"Others may disagree," he said. "The government, and the country,
needs to decide whether they are right. If they are right, our laws
must change, and our country must change. I think they are wrong."
Cheney has argued that the now-defunct CIA program, which included a
global network of secret prisons, produced valuable intelligence that
thwarted terror attacks and saved American lives.
Cheney, who's scheduled to give a major speech on the subject next
week at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington
policy organization, has called for the release of two classified CIA
memos that he says detail the program's successes.
However, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a member of the Senate Judiciary
and Intelligence committees, said he's seen the two documents and they
don't prove Cheney's case.
Soufan's testimony apparently was the first public appraisal by a
senior U.S. government interrogator who dealt directly with suspected
terrorists in CIA custody.
It came a month after President Barack Obama released four Bush-era
Justice Department legal memos justifying methods that included
confinement boxes, sleep deprivation and slamming detainees into
walls. That reopened the debate over whether top Bush officials should
be investigated and prosecuted for their actions.
Adding to the drama, Soufan testified from behind a screen where the
senators, but not the audience, could see him. Since at least one
photo of Soufan is available on the Internet, the reason for the
security measures wasn't readily apparent.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who's also an Air Force Reserve lawyer,
said the Bush administration erred in its reading of the law but
argued that harsh interrogation techniques sometimes produce valuable
information.
He challenged Soufan to dispute that.
"I can only speak to my experience," the former FBI agent replied.
"That's the point, isn't it?" Graham retorted.
Soufan was a lead FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah, one of the first
major al-Qaida figures to be captured after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks. The initial interrogation of Zubaydah, using the
bureau's traditional, rapport-building techniques, yielded valuable
intelligence, including the role of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.
Then-CIA director George Tenet congratulated the interrogators - until
he learned that they were from the FBI, not the CIA, Soufan said. A
team from the CIA's Counterterrorism Center that included a government
contractor quickly replaced him and his colleagues. They introduced
harsh interrogation techniques, and Zubaydah's cooperation stopped,
Soufan said.
After complaints from officials in Washington about the dried-up
intelligence flow, Soufan and colleagues reverted to the traditional
approach, and Zubaydah began talking again.
To bolster the Democrats' case against torture, Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse, D-R.I., released summaries of Soufan's interrogations of
another al-Qaida figure, Abu Jandal, who was a bodyguard to Osama bin
Laden. Without being tortured, Jandal divulged intimate details and
personal histories of bin Laden's inner circle, the 100 pages of
documents appear to show.
The hearing took place amid an escalating political fracas over what
congressional Democrats knew at the time about the CIA program.
Republicans say that documents call into question House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's contention that she wasn't briefed about waterboarding.
Zelikow called the CIA program "a collective failure, in which a
number of officials and members of Congress (and staffers), of both
parties, played a part."
Zelikow wrote a classified February 2006 memo challenging the legal
reasoning of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The
White House responded by ordering copies of the memo destroyed, but
Zelikow said his six-page document has been retrieved from State
Department files and is undergoing declassification review.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-print/story/1047093.html
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3842
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Report Links CIA to Military Harsh Interrogations
Senate report details the history of harsh interrogation techniques during the Bush administration and directly links the CIA's interrogation program to the military's use of aggressive tactics.
WASHINGTON -- A detailed history of harsh interrogation techniques during the Bush administration directly links the CIA's interrogation program to the military's use of aggressive tactics, dismissing the notion that the brutal treatment of terror detainees and prisoners was the work of a few low-ranking soldiers.
The 232-page report released Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee came less than a week after President Barack Obama released Bush-era memos that justified the use of harsh tactics by the CIA.
The report documents the Bush administration's growing reliance on harsh interrogations that began just two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It also ties those unyielding interrogation policies to the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. military authorities as well as to interrogations at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the report shows that abuse of terror detainees and combat prisoners was systematic.
"Authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody," Levin said.
The Senate investigation has been in a Pentagon security review since Nov. 21, 2008. Its findings were drawn from more than 70 interviews, 200,000 pages of classified and unclassified documents and included nearly 1,800 footnotes and written responses to questions from more than 200 people.
"In my judgment," Levin said, "the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan to low-ranking soldiers."
According to the report, the road to the abuses that spilled out in graphic photos from Abu Ghraib began in December 2001. The Pentagon's general counsel office reached out that month to a military agency that trains American personnel in how to endure enemy interrogations.
The legal office wanted information about how the training unit, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, conducted its mock interrogations and detention operations. The agency trains U.S. armed forces personnel to endure questioning that includes harsh techniques adapted from methods used by North Korean, Communist Chinese and Vietcong interrogators. The training is meant to help American troops mentally prepare for the possibility of capture and brutal treatment.
In February 2002, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not extend full Geneva Convention protections to al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners. He replaced a detailed and long-accepted 60-year-old law on the treatment of prisoners with a new, untested standard that vaguely required only "humane treatment."
A month later, the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, an alleged top Al Qaeda organizer in Pakistan. Zubaydah proved resistant to traditional interrogation techniques. During the first half of 2002, CIA interrogators began to subject Zubaydah to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning taught by survival school trainers to CIA personnel sometime in the first half of 2002.
In July 2002, the Pentagon general counsel's office followed up its December request to get more information about JPRA interrogation methods. In their July 2002 response, JPRA officials detailed the methods used in survival training.
But the training officials warned the Pentagon lawyers that harsh physical techniques could backfire by making prisoners more resistant. And they warned that if the use of physical methods on prisoners were discovered, the public and political backlash would be "intolerable."
They also warned that harsh techniques cast into doubt the reliability of the information gleaned during the interrogation.
"A subject in extreme pain may provide an answer, any answer or many answers in order to get the pain to stop," the training officials said in their memo.
Less than a week later, the Justice Department issued two legal opinions that sanctioned the CIA's harsh interrogation program. The memos, one of which remained classified top secret until it was released by the Obama administration last week, appeared to draw deeply on the survival school data to show that the CIA's methods would not cross the line into torture, which was also newly defined.
The opinion concluded that the harsh interrogation methods would be acceptable for use on terror detainees because the same techniques did not cause severe physical or mental pain to U.S. military students who were tested in the government's carefully controlled training program.
Several people from the survival program objected to the use of their mock interrogations in battlefield settings. In an October 2002 e-mail, a senior Army psychologist told personnel at Guantanamo Bay that the methods are inherently dangerous and students are sometimes injured, even in a controlled setting.
"The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially," he said.
Nevertheless, for the next two years, the CIA and military officials received interrogation training and direct interrogation support from JPRA trainers.
By October 2002, military officials in the Pentagon and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base had decided they needed tougher interrogations at the island prison. They crafted a plan that adopted some of the survival school methods-- stress positions, food deprivation, shaving heads and beards, stripping prisoners naked, hooding them, exposing prisoners to extremes of heat and cold, and slamming them up against walls.
In December, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved 15 of those methods.
A month later, Rumsfeld's approvals for Guantanamo interrogations were put on hold while the matter underwent review inside the Pentagon. The delay was caused in large part because of the strenuous objections of the military services' top lawyers.
But according to the Senate report, the Rumsfeld memo had already made its way into the hands of special operations units based in Afghanistan. Military lawyers there saw the memo as permission to use the 'advanced techniques' on potential high-value prisoners. The Guantanamo methods were not supposed to be used at the island jail -- but they were now deemed fair game in Afghanistan.
By February 2003, a special military unit preparing for the Iraq invasion obtained a copy of the Afghanistan interrogation policy that incorporated the techniques approved by Rumsfeld for Guantanamo. They changed the letterhead and adopted it wholesale for their own use in Iraq.
Subsequently, the interrogation officer in charge of Abu Ghraib obtained a copy of the special military unit's Iraq interrogation policy. She made minor changes -- adding sensory deprivation and constraining sleep deprivation to 72 hours at a time -- and submitted it through her chain of command.
Many of the procedures were adopted Iraq-wide in a memo issued in September 2003 by the Iraq war commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.
According to the Senate report, lawyers for U.S. Central Command raised immediate concerns that the policy violated the Geneva Conventions which applied to Iraq.
It would be a month, however, before the policy was brought back under Geneva Convention guidelines. Despite the revision, within weeks abuses at Abu Ghraib had begun.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/22/report-links-cia-military-harsh-interrogations/
WASHINGTON -- A detailed history of harsh interrogation techniques during the Bush administration directly links the CIA's interrogation program to the military's use of aggressive tactics, dismissing the notion that the brutal treatment of terror detainees and prisoners was the work of a few low-ranking soldiers.
The 232-page report released Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee came less than a week after President Barack Obama released Bush-era memos that justified the use of harsh tactics by the CIA.
The report documents the Bush administration's growing reliance on harsh interrogations that began just two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It also ties those unyielding interrogation policies to the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. military authorities as well as to interrogations at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the report shows that abuse of terror detainees and combat prisoners was systematic.
"Authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody," Levin said.
The Senate investigation has been in a Pentagon security review since Nov. 21, 2008. Its findings were drawn from more than 70 interviews, 200,000 pages of classified and unclassified documents and included nearly 1,800 footnotes and written responses to questions from more than 200 people.
"In my judgment," Levin said, "the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan to low-ranking soldiers."
According to the report, the road to the abuses that spilled out in graphic photos from Abu Ghraib began in December 2001. The Pentagon's general counsel office reached out that month to a military agency that trains American personnel in how to endure enemy interrogations.
The legal office wanted information about how the training unit, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, conducted its mock interrogations and detention operations. The agency trains U.S. armed forces personnel to endure questioning that includes harsh techniques adapted from methods used by North Korean, Communist Chinese and Vietcong interrogators. The training is meant to help American troops mentally prepare for the possibility of capture and brutal treatment.
In February 2002, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not extend full Geneva Convention protections to al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners. He replaced a detailed and long-accepted 60-year-old law on the treatment of prisoners with a new, untested standard that vaguely required only "humane treatment."
A month later, the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, an alleged top Al Qaeda organizer in Pakistan. Zubaydah proved resistant to traditional interrogation techniques. During the first half of 2002, CIA interrogators began to subject Zubaydah to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning taught by survival school trainers to CIA personnel sometime in the first half of 2002.
In July 2002, the Pentagon general counsel's office followed up its December request to get more information about JPRA interrogation methods. In their July 2002 response, JPRA officials detailed the methods used in survival training.
But the training officials warned the Pentagon lawyers that harsh physical techniques could backfire by making prisoners more resistant. And they warned that if the use of physical methods on prisoners were discovered, the public and political backlash would be "intolerable."
They also warned that harsh techniques cast into doubt the reliability of the information gleaned during the interrogation.
"A subject in extreme pain may provide an answer, any answer or many answers in order to get the pain to stop," the training officials said in their memo.
Less than a week later, the Justice Department issued two legal opinions that sanctioned the CIA's harsh interrogation program. The memos, one of which remained classified top secret until it was released by the Obama administration last week, appeared to draw deeply on the survival school data to show that the CIA's methods would not cross the line into torture, which was also newly defined.
The opinion concluded that the harsh interrogation methods would be acceptable for use on terror detainees because the same techniques did not cause severe physical or mental pain to U.S. military students who were tested in the government's carefully controlled training program.
Several people from the survival program objected to the use of their mock interrogations in battlefield settings. In an October 2002 e-mail, a senior Army psychologist told personnel at Guantanamo Bay that the methods are inherently dangerous and students are sometimes injured, even in a controlled setting.
"The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially," he said.
Nevertheless, for the next two years, the CIA and military officials received interrogation training and direct interrogation support from JPRA trainers.
By October 2002, military officials in the Pentagon and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base had decided they needed tougher interrogations at the island prison. They crafted a plan that adopted some of the survival school methods-- stress positions, food deprivation, shaving heads and beards, stripping prisoners naked, hooding them, exposing prisoners to extremes of heat and cold, and slamming them up against walls.
In December, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved 15 of those methods.
A month later, Rumsfeld's approvals for Guantanamo interrogations were put on hold while the matter underwent review inside the Pentagon. The delay was caused in large part because of the strenuous objections of the military services' top lawyers.
But according to the Senate report, the Rumsfeld memo had already made its way into the hands of special operations units based in Afghanistan. Military lawyers there saw the memo as permission to use the 'advanced techniques' on potential high-value prisoners. The Guantanamo methods were not supposed to be used at the island jail -- but they were now deemed fair game in Afghanistan.
By February 2003, a special military unit preparing for the Iraq invasion obtained a copy of the Afghanistan interrogation policy that incorporated the techniques approved by Rumsfeld for Guantanamo. They changed the letterhead and adopted it wholesale for their own use in Iraq.
Subsequently, the interrogation officer in charge of Abu Ghraib obtained a copy of the special military unit's Iraq interrogation policy. She made minor changes -- adding sensory deprivation and constraining sleep deprivation to 72 hours at a time -- and submitted it through her chain of command.
Many of the procedures were adopted Iraq-wide in a memo issued in September 2003 by the Iraq war commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.
According to the Senate report, lawyers for U.S. Central Command raised immediate concerns that the policy violated the Geneva Conventions which applied to Iraq.
It would be a month, however, before the policy was brought back under Geneva Convention guidelines. Despite the revision, within weeks abuses at Abu Ghraib had begun.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/22/report-links-cia-military-harsh-interrogations/
Timeline: History Of Harsh Interrogation Techniques
NPR.org, April 22, 2009 · Facing a long list of pressing issues, President Obama has said he does not want to dwell on the past. But it seems he could not avoid the long, intense public debate over harsh interrogation techniques authorized and carried out on terrorism detainees following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Here is a look at key events leading to President Obama's decision Tuesday to ask his attorney general to determine whether anyone from the Bush administration broke the law.
Sept. 11, 2001: Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Sept. 17, 2001: President Bush signs a directive authorizing the CIA to kill or capture suspected al-Qaida members and to create detention facilities where suspects can be held and interrogated.
October 2001: The U.S. prepares a detention camp on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to house prisoners captured during the war in Afghanistan. Over the next seven years, the prison population will grow to about 775 detainees, most of whom are never charged.
Jan. 9, 2002: Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Robert Delahunty write a memo arguing that the Geneva Conventions and other laws of war do not apply to U.S. treatment of suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members.
Jan. 25, 2002: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales says that this view of international law "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
March 28, 2002: Abu Zubaydah is captured in Pakistan. Described by President Bush as "a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden," Zubaydah is treated for his wounds and placed in the CIA's clandestine network of detention sites. Zubaydah's allegations that he was tortured are later documented by the Red Cross.
Dec. 2, 2002: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approves harsh techniques for interrogating prisoners, including stress positions, nudity, sensory deprivation and threatened attacks by dogs. The following April, he approves further measures, including sleep and food deprivation.
Jan. 16, 2004: The U.S. Central Command announces that it has begun investigating reports of abuse against suspected insurgents in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Over the next several months, photographs and videos will surface documenting that inmates were beaten, threatened by attack dogs and sexually abused. Seven soldiers are eventually charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery.
August 2004: A military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay names 15 detainees to be tried by a military commission on charges related to terrorism. To date, only three have been convicted. More than 400 Guantanamo prisoners have been released with no charges.
June 29, 2006: The Supreme Court strikes down President Bush's military commissions, saying they were not authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity. The decision comes in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for bin Laden. The justices find that the commissions violated Hamdan's rights under the Geneva Conventions.
September 2006: President Bush publicly reveals the existence of "a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency" to interrogate suspects such as Zubaydah. He says that Zubaydah had stopped talking, so the CIA used "an alternative set of procedures" to question him. In the same speech, he asserts that "the United States does not torture."
October and December 2006: Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross interview 14 "high value" prisoners who have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay from secret CIA prisons. The report, given to CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo the following February, finds that the detainees had been subjected to ill treatment that "constituted torture."
Dec. 6, 2007: CIA Director Michael Hayden says the agency destroyed videotapes showing the interrogations of Zubaydah and another detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The announcement is apparently timed to pre-empt a New York Times article on the issue that is about to be published.
March 8, 2008: President Bush vetoes legislation that would have banned the CIA from using "extreme" interrogation techniques, such as simulated drowning, a practice known as "waterboarding." The legislation would have limited the CIA to practices that are permitted by the U.S. military.
Nov. 22, 2008: A military judge throws out the case against Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad on the grounds that the evidence against him was obtained under coercion.
Jan. 22, 2009: Two days after his inauguration, President Obama signs executive orders to review U.S. detention and interrogation practices, close the Guantanamo prison and forbid "extraordinary rendition," the practice of sending prisoners to other countries to be interrogated using procedures that are prohibited in the United States.
April 16, 2009: President Obama announces his decision to release government memos from 2002-2005 on "harsh" interrogation techniques. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama says, adding, "at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
April 21, 2009: President Obama says he is not prepared to rule out prosecutions of some of those responsible for setting the interrogation policy.
Compiled by Corey Flintoff
Sources: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, New York Review of Books, Salon.com, International Committee of the Red Cross, historycommons.org
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103376537
Here is a look at key events leading to President Obama's decision Tuesday to ask his attorney general to determine whether anyone from the Bush administration broke the law.
Sept. 11, 2001: Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Sept. 17, 2001: President Bush signs a directive authorizing the CIA to kill or capture suspected al-Qaida members and to create detention facilities where suspects can be held and interrogated.
October 2001: The U.S. prepares a detention camp on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to house prisoners captured during the war in Afghanistan. Over the next seven years, the prison population will grow to about 775 detainees, most of whom are never charged.
Jan. 9, 2002: Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Robert Delahunty write a memo arguing that the Geneva Conventions and other laws of war do not apply to U.S. treatment of suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members.
Jan. 25, 2002: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales says that this view of international law "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
March 28, 2002: Abu Zubaydah is captured in Pakistan. Described by President Bush as "a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden," Zubaydah is treated for his wounds and placed in the CIA's clandestine network of detention sites. Zubaydah's allegations that he was tortured are later documented by the Red Cross.
Dec. 2, 2002: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approves harsh techniques for interrogating prisoners, including stress positions, nudity, sensory deprivation and threatened attacks by dogs. The following April, he approves further measures, including sleep and food deprivation.
Jan. 16, 2004: The U.S. Central Command announces that it has begun investigating reports of abuse against suspected insurgents in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Over the next several months, photographs and videos will surface documenting that inmates were beaten, threatened by attack dogs and sexually abused. Seven soldiers are eventually charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery.
August 2004: A military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay names 15 detainees to be tried by a military commission on charges related to terrorism. To date, only three have been convicted. More than 400 Guantanamo prisoners have been released with no charges.
June 29, 2006: The Supreme Court strikes down President Bush's military commissions, saying they were not authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity. The decision comes in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for bin Laden. The justices find that the commissions violated Hamdan's rights under the Geneva Conventions.
September 2006: President Bush publicly reveals the existence of "a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency" to interrogate suspects such as Zubaydah. He says that Zubaydah had stopped talking, so the CIA used "an alternative set of procedures" to question him. In the same speech, he asserts that "the United States does not torture."
October and December 2006: Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross interview 14 "high value" prisoners who have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay from secret CIA prisons. The report, given to CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo the following February, finds that the detainees had been subjected to ill treatment that "constituted torture."
Dec. 6, 2007: CIA Director Michael Hayden says the agency destroyed videotapes showing the interrogations of Zubaydah and another detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The announcement is apparently timed to pre-empt a New York Times article on the issue that is about to be published.
March 8, 2008: President Bush vetoes legislation that would have banned the CIA from using "extreme" interrogation techniques, such as simulated drowning, a practice known as "waterboarding." The legislation would have limited the CIA to practices that are permitted by the U.S. military.
Nov. 22, 2008: A military judge throws out the case against Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad on the grounds that the evidence against him was obtained under coercion.
Jan. 22, 2009: Two days after his inauguration, President Obama signs executive orders to review U.S. detention and interrogation practices, close the Guantanamo prison and forbid "extraordinary rendition," the practice of sending prisoners to other countries to be interrogated using procedures that are prohibited in the United States.
April 16, 2009: President Obama announces his decision to release government memos from 2002-2005 on "harsh" interrogation techniques. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama says, adding, "at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."
April 21, 2009: President Obama says he is not prepared to rule out prosecutions of some of those responsible for setting the interrogation policy.
Compiled by Corey Flintoff
Sources: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, New York Review of Books, Salon.com, International Committee of the Red Cross, historycommons.org
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103376537
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
98 prisoners died in US custody: report. 22/02/2006
98 prisoners died in US custody: report. 22/02/2006. ABC News Online
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1575707.htm]
Last Update: Wednesday, February 22, 2006. 12:21pm (AEDT)
98 prisoners died in US custody: report
Ninety-eight prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, the US-based Human Rights First organisation says.
Speaking on BBC television, the organisation says a report to be published by a group of US lawyers details at least 98 deaths, with at least 34 of them suspected or confirmed homicides.
Their dossier claims that 11 more deaths are deemed suspicious and that between eight and 12 prisoners were tortured to death.
The number of deaths in custody discounts those due to fighting, mortar attacks or violence between detainees.
They were directly attributable to their detention or interrogation in American custody, the BBC's Newsnight program said.
The report alleged that one person was made to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River in Iraq and another was forced inside a sleeping bag and suffocated.
The report's editor Deborah Pearlstein says the writers are comfortable with the reliability of the facts.
"These are documents based on army investigative reports, documents that we've obtained from the Government or that have come out through Freedom of Information Act requests in the United States," she said.
In response, the US Pentagon told the program that they were yet to see the report.
"Where we find allegations of maltreatment we take them very seriously and prosecute," they said.
US ambassador to Iraq, Dr Zalmay Khalilzad, says there are thousands of prisoners that have been held by the coalition.
"Some have died of natural causes and there have been charges of abuse," he said.
"Of course, we always investigate and determine what happened and appropriate punishment is given if the judgment is made that illegal actions took place.
"If those reports are true, of course they would be terrible abuses and they would be illegal things.
"Those who are responsible for them would be investigated and they will be punished."
http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06221-etn-hrf-dic-rep-web.pdf
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1575707.htm]
Last Update: Wednesday, February 22, 2006. 12:21pm (AEDT)
98 prisoners died in US custody: report
Ninety-eight prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, the US-based Human Rights First organisation says.
Speaking on BBC television, the organisation says a report to be published by a group of US lawyers details at least 98 deaths, with at least 34 of them suspected or confirmed homicides.
Their dossier claims that 11 more deaths are deemed suspicious and that between eight and 12 prisoners were tortured to death.
The number of deaths in custody discounts those due to fighting, mortar attacks or violence between detainees.
They were directly attributable to their detention or interrogation in American custody, the BBC's Newsnight program said.
The report alleged that one person was made to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River in Iraq and another was forced inside a sleeping bag and suffocated.
The report's editor Deborah Pearlstein says the writers are comfortable with the reliability of the facts.
"These are documents based on army investigative reports, documents that we've obtained from the Government or that have come out through Freedom of Information Act requests in the United States," she said.
In response, the US Pentagon told the program that they were yet to see the report.
"Where we find allegations of maltreatment we take them very seriously and prosecute," they said.
US ambassador to Iraq, Dr Zalmay Khalilzad, says there are thousands of prisoners that have been held by the coalition.
"Some have died of natural causes and there have been charges of abuse," he said.
"Of course, we always investigate and determine what happened and appropriate punishment is given if the judgment is made that illegal actions took place.
"If those reports are true, of course they would be terrible abuses and they would be illegal things.
"Those who are responsible for them would be investigated and they will be punished."
http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06221-etn-hrf-dic-rep-web.pdf
General Who Probed Abu Ghraib Says Bush Officials Committed War Crimes
General Who Probed Abu Ghraib Says Bush Officials Committed War Crimes
Thursday 23 April 2009
by: Warren Strobel | Visit article original @ McClatchy Newspapers
photo
Major General Antonio Taguba. "Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes." (Photo: AP)
Washington - The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.
The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.
A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.
Taguba didn't respond to a request for further comment relayed via a spokesman.
The group Physicians for Human Rights, which compiled the new report, described it as the most in-depth medical and psychological examination of former detainees to date.
Doctors and mental health experts examined 11 detainees held for long periods in the prison system that President Bush established after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. All of them eventually were released without charges.
The doctors and experts determined that the men had been subject to cruelties that ranged from isolation, sleep deprivation and hooding to electric shocks, beating and, in one case, being forced to drink urine.
Bush has said repeatedly that the United States doesn't condone torture.
"All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated and, if substantiated, those responsible are held accountable," said Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. The Defense Department responds to concerns raised by the International Committee for the Red Cross, he said, which has access to detainees under military control.
"It adds little to the public discourse to draw sweeping conclusions based upon dubious allegations regarding remote medical assessments of former detainees, now far removed from detention," Gordon said.
The physicians' group said that its experts, who had experience studying torture's effects, spent two days with each former captive and conducted intensive exams and interviews. They administered tests to detect exaggeration. In two of the 11 cases, the group was able to review medical records.
The report, "Broken Laws, Broken Lives," concurs with a five-part McClatchy investigation of Guantanamo published this week. Among its findings were that abuses occurred - primarily at prisons in Afghanistan where detainees were held en route to Guantanamo - and that many of the prisoners were wrongly detained.
Also this week, a probe by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed how senior Pentagon officials pushed for harsher interrogation methods over the objections of top military lawyers. Those methods later surfaced in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld didn't specifically approve of the worst abuses, but neither he nor the White House enforced strict limits on how detainees would be treated.
There was no "bright line of abuse which could not be transgressed," former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora told the Senate committee.
Leonard Rubenstein, the president of Physicians for Human Rights, said there was a direct connection between the Pentagon decisions and the abuses his group uncovered. "The result was a horrific stew of pain, degradation and ... suffering," he said.
Detainee abuse has been documented previously, in photos from Abu Ghraib, accounts by former detainees and their lawyers and a confidential report by the International Committee for the Red Cross that was leaked to the U.S. news media.
Of the 11 men evaluated in the Physicians for Human Rights report, four were detained in Afghanistan between late 2001 and early 2003, and later sent to Guantanamo. The remaining seven were detained in Iraq in 2003.
One of the Iraqis, identified by the pseudonym Laith, was arrested with his family at his Baghdad home in the early morning of Oct. 19, 2003. He was taken to a location where he was beaten, stripped to his underwear and threatened with execution, the report says.
"Laith" told the examiners he was then taken to a second site, where he was photographed in humiliating positions and given electric shocks to his genitals.
Finally, he was taken to Abu Ghraib, where he spent the first 35 to 40 days in isolation in a small cage, enduring being suspended in the cage and other "stress positions."
He was released on June 24, 2004, without charge.
»
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Thursday 23 April 2009
by: Warren Strobel | Visit article original @ McClatchy Newspapers
photo
Major General Antonio Taguba. "Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes." (Photo: AP)
Washington - The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.
The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.
A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.
Taguba didn't respond to a request for further comment relayed via a spokesman.
The group Physicians for Human Rights, which compiled the new report, described it as the most in-depth medical and psychological examination of former detainees to date.
Doctors and mental health experts examined 11 detainees held for long periods in the prison system that President Bush established after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. All of them eventually were released without charges.
The doctors and experts determined that the men had been subject to cruelties that ranged from isolation, sleep deprivation and hooding to electric shocks, beating and, in one case, being forced to drink urine.
Bush has said repeatedly that the United States doesn't condone torture.
"All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated and, if substantiated, those responsible are held accountable," said Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. The Defense Department responds to concerns raised by the International Committee for the Red Cross, he said, which has access to detainees under military control.
"It adds little to the public discourse to draw sweeping conclusions based upon dubious allegations regarding remote medical assessments of former detainees, now far removed from detention," Gordon said.
The physicians' group said that its experts, who had experience studying torture's effects, spent two days with each former captive and conducted intensive exams and interviews. They administered tests to detect exaggeration. In two of the 11 cases, the group was able to review medical records.
The report, "Broken Laws, Broken Lives," concurs with a five-part McClatchy investigation of Guantanamo published this week. Among its findings were that abuses occurred - primarily at prisons in Afghanistan where detainees were held en route to Guantanamo - and that many of the prisoners were wrongly detained.
Also this week, a probe by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed how senior Pentagon officials pushed for harsher interrogation methods over the objections of top military lawyers. Those methods later surfaced in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld didn't specifically approve of the worst abuses, but neither he nor the White House enforced strict limits on how detainees would be treated.
There was no "bright line of abuse which could not be transgressed," former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora told the Senate committee.
Leonard Rubenstein, the president of Physicians for Human Rights, said there was a direct connection between the Pentagon decisions and the abuses his group uncovered. "The result was a horrific stew of pain, degradation and ... suffering," he said.
Detainee abuse has been documented previously, in photos from Abu Ghraib, accounts by former detainees and their lawyers and a confidential report by the International Committee for the Red Cross that was leaked to the U.S. news media.
Of the 11 men evaluated in the Physicians for Human Rights report, four were detained in Afghanistan between late 2001 and early 2003, and later sent to Guantanamo. The remaining seven were detained in Iraq in 2003.
One of the Iraqis, identified by the pseudonym Laith, was arrested with his family at his Baghdad home in the early morning of Oct. 19, 2003. He was taken to a location where he was beaten, stripped to his underwear and threatened with execution, the report says.
"Laith" told the examiners he was then taken to a second site, where he was photographed in humiliating positions and given electric shocks to his genitals.
Finally, he was taken to Abu Ghraib, where he spent the first 35 to 40 days in isolation in a small cage, enduring being suspended in the cage and other "stress positions."
He was released on June 24, 2004, without charge.
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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