[Marxism] Rumsfeld 'Approved Operation That Led to Prisoner Abuse'

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You can tell that Rumsfeld and his friends are on the run
when the United States Department of Defense has to publish
a denial of THE NEW YORKER's story on the DoD website:
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20040515-0793.html
==============================================================

6:19pm (UK)

Rumsfeld 'Approved Operation That Led to Prisoner Abuse'

"PA"
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised the
expansion of a secret programme that encouraged physical
coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to
obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq,
The New Yorker reported.

The US Defence Department strongly denied the claims made
in the report, which cited unnamed current and former
intelligence officials and was published on the magazine's
Web site last night.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita issued a statement
calling the claims "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled
with error and anonymous conjecture".

The story, written by reporter Seymour Hersh, said Rumsfeld
decided to expand the programme last year, broadening a
Pentagon operation from the hunt for al Qaida in
Afghanistan to interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib
prison in Baghdad.

Seven US soldiers are facing military charges related to
the abuse and humiliation of prisoners captured by the
now-infamous photographs at the prison.

Some of the soldiers and their lawyers have said military
intelligence officials told military police assigned as
guards to abuse the prisoners to make interrogations
easier.

According to the story in the New Yorker, which hits
news-stands tomorrow, the initial operation Rumsfeld
authorised gave blanket approval to kill or capture and
interrogate "high value" targets in the war on terrorism.

The programme stemmed from frustrating efforts to capture
high-level terrorists in the weeks after the start of US
bombings in Afghanistan.

The programme got approval from President George Bush's
national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush was
informed of its existence, the officials told Hersh.

Under the programme, Hersh wrote, commandos carried out
instant interrogations - using force if necessary - at
secret CIA detention centres scattered around the world.
The intelligence would be relayed to the commanders at the
Pentagon.

Last year, Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone, his
Under-Secretary for Intelligence, expanded the scope of the
Pentagon's programme and its methods moved to Abu Ghraib,
Hersh wrote.

Critics say the interrogation rules, first laid out in
September after a visit to Iraq by the then-commander of
the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
amounted to a green light for abuse.

Defence Department officials deny that, saying prisoners
were always treated under guidelines of the Geneva
Conventions.

"No responsible official of the Department of Defence
approved any programme that could conceivably have been
intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the
recent photos and videos," Di Rita said in his statement.

"This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those
with little, if any, connection to the activities in the
Department of Defence."

Di Rita also said Cambone had never had any responsibility
for any detainee or interrogation programmes.

The intelligence sources told the magazine photos of the
sexual abuse were used to intimidate prisoners and
detainees into providing information on the insurgency.

It was thought some prisoners would do anything - including
spying on their associates - to avoid dissemination of the
shameful photos to family and friends.

One intelligence official said the CIA ended its
involvement with the programme at Abu Ghraib prison by last
autumn.

"They said, 'No way. We signed up for the core programme in
Afghanistan - pre-approved for operations against the
high-value terrorist targets - and now you want to use it
for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the
streets'," the source said.

Latest News:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm


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