Red Cross says abuses appear OFFICIALLY CONDONED, not isolated - Reuters

[Dems Will Win]

Abuses may have been 'officially condoned': ICRC likens excesses to torture

GENEVA, May 7: Iraqis held by US forces have been subjected to systematic degrading treatment, sometimes close to torture, that may have been officially condoned, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday.

Breaking with its usual vow of silence, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency (ICRC) said visits to detention centres in Iraq between March and November 2003 had turned up violations of international treaties on prisoners of war.

"What we have observed are situations from a human point of view that are degrading in treatment and in some incidents tantamount to torture," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of ICRC operations, told journalists.

"Our findings do not allow us to conclude that what we were dealing with...were isolated acts of individual members of coalition forces. What we have described is a pattern and a broad system," he said.

-snip-

-Reuters




http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/08/int11.htm

[Greylady]

1. No, No, that's all wrong....

don't believe your lying eyes, our pResident said just today that it was the *wrongdoing of a few* - get with the program okay?

[Karenina]

2. What a no-brainer...

:eyes:

[lebkuchen]

3. Plausible deniability

Respond to the Red Cross's concerns with a trifle press release, on a Friday, refusing to release any information, the media doesn't see it ("Oh, well, we tried!" says Rummy), all is forgotten, until some SPC gums up the works. I love the poetic justice! Rummy, up-ended by an E-1!

[StaggerLee]

4. to quote Rudyard Kipling's A Pict Song

We are the Little Folk—we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!

[cliss]

5. This is going to be the end of Rumsfeld.

And he probably knows it. Just wait till the sordid movies have their "premiere" next week. I have read that the worst is yet to come.

Rummy is currently packing his belongings in a cardboard box at the office.

[calimary]

8. It SHOULD be the end of contradicta.

Remember this? When she won the tug-of-war with rummy over the management of "post-end-of-combat-operations Iraq"?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-10-06-rice-iraq_x.htm


Rice will manage Iraq's 'new phase'
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — President Bush is giving his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, the authority to manage postwar Iraq and the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

While some saw it as a sign of frustration with the handling of postwar efforts, Bush and other officials said the move is a logical next step and reflected no dissatisfaction with progress.

"We want to cut through the red tape and make sure that we're getting the assistance there quickly so that they can carry out their priorities," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It's a new phase, a different phase we're entering."

Rice will head the Iraq Stabilization Group, which will have coordinating committees on counterterrorism, economic development, political affairs and media messages. Each committee will be headed by a Rice deputy and include representatives of the State, Defense and Treasury departments and the CIA.

[cap]

18. giving it to Condi was a legal shield...

National Security Advisors aren't mandated to come regularly before Congress and testify....it's harder to get them into court, too.

[Gothmog]

6. They were following orders

I really believe that the guards in questions were following orders. The torture was officially sanctioned as part of the process to gather information for the war on terror. We started this with the violation of the Geneva Convention for the Cuban detainees and continued the process with violating the UN charter by invading Iraq with UN approval. There is a pattern here and the torture is just one piece of this pattern.

[Enraged_Ape]

13. Torture sanctioned to "gather information for the war on terror"?

Boy, then these mofos truly are absolutely clueless. Not only did Iraq have nothing to do with 9-11, but anyone who's read a book knows that torture is the absolute worst way to get useful information from someone. The torturee tells you what they think you want to hear, period.

[camero]

7. Wait until it all comes out

It's much worse than even I thought. The following orders crap doesn't cut it since by Military regs it is a court-martailed offense to follow an illegal order.

http://truthout.org/docs_04/050604E.shtml

The Red Cross Accuses:
"The Photos are Shocking, but Our Reports are Worse"
By Afsane Bassir Pour
Le Monde

Wednesday 05 May 2004

Geneva - The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has known for a long time that "worse things than what are shown in the photos" have been taking place at the big Abou Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. "We don't need the photos to know what's going on and that it's not acceptable," says the ICRC spokesperson, Antonella Notari. According to her, the ICRC had already made several reports and recommendations to the American and British authorities in Iraq "in the first instance" and to their superiors in Washington and London "in the second place".

"The photos are certainly shocking, but our reports are worse," says Mrs. Notari, who nonetheless refuses to detail the contents of those reports, in conformity with ICRC standard practice. That's the price the group pays, she explains, for being able to make "impromptu and regular" visits to the Abou Ghraib prison every five or six weeks since Iraqi prisoners have been held there, starting in October 2003.

"We knew and we had told the Americans that what was going on at Abou Ghraib is reprehensible." Mrs. Notari categorically denies the statements of General Janis Karpinski, commander of the units responsible for prisons in Iraq, according to which "military intelligence men" prevented the detainees in cell block 1A- where the tortures were practiced- from seeing ICRC delegates. "We are not simpletons," retorts Antonella Notari, "our representatives are extremely experienced and they speak to lots of people inside the prison, we always end up knowing the truth in all the world's prisons and the truth about Abou Ghraib is shocking."

[Renew Deal]

9. Send Bush and the rest to the Hague

[laura888]

10. And these findings were relayed to the military brass when?

This is what we need to get to the bottom of this mess.

[Solly Mack]

11. Oman, it's way way worse than we imagine for the Red Cross to break it's

confidentiality...

I know I've been imagining some really horrible things to come..but now..I'm just floored.

[Texican]

12. Powell, Condi, and Wolfie Briefed

It is in the Guardian today that they head of the Red Cross personaly briefed these administration members some time ago on the torture. The law governing this stuff says that if someone "should have known" what was happening then they are responsible. Surely Shrub had to have known.


http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1212769,00.html

[OKNancy]

14. Quote from the article

The Red Cross disclosed to The Observer that its president, Jakob Kellenberger, had personally warned three of George W. Bush's most senior officials - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - of widespread abuse tantamount to torture.

Whitehall sources expressed concern last night that the US was transporting prisoners from Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib for interrogation to avoid being overseen by the Red Cross

[Texican]

15. Here is The Timeline

If you want to know who was briefed and when, here it is.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/08/MNG0G6IFIP12.DTL

[in_cog_ni_to]

16. It was so wide-spread,

they had to have orders from higher ups. A Code Pink member (one who heckled Rumsfeld during his testimony on Friday) was on CNN and said she has made 4 trips to Iraq and she had been told MANY, MANY times about these very tortures. She knew about this a LONG time ago and had forwarded the info to Senators. She and other activists had meetings with Senators, told them of the abuses and showed them video tapes and pictures.....they were IGNORED. The ONLY reason we now know about this is because the media was going to release the pics. Had the media never found these pics? This would have been buried FOREVER.

She also said that the black hooded/electrical shock was NOT just a staged photo. Ex prisoners had told her about being put in a black hood and shocked. :grr:

[NewYorkerfromMass]

17. I agree

I think Karpinski is getting an unfair share of the blame.