Sanchez let guards freely use interrogation methods

[CShine]

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents.

The U.S. policy, details of which have not been previously disclosed, was approved in early September, shortly after an Army general sent from Washington completed his inspection of the Abu Ghraib prison and then returned to brief Pentagon officials on his ideas for using military police there to help implement the new high-pressure methods.

Unnamed officials at the Florida headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which has overall military responsibility for Iraq, objected to some of the 32 interrogation tactics approved by Sanchez in September, including the more severe methods that he had said could be used at any time in Abu Ghraib with the consent of the interrogation officer in charge.

As a result, Sanchez decided Oct. 12 to remove several items on the list and to require that prison officials obtain his direct approval for the remaining high-pressure methods. Among the tactics apparently dropped were those that would take away prisoners' religious items; control their exposure to light; inflict "pride and ego down," which means attacking detainees' sense of pride or worth; and allow interrogators to pretend falsely to be from a country that deals severely with detainees. The high-pressure options that remained included taking someone to a less hospitable location for interrogation; manipulating his or her diet; imposing isolation for more than 30 days; using military dogs to provoke fear; and requiring someone to maintain a "stress position" for as long as 45 minutes. These were not dropped by Sanchez until a scandal erupted in May over photographs depicting abuse at the prison. The Army has never said whether any of the tough tactics that were authorized were used on detainees at Abu Ghraib or the other U.S.-run detention camps in Iraq before October, in the five-month period after the end of major combat operations in May 2003.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2623482

[LittleApple81]

1. Dirty Sanchez, in my opinion.

Jeanine Garofalo was saying that this guy is going to be remembered as a "Dirty Sanchez"... (I didn't know what this meant...so, using the internet's "urban dictionary" I did) .....EEEEEWWWWW
Which is my reaction to Sanchez any way.

[cliss]

2. Come on, Ricardo. Come CLEAN for us.

Did you approve of these torture methods?

Personally, I think Ricardo is an animal lover. I've read on another thread that Sanchez personally approved the use of dogs. Being such caring man, he didn't think the dogs should be muzzled. "No, it's OK to let them go without them," he said.

Why let a muzzle get in between serious work?

I say we nominate Ricardo for dog lover of the month.

[spotbird]

3. This report is a mistake,

the abuse started and ended with a few rogue soldiers, just ask their superior officers.

[Joanne98]

4. "Pride and ego down"

We need a copy of that technique so when we get our country back we can use it on Republicans. There always so proud of everything they do. We need to FIX that.

[DainBramaged]

5. Drip drip drip, I'm tired of drip drip drip.

When is someone in the House or Senate grow some and get the Draino?

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

:kick: