Rumsfeld escapes blame in 'whitewash' Abu Ghraib report

[Nambe]

Telegraph Group Ltd

A Pentagon report on prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison is being labelled a whitewash before it has even been released. ..

Due to be published by the end of the month, the report will call for disciplinary procedures to be launched against up to two dozen military intelligence officers, all of whom arrived at Abu Ghraib last October, when the worst abuses began. But no action against senior military figures will be called for.

Even more controversially, the role of the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has been judged to be outside the investigation's remit, despite allegations that extreme treatment of prisoners was authorised at the highest levels. Last month, Brig-Gen Janis Karpinski, the commander formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib, alleged that Mr Rumsfeld had authorised the use of "dogs, food deprivation and sleep deprivation".

"This is a whitewash - a carefully orchestrated one," said a lawyer who has liaised with military officials involved in the case. "People in the Pentagon have been coming to me in a fury because of the way this has been handled. By naming military intelligence officials as well as the seven military police who have been charged, it will look like action has been taken. But basically it's still the same storyline of just a few bad apples, way down the food chain."

The decision to limit the investigation to military personnel has caused huge controversy within the Pentagon. "Some of the military lawyers are incandescent," said one Pentagon adviser. "There's been a deliberate attempt to make sure the buck stops well before it gets to the doors of the civilian hierarchy." ..

Ride Don’t Drive * * It’s Global Cool

[goforit]

1. Riding high once again.

[LauraK]

2. Hopefully, the US millitary will vote their reaction.

The Betrayal.

[bvar22]

3. I did my own investigation;

Conclusion:
Rumsfeld is a lying piece of republican scum who is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the needless deaths of 1000 American servicemen and 15,000 innocent Iraqi civilians.
His lack of leadership and passive negligence is the PRIMARY CAUSE of the criminal behavior at Abu Ghraib and other military detention centers.

My investigation is much more credible than the bullshit once again being foisted on the American public.

The republicans have NO SHAME and NO CONSCIENCE, and will continue with their criminal ways until we stop them. I wish Kerry would commit to criminal prosecutions after the elections.

[Democat]

4. Bush investigates Bush, finds that Bush did no wrong, again!

I'm sure Americans will feel much better knowing that Bush has investigated and found that he himself did nothing wrong.

[CanIgonow]

5. What did Rumsfeld NOT Know and When Did He NOT Know it?

The Bush administration seems to have an unlimited supply of whitewashers at its beck and call whenever it needs to put up a face
belying its murderous intent.Thus, Bush-Cheney-Rumsefld did NOT know of 9/11,did NOT know of Saddam's nonexistent WMD's,Did NOT know of the Abu Ghraib tortures,and on and on and on.

[newyawker99]

8. Hi CanIgonow!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[whistle]

6. This is total horse sh*t, Rumsfeld should be swinging by his...

...balls for this. He knew about the torture, planned it, wanted its use to get the information, authorized it, directed it, and once exposed, like the school yard bully, headed for high ground and immunity from responsibility. These bastards at the top should be held totally accountable, all of them.

[coda]

7. Lindsey Graham was furious that there were no JAGs.

The decision to keep the JAGs out of Abu Ghraib would certainly have to come from on high. Tha decision insured abuse.





Newsweek May 24, 2004

The Roots of Torture

The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules tofight a new kind of war. A Newsweek investigation

By John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff



Toward the end of 2002, orders came down the political chain at DOD that the Geneva Conventions were to be reinterpreted to allow tougher methods of interrogation. "There was almost a revolt" by the service judge advocates general, or JAGs, the top military lawyers who had originally allied with Powell against the new rules, says a knowledgeable source.

The JAGs, including the lawyers in the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Richard Myers, fought their civilian bosses for months—but finally lost. In April 2003, new and tougher interrogation techniques were approved.


Covertly, though, the JAGs made a final effort. They went to see Scott Horton, a specialist in international human-rights law and a major player in the New York City Bar Association's human-rights work. The JAGs told Horton they could only talk obliquely about practices that were classified. But they said the U.S. military's 50-year history of observing the demands of the Geneva Conventions was now being overturned.

"There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" about how the conventions should be interpreted and applied, they told Horton. And the prime movers in this effort, they told him, were DOD Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith and DOD general counsel William Haynes. There was, they warned, "a real risk of a disaster" for U.S. interests.

more....

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4989422/