NYT: No Accountability on Abu Ghraib

[Xipe Totec]

Mr. Rumsfeld gave President Bush the legal advice that led to the president's famous memo declaring that the United States could, at his discretion, suspend the Geneva Conventions in the "global war on terror," and that prisoners with the newly minted designation of "unlawful combatants" were not entitled to the conventions' protections. Mr. Rumsfeld authorized the use of brutal interrogation techniques at the prison in Guantánamo Bay, some of which he later rescinded. His war plans left the Army without enough forces to face the uprising that followed Mr. Bush's ludicrously premature "mission accomplished" photo-op. Those policies - which commanders were afraid to challenge - left 97 untrained military police guarding some 7,000 Iraqis at Abu Ghraib who were not considered prisoners of war.

Mr. Rumsfeld's staff sent the chief Guantánamo Bay jailer to Iraq. There, he gave Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was under immense pressure from Washington to get intelligence on the Iraqi insurgency, a rundown on how the military forced information out of prisoners at Guantánamo. General Sanchez used that briefing, and the logic of the president's memo on unlawful combatants, to authorize the use of dogs and other illegal interrogation methods. He later tried to rescind the order, but every investigation has shown that the notion that the rules had changed was already widespread in Iraq, as well as at American military prisons in Afghanistan.

Most broadly, Mr. Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General John Ashcroft, has led the administration's efforts to justify the use of brutal interrogation techniques in the name of fighting terrorism.

Late in the day of hearings, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, offered a wry observation on how Mr. Rumsfeld's future had become wrapped up in Mr. Bush's campaign. "I guess we'll get the real answer to that after the election," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/opinion/10fri1.html

[TomClash]

1. What a surprise

NO accountablity on 9/11 or anything else either.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Maybe we can get accountability

at the polls...this is just another reason these people have got to go! Anyone thinking the Hague?

[Catfight]

3. I agree, we are responsible citizens that must hold accountability

by voting in such a landslide way that it sends a clear message to the WH, we won't stand for these atrocities.