RUMMY'S Denials Were "FULL OF IT"-Newly Declassified Report: Bush Officials Approved Torture (NYT)

[kpete]

Newly Declassified Report: Bush Officials Approved Torture
By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees

The CIA wasn't the only agency involved in torture of detainees. A newly declassified report by the Senate Armed Services Committee shows that high level Bush officials approved the brutal interrogation techniques used by the military at overseas prisons. So now there's confirmation that the military, not just the CIA were involved, and that Rumsfeld's denials were full of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22report.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

The Senate report documented how some of the techniques used by the military at prisons in Afghanistan and at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in Iraq — stripping detainees, placing them in “stress positions” or depriving them of sleep — originated in a military program known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape, or SERE, intended to train American troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations.


According to the Senate investigation, a military behavioral scientist and a colleague who had witnessed SERE training proposed its use at Guantánamo in October 2002, as pressure was rising “to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” Officers there sought authorization, and Mr. Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques.

The report showed that Mr. Rumsfeld’s authorization was cited by a United States military special-operations lawyer in Afghanistan as “an analogy and basis for use of these techniques,” and that, in February 2003, a special-operations unit in Iraq obtained a copy of the policy from Afghanistan “that included aggressive techniques, changed the letterhead, and adopted the policy verbatim.”

From there it spread to Abu Ghraib where Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez approved the techniques.

more at:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/4/22/201/92298

[Postman]

1. Yeah but Lindy England is in jail so the torture issue is moot....

it's all the little peoples' fault.

:sarcasm:

[HereSince1628]

5. Yes, I'd like to see the memos where Rummy says he's put out the fire by blaming the little guys

Note that I am not saying the Lindy and her boyfriend were innocent.

I just have this strong feeling that the good old boys arranged the firewall and gave thanks for the shifting of blame. I suspect they metaphorically patted each other on the back and that there are memos to that effect.

[Imagevision]

8. Lindy England is still in jail? - Rummy; "just a couple of bad apples?"

[Sanity Claws]

2. Another example of how the Bush Admin hated the troops

Bush and his cohorts had full knowledge of how and why the low level troops were engaged in the abuses yet they blamed the abuse on "a few bad apples."
Bush, Rumsfeld, et al are the few bad apples.

[annabanana]

3. Where IS Rummy these days, anyway...

He's keeping a damn low profile

[Wetzelbill]

4. You read my mind

I was just thinking about this exact topic.

[JohnnyLib2]

6. Rec., to keep part of the focus on Rumsfeld.

He was portrayed in the first years as outmaneuvering others and being highly persuasive with Cheney/Bush. While we are pointing fingers--"Remember Rummy."

[Mnemosyne]

7. War criminals. knr n/t