MISCELLANEOUS NEWS REPORTS * 2004.05.01 to date

misc_digest_2004_5.txt

Aljazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
Associated Press (AP): http://www.ap.org/
Inter Press Service (IPS): http://ipsnews.net/
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/

ABC News (Aus): http://www.abc.net.au/news/
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/

Baltimore Sun: http://www.sunspot.net/
Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/
Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Dawn (Islamabad): http://www.dawn.com/
Hartford Courant: http://www.ctnow.com/news/
Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/
Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.com/news/NW-front_Front.asp
San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/news/
Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/
The Age (Melbourne): http://www.theage.com.au/
The Guardian (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
The Independent (UK): http://www.independent.co.uk/
The Mirror (UK): http://www.mirror.co.uk/
The Observer (UK): http://www.observer.co.uk/
The Scotsman (Edinburgh): http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/
The Telegraph (UK): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Toronto Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

================================================================================


Newsweek --

May 29, 2004 - June 7-14 Issue

THE ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL COVER-UP?

Bush insists that 'a few American troops' dishonored the country. But prisoner
abuse was more widespread, and some insiders believe that much remains hidden.

By Michael Hirsh and John Barry, Newsweek International

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5094071/site/newsweek/

The meeting was small and unpublicized. In a room on the third floor of the Old
Executive Office Building last week, Condoleezza Rice grittily endured an hour's
worth of pleading from leading human-rights activists who want to see a 9/11-
style commission created to investigate the abuse of detainees in the war on
terror. According to participants, the president's national-security adviser
didn't repeat the line that George W. Bush had delivered to the American people
in a speech two days before: that the scandal was the work of "a few American
troops who dishonored our country." Nor did Rice try to make the case that by
razing Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison -- a Bush proposal that took even his Defense
secretary by surprise -- administration officials would put the scandal behind
them. "I recognize we have a very grave problem," Rice said, according to Scott
Horton, a New York lawyer at the meeting whose account was corroborated by
another participant. "There are major investigations going on right now to fully
understand the scope and nature of it."

But numerous critics -- not just in the human-rights community, but in Congress
and the U.S. military as well -- insist that the current probes are still too
limited to bring full accountability. Some critics say Donald Rumsfeld's Defense
Department is doing its best to stop potentially incriminating information from
coming out, that it's deflecting Congress's inquiries and shielding higher-ups
from investigation. Documents obtained by NEWSWEEK also suggest that Rumsfeld's
aides are trying hard to contain the scandal, even within the Pentagon. Defense
Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of setting policy on prisoners
and detainees in occupied Iraq, has banned any discussion of the still-
classified report on Abu Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has
circulated around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in early
May, Feith subordinates sent an "urgent" e-mail around the Pentagon warning
officials not to read the report, even though it was on Fox News. In the e-mail,
a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith's office warn that
the leak is being investigated for "criminal prosecution" and that no one should
mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family members. Feith has turned
his office into a "ministry of fear," says one military lawyer. A spokesman for
Feith, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, says the e-mail warning was intended to prevent
employees from downloading a classified report onto unclassified computers.

More worrisome, critics say, is that the Pentagon is investigating itself. Maj.
Gen. George Fay, the No. 2 in Army Military Intelligence, is in charge of the
probe into whether his own intel officers directed the MPs to abuse prisoners.
But so far Fay has questioned no one above the rank of colonel, military and
other sources say. Among those critical of Fay is Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was
formerly in military intelligence at Abu Ghraib and has told reporters in recent
weeks that the Army is engaged in a cover-up. "I had to volunteer more
information than was being asked of me [by Fay]. It was like I was adding to his
burden," Provance told NEWSWEEK last week. "There are so many soldiers directly
involved who haven't been talked to."



  Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse: A Who's Who



The Army has tried to silence Provance. In a May 21 disciplinary order, a copy
of which was shown to NEWSWEEK, battalion commander Lt. Col. James Norwood
notifies Provance that he has lost his security clearance and is being "flagged"
for violating a previous order to keep quiet. That means he is ineligible for
promotions, awards or security clearance. Norwood appears to threaten Provance
with prosecution, saying, "There is reason for me to believe that you may have
been aware of the improper treatment of the detainees at Abu Ghraib before they
were reported by other soldiers." General Fay's conclusions, Norwood warns, "may
reveal that you should face adverse action for your failure to report."

Yet no officer above General Fay's rank is likely to have to worry about the
conclusions of his investigation. Under military doctrine, Fay, as a two-star
general, "can only hold a one-star accountable," says an Army general familiar
with such investigations. "He can say someone higher up is the proximate cause,
but he can't actually have a finding that says, 'I recommend Maj. Gen. so-and-so
be relieved of command.' And if somebody tells him it came from the CIA, what
can Fay do? Nothing. He can only say it's outside the jurisdiction of his
investigation." Because Fay was appointed by Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, he is also effectively limited from taking his probe beyond Sanchez's
command, says Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who is now a law
professor at Duke. "It would be difficult for Fay even to question Sanchez,"
says Silliman. In fact, none of the five investigations the military itself is
now conducting is aimed higher up the chain of command than Sanchez.

Pentagon officials said last week that Sanchez would be replaced as commander of
Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq. Formally, Sanchez's recall is unrelated to the
scandal. But military sources acknowledge that an increasing body of evidence
indicates his command has not been forthright about when it learned of the
abuses or what it did -- and failed to do -- about them. The Red Cross first
warned Joint Task Force-7 of the kind of abuses seen in the prison photos last
November, fully two months before Sanchez launched an investigation. The general
says he didn't find out about the abuses until January. But two military sources
say his deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, was present at a meeting in late
November to discuss a response to the Red Cross. Also at the meeting was Col.
Mark Warren, Sanchez's top legal adviser. In mid-May Warren denied in reply to a
NEWSWEEK question that his office had drafted the command's response, which
brushed off the Red Cross allegations. But Warren later acknowledged under oath
to the Senate Armed Services Committee that his JAG team had drafted the
command's response.

  NEWSWEEK ON AIR | 5/30/04
Iraq: Cover-Up?


Rod Nordland, NEWSWEEK Baghdad bureau chief, and Michael Hirsh, NEWSWEEK senior
editor
•   Listen to the audio
•   Listen to the complete On Air show
The White House insists the president wants to conduct a "systemwide" probe of
the detainee issue. Administration officials point to a new "independent panel"
formed by Rumsfeld. A top Bush aide says the panel -- consisting of four members
of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, including former Defense secretaries James
Schlesinger and Harold Brown -- will address "the totality" of all the
investigations. But Rumsfeld himself, in his letter appointing the panel,
indicates that his interest is mainly in looking at future issues like
interrogation, force structure and training. "Issues of personal accountability
will be resolved through established military justice and administrative
procedures," Rumsfeld says, "although any information you may develop will be
welcome." (Former Rep. Tillie Fowler, a member, says the group is now "putting
together a timeline of who knew what when.")

On Capitol Hill, legislators on both sides of the aisle complain testily that
the Pentagon has turned into an informational black hole. Some 2,000 out of
6,000 pages were missing from the copy of the Taguba report delivered from the
Pentagon to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita
last week called this merely an "oversight." But among the missing pages were
key documents, including the final section of Taguba's lengthy questioning of
Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, the
unit that actually ran the interrogations in Abu Ghraib Block 1A when the abuses
occurred. Sources say Pappas gave Taguba a detailed account of why he believed
that "policies and procedures" at Abu Ghraib "were enacted as a specific result"
of recommendations made by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at
Guantanamo. Miller denies that he exported to Iraq techniques used on Qaeda and
Taliban suspects at Gitmo. But Pappas even had some documents to buttress his
case, sources say, including one titled "Draft Update for the Secretary of
Defense."

Some senators say the Pentagon has so far obscured two issues: who ordered
Miller to Abu Ghraib in the first place, and who in the Pentagon knew of the
interrogation practices put in place there. Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld's under
secretary for intelligence, merely said at a May 7 hearing of the Armed Services
Committee that Miller had gone to Iraq "at my encouragement." But neither
Sanchez nor centcom commander, Gen. John Abizaid, would tell a later hearing if
they knew of involvement by civilian higher-ups at the Pentagon. As one
committee member, Sen. Robert Byrd, told NEWSWEEK: "I was stunned that the two
top generals [in the Gulf] hemmed and hawed and claimed they had no idea whether
the secretary of Defense or the civilian leadership of the Defense Department
played any role."

Miller himself has been accused of being less than forthright in a classified
briefing before Congress. In a May 21 letter to Miller, Rep. Jane Harman
chastised the general for "gaps and discrepancies in your presentation" and for
selectively withholding information in a classified session the day before.
Harman, the ranking minority member on the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, added that she now questions Miller's "candor." (A spokesman for
Miller, Barry Johnson, told NEWSWEEK that Miller "is drafting a response and
providing additional facts.")

Even Bush's Republican allies, like Armed Services Committee chair John Warner,
want to know more. And now the White House seems to be constructing a legal moat
around the president. Its argument is that Bush's orders were simply disobeyed.
Rice told the human-rights lawyers last week that the president's clear
directives on observing the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture laws were not
followed. She also allowed that she didn't know yet the full scope of the
scandal, which seemed to conflict with Bush's insistence that a few bad MPs were
to blame. A senior administration official insists there is no contradiction:
"When the president talks about Abu Ghraib in that specific, particular way... I
just don't think anybody believes you're going to find it that widespread across
the system." But until all of the facts of the prisoner-abuse scandal come out,
nobody will be able to make a sound judgment about who is ultimately
responsible.

[ With Stefan Theil in Berlin, Tamara Lipper and Mark Hosenball in Washington
and Melinda Liu in Amman. ]

* * *

Stars and Stripes --

May 28, 2004

GI FLAGGED FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS ABOUT HIS ABU GHRAIB EXPERIENCE

By Rick Scavetta, Stars and Stripes

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=22455

HEIDELBERG, Germany -- Sgt. Samuel Provance said he wasn't surprised when Lt.
Col. James Norwood summoned him to Wiesbaden on Friday, less than a week after
the sergeant spoke to ABC News about his experiences at the Abu Ghraib.

Provance is the only military intelligence soldier who served at the prison to
publicly speak about prisoner abuses there, despite orders from his command to
keep quiet.

Now, Norwood, his battalion commander, has flagged Provance from favorable
actions and pulled his top-secret clearance.

On May 16, the 30-year-old Williamsburg, Va., native told ABC News that fellow
military intelligence agents casually discussed their part in prisoner abuses.
Provance also discussed what he feels are the Army's subsequent moves to
discourage soldiers from speaking out.

Just two days earlier, his company commander, Capt. Scott Hedberg, ordered
Provance to keep quiet about Abu Ghraib, according to documents obtained by
Stars and Stripes. Provance signed a statement in which he agreed not to talk to
the press.

But the following Friday, he was in front of Norwood, who commands the 302nd
Military Intelligence Battalion. Norwood told Provance that he was being
flagged, which means he cannot receive any favorable actions such as promotions
or awards, and pulled his security clearance. He then gave Provance a second
order not to talk about Abu Ghraib, according to documents Norwood signed.

"I knew it was only a matter of time before they shut me up," Provance said.



Speaking out

In January, when Provance filled out a questionnaire given by Army investigators
to troops at Abu Ghraib, he wrote that he may know about prisoner abuses.

He later told investigators that fellow military intelligence soldiers played a
part in prisoner abuses, based on conversations he had or overheard while
stationed at Abu Ghraib. His statement was referenced in Maj. Gen. Antonio
Taguba's report of his investigation into alleged abuse at Army prisons in Iraq.

Provance provided phoned testimony to an Article 32 hearing for Spc. Megan
Ambuhl, one of the MPs charged with dereliction of duty and conspiracy.

In addition, Provance, along with other soldiers who were at Abu Ghraib, were
summoned to Darmstadt on May 11 to discuss the prison issue with Maj. Gen.
George Fay, a senior intelligence officer assigned by the Pentagon to further
investigate any role that military interrogators had in prisoner abuses.

Fay told Provance at that meeting that he "could have busted this thing wide
open" if he reported the talk of abuse sooner, Provance said.

Fay implied that Provance could face charges for not speaking up sooner,
Provance said.

Stripes' attempts to reach Fay were directed to Maj. Scott Bleichwehl, press
officer for Multi-National Corps Iraq. In an e-mail from Baghdad, Bleichwehl
said he could not comment on the case until the investigation in complete, which
could take an additional two weeks.

Provance arrived at Abu Ghraib prison in September to replace soldiers killed in
a Sept. 20 mortar attack. At the prison, he was in charge of maintaining a
secure computer satellite link used by interrogators to swap top-secret
information gathered from detainees.

But Provance caught wind of abuses in a low-tech way -- troops chatting about
how prisoners were handled. He recalled one Army specialist talking to some
buddies about prisoner abuses at the mess hall.

"If I reported everything I heard, I'd be reporting people every day," Provance
said. "I did not know what was legal. I'm not an interrogator."

Because his name was mentioned in Taguba's report, the media began looking for
Provance. From Virginia, his mother told him that ABC News was trying to reach
him.

He dropped their editor a line with his contact information, and he mentioned it
to his platoon sergeant.

On May 14, he was called to the company first sergeant's office. Few words were
exchanged, but Hedberg and 1st Sgt. William Palenik ordered him not to talk
about Abu Ghraib, Provance said.

Hedberg ordered Provance not to use e-mail or Internet chat rooms to discuss the
investigation. He was prohibited from speaking or writing to members of the
press and fellow troops not part of the investigation, according to documents.

Hedberg's order stated, "Sgt. Provance will not discuss matters related to the
ongoing investigation concerning potential/alleged abuses that took place at Abu
Gareb [sic] prison."

Provance then signed a statement that he wouldn't talk.

Provance said he signed the statement because he thought it merely meant that he
understood what Hedberg had written and acknowledged receipt.

He said he did not agree with it, but now understands that it appears so, by him
signing. In fact, the form has a block that Provance checked that states, "I
agree."

Despite the meeting and gag order, Provance decided to talk to ABC News because,
"I knew what was reported up until then was not true, that it was all on the
MPs," Provance said.

"My career is over, I thought, 'Now I can talk' -- almost like it was meant to
happen."

On May 16, he met ABC reporters at a local restaurant in Heidelberg. Before
long, he was staring into a video camera, answering questions from a stateside
reporter over the phone.

"It was pretty tense," Provance said. "But when you're telling the truth, it's
not hard to say what's on your mind."

After that, media requests flooded in. Provance told his story again and again,
"telling them anything they wanted to know," he said.

Only a small portion of ABC's hourlong interview aired May 18, Provance said. It
ran late at night on the American Forces Network. While many troops overseas may
have missed the telecast, some caught the text on the Internet, Provance said.

"Everybody's avoiding me like the plague," Provance said. "They don't look at
me, much less talk to me."

No regrets

On Friday, when Provance faced Norwood, the commander handed him a letter
stating, "I am flagging you pending the outcome of Fay's investigation into the
alleged detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib. The basis of the flag is a violation of an
order issued to you by your company commander."

He was given a second order not to talk to the press, but since has done follow-
up interviews with ABC, The Washington Post and Stars and Stripes.

Speaking over the phone Tuesday from his Wiesbaden office, Norwood defended his
reprimand for Provance, saying, "My actions were in accordance with [Army]
regulations."

"It's clearly tied to the [Abu Ghraib] investigation," Norwood said. "I'm not
willing to discuss anything related to that."

Officials at V Corps, the battalion's higher headquarters, won't comment on
administrative actions against Provance because he has not formally been
charged, spokeswoman Hilde Patton said, adding that she also could not comment
on any topic related to the Abu Ghraib investigation.

Without a security clearance, Provance is now working in his company's nuclear,
biological and chemical equipment room.

Provance still speaks passionately about his dedication to the Army and condemns
the few leaders above him.

"I would never speak out against the Army. That's not what I'm doing," Provance
said. "The Army is an awesome organization that I respect and honor."

He stands by his decision to speak publicly.

"I don't regret one bit of it, because I know I'm going to be vindicated,"
Provance said.

"What I said was true. It's only a matter of time before the truth comes out."

*

SENATOR, ATTORNEYS QUICK TO ACT

After speaking to the press about his experiences at Abu Ghraib prison, Sgt.
Samuel Provance finds himself caught between his conscience and an Army gag
order.

After speaking to ABC News about the alleged abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison,
Provance was told by his commanders that he was being flagged from favorable
actions and his security clearance was being pulled for disobeying orders to
keep quiet.

His case has caught the attention of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who is a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating the prison
abuse.

Provance said that Graham called him at 2:30 a.m. Friday to talk about his
experiences at the prison. Graham also pledged to watch over the soldier's
career, Provance said.

"It is important every military member understand that not only is it the right
thing to report misconduct, it is required as part of their duty," Graham said
in an e-mail statement sent to Stars and Stripes. "In speaking with Sgt.
Provance, I sought to assure him that in providing testimony before a court-
martial he was doing his legal duty."

Because the Army has not lodged a criminal charge against Provance, the legality
of his company commander's gag order -- followed by his battalion commander's
subsequent administrative actions -- has yet to be challenged, said Capt. Jon
Stanfield, an Army defense attorney in Wiesbaden, Germany, whom Provance
identified as his military counsel.

"To some degree, it's an academic question until something further happens,"
Stanfield said. "It only becomes important if they take adverse action."

While Provance was counseled, the battalion's personnel office would have to
submit additional paperwork to officially flag him, and it should provide him a
copy, Stanfield said. Provance said he has not been given official, written
notification of his flagging or his security clearance removal.

Flagging is a typical action commanders render upon soldiers involved in
criminal investigations, Stanfield said.

"The flag is not intended to be a permanent blight on your career," he said.

Provance said part of his decision to talk to ABC News was to shed light on his
dilemma in the hope that he could get help outside the military. So far, that
hope has come from New York City lawyer Scott Horton, who practices
international law and focuses on human rights. Horton said he has little
confidence in military defense attorneys, so he stepped in to advise Provance
and help him secure permanent legal counsel.

Hardy Vieux, a former Navy defense lawyer who now works for the Washington,
D.C.-based law firm of Dykema and Gossett, now is on board to assist Provance,
Horton said. In an e-mail Wednesday, Vieux said that because he just recently
became involved in Provance's case, he didn't have anything "meaningful to
share."

"The key question here is the integrity of the Army, both in the scandal and
also the way the matter is investigated and prosecuted," Horton said.

Horton said he is trying to find out if Provance is protected under the federal
whistle-blower statutes. There are two federal protection laws, Horton said,
including one that specifically pertains to military personnel.

The military whistle-blower protection act prohibits commanders from taking
unfavorable actions against troops who speak openly to members of Congress, an
inspector general, or other official investigators. What is unclear is whether
it protects Provance, who spoke to the media against military orders.

"It offers some protection," Horton said. "That's something we're studying now."

Furthermore, the command gag order may not have been lawful, Horton said. The
action raises serious legal issues pertaining not only to Provance's 1st
Amendment rights, but also for the congressional panel overseeing the Abu Ghraib
investigation.

"There's absolutely no question that the Army is making an exceptionally
aggressive and heavy- handed effort to intimidate soldiers from making comments
to the media and other government agencies," Horton said. "It speaks of a cover-
up."

-- Rick Scavetta

* * *


May 28, 2004

Detroit Free Press

LEVIN IS STEELY IN ABU GHRAIB PROBE

By Ruby L. Bailey, Free Press Washington Bureau

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/levin28_20040528.htm

WASHINGTON -- Over his trademark reading glasses, Sen. Carl Levin peered at the
man before his committee and asked: Do the Geneva Conventions -- and the
protection they afford prisoners of war -- apply in Iraq?

"Yes, sir," replied Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence,
who was testifying in the Senate Armed Services Committee's second hearing
earlier this month into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

Precisely? asked Levin.

"Precisely," replied Cambone.

But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that prisoners were treated
"consistent with, but not pursuant to," the rules, Levin fired back.

"They do not apply in the precise way the secretary was talking about," Cambone
said.

Getting a straight answer from bureaucrats is sometimes tough, but as the
committee wades through classified documents and military jargon, many credit
Levin with occasionally prying information from reluctant witnesses.

"It's amazing to watch how he moves the debate in the direction it should go,"
said Sen. Hillary Clinton, Democrat from New York and a member of the committee.
"He is able to keep the focus on what's important."

Levin is the ranking Democrat on the committee.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry noted Levin's
understanding of defense and national security after the committee's first
hearing May 7. Levin was among four people, including two Republicans, who could
replace Rumsfeld should the defense secretary resign, Kerry told reporters.

Committee members and others said Levin, 69, has played and will continue to
play a key role in the committee's investigation as its hearings continue
through the summer. After three hearings with officials, the committee has yet
to fully trace the chain of command to understand who was aware of or
responsible for the scandal.

More hearings may be scheduled next week.

One soldier has been court-martialed and sentenced to a year in prison for his
role in abusing Iraqis, who were photographed and videotaped naked, piled atop
one another, handcuffed and hooded. Six other soldiers have been charged.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the guard in the cell block where the
abuses occurred, has been suspended.

Levin said the investigation must include "those within and without the chain of
command whose policy decisions created an environment in which the abuses could
occur," he told the committee on May 11.

He did not join Democrats who called for Rumsfeld to resign after the scandal
broke.

"The term 'dog and pony show,' which is often used to describe these hearings,
this stuff was invented in the Pentagon," said Ross Baker, a political science
professor at Rutgers University. "You can obscure issues by using military
terms. It takes someone with the persistence of Carl Levin to try to penetrate
that verbiage."

Not everyone is so impressed.

Winslow Wheeler, a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, a
moderate think tank in Washington, said the senators -- including Levin -- are
asking poor questions, often based on published reports. The committee's staff
isn't providing basic research senators need for questioning, he said.

"The staff should be working its tail off trying to find out what the hell
happened," said Wheeler, who has worked for Republican and Democratic senators.

Although he credits Levin's aggressive demeanor in questioning, he said, "It's
obvious that he, too, hasn't busied his staff."

On the surface, at least, Levin seems to be the reasonable but tough voice on
the committee.

His persistent, polite style places him between two Republicans, Sens. John
Warner of Virginia and John McCain of Arizona. Warner, who has incurred the
wrath of other Republicans for holding the hearings, plays the good cop; McCain
plays the bad cop.

McCain's war record, including his incarceration and abuse as a prisoner of war
in North Vietnam, gives him more latitude to toughly question medal-clad
officers leading troops in Iraq, experts said.

Many Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, question why the hearings
are being held. He said the "collective hand-wringing" over the scandal could be
"a distraction from fighting and winning the war."

Warner has said a full disclosure of what happened is crucial for the American
people and the world.

Warner and Levin joined the Senate and the committee in 1979. Levin chaired the
committee from June 2001 to January 2003. Over the years, they have overseen
hearings on several conflicts, including Grenada and Haiti. They have traveled
the globe together on fact-finding trips, including ones to Afghanistan and
Iraq.

"We somehow as a team are able to work," Warner said.

Levin described his style as "bulldog" and said he developed it as a member of
the Detroit City Council, where he served from 1969 until he was elected to the
Senate in 1978.

A native Detroiter, Levin was a state assistant attorney general and general
counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission in 1964.

"You got to just basically not accept dodging and vague answers," Levin said.
"You've got to listen to what the witness is saying so you can identify an
evasive answer. Sometimes people don't listen. They ask the right question, but
get kind of a mushy answer. They move to the next questions."

He has used those skills in the years since. Levin, also the ranking Democrat on
the permanent subcommittee on investigations of the Governmental Affairs
Committee and the Intelligence Committee, led the investigation into the Enron
scandal.

A member of the Intelligence Committee, Levin voted against authorizing the use
of force in Iraq, arguing that the United States should not proceed without
approval of the United Nations and that UN inspectors had not had enough time to
search for weapons of mass destruction.

Last week in his office, Levin sat among files of papers and newspaper articles.
He picked up a clipping of a story about an International Red Cross report in
October that was given to the commander at Abu Ghraib. It took weeks, said
Levin, just to find out the name of the commander.

To find out who did what with the report may take weeks more.

[ Contact RUBY BAILEY at 202-383-6036 or bailey@freepress.com ]

* * *


BBC:

May 27, 2004

BID TO FREE GUANTANAMO BRITONS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3754733.stm

A new bid to secure the release of two Britons held at Guantanamo Bay has been
launched at the High Court.

The solicitor of Feroz Abbasi and Martin Mubanga has lodged papers seeking a
judicial review of the government's moves to have them freed.

Louise Christian said not enough was being done to return the men to the UK.

Abbasi, 23, from Croydon, south London, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001.
Mubanga, 29, from north London, was originally detained in Zambia.

A previous application in Abbasi's case in 2002 was unsuccessful.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the government was "pressing hard and trying to
get this resolved".

"We have been in frequent contact with the US authorities from the outset to
secure the welfare of the British detainees," he said.

"The courts will get to take a view of what the British government has done."

Ms Christian said the latest bid includes a witness statement from Liberal
Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.

She said it details a private conversation last November, in which US President
George W Bush told the MP: "If the British government want the British detainees
back, here are the airline tickets."

'Evidence of torture'

She also said the challenge was strengthened by the claims of freed detainees
regarding conditions and treatment at the Cuba base.

"The papers include compelling evidence of an institutionalised regime of
torture and inhuman and degrading treatment," she said.

She added: "The British Government repeatedly said that if they could not secure
a fair trial they would bring the British detainees home.

"It is absolutely clear that that point has already been reached."

During the earlier failed application over Abbasi's detention, three senior
judges led by Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, admitted Abbasi was in a
"legal black hole".

But they ruled Foreign Secretary Jack Straw could not be compelled to intervene
in Abbasi's case.

Two other Britons are being held at Guantanamo Bay - Moazzam Begg, 36, from
Birmingham, and Richard Belmar, 23, from Maida Vale, west London.

Five British detainees were freed from the base in March, having spent around
two years in American custody.

* * *


The Scotsman (Edinburgh):

May 27, 2004
FRESH BID TO BRING HOME GUANTANAMO BRITONS

By David Barrett, Legal Affairs Correspondent, PA News

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2985571

Solicitors for two Britons still detained at Guantanamo Bay launched a new bid
today to secure their release.

Papers were lodged at the High Court for a judicial review of the Government's
moves to have Feroz Abbasi and Martin Mubanga returned to Britain.

Solicitor Louise Christian said the renewed legal bid had been bolstered by
accounts of the US regime at Guantanamo provided by freed detainees.

"I can confirm that I have lodged papers at the High Court today seeking a
judicial review of the British Government's failure to call for the return of
Feroz Abbasi and Martin Mubanga to this country," said Ms Christian.

"The papers include compelling evidence of an institutionalised regime of
torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.

"The British Government repeatedly said that if they could not secure a fair
trial they would bring the British detainees home.

"It is absolutely clear that that point has already been reached."

A previous application on Feroz Abbasi's case failed in 2002.

Three senior judges led by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth
Matravers, then said Abbasi was in a "legal black hole".

But the court ruled that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw could not be compelled to
intervene in Abbasi's case.

The new case will be argued in court by Nicolas Blake QC, Rabinder Singh QC and
Tim Otty.

Ms Christian said they will present a witness statement from Liberal Democrat
leader Charles Kennedy which says that President George Bush confirmed in a
private conversation with the MP last November: "If the British Government want
the British detainees back, here are the airline tickets."

Former computer student Abbasi, 23, from Croydon, south London, was captured at
Kunduz, Afghanistan, in 2001. Mubanga, 29, from north London, is a former
motorbike courier.

Others still at Guantanamo Bay are Moazzam Begg, 36, from Birmingham, and
Richard Belmar, 23, from Maida Vale, west London.

Five other British detainees were freed from the Cuban base in March, having
spent up to two years in American custody.

* * *

Straights Times (Maylasia):

SOME US PRISONS AS BAD AS ABU GHRAIB

By Robert Perkinson

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,253225,00.html

AS MORE images of debased Iraqi detainees ricochet around the world, many
viewers are as bewildered as they are outraged. How could ordinary American
soldiers, whether they were following orders or acting on their own, appear so
untroubled, even exhilarated by their brutish conduct?

To be sure, overeager military intelligence interrogators, as well as the Bush
administration's highhanded attitude towards international law, helped
precipitate the crisis. But few commentators have focused enough attention on
the site of this macabre theatre - not a battlefield, but a prison.

Prison experts are the least surprised by the grotesque reports filtering out of
Abu Ghraib. They recognise that prisons, as divisive and authoritarian
institutions, regularly give rise to behaviour that appears depraved to the
wider world but comes to seem acceptable - even normal - behind bars.

Indeed, some of the most publicised prison scandals have erupted in the United
States, which incarcerates more people in absolute and per capita terms than any
other country.

Compared to Saddam Hussein's murderous regime at Abu Ghraib, of course, American
prisons are relatively well managed. But as mandatory sentencing rules have
landed more and more Americans behind bars, incidents that bear a disquieting
resemblance to the degenerate cruelties photographed in Iraq have come
increasingly to light.

The connection is no accident. Some of the US scandals tie American prison
personnel directly to Abu Ghraib.

EXCESSIVE FORCE

IN VIRGINIA, for instance, human rights advocates report that inmates at two
'supermax' prisons have been hooded and subjected to 'excessive and malicious
use of force by prison staff', often involving electric shock devices and rubber
bullets.

Mr John Armstrong, now the assistant director of operations for US prisons in
Iraq, resigned from his previous post when he was named in two wrongful death
lawsuits at one of those prisons. Sergeant Ivan Frederick, the man directly in
charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib 'hard site', previously worked as a Virginia
corrections officer.

In Pennsylvania, a 1998 inquiry into a supermax prison notorious for racist
guards revealed videotapes of routine beatings and elaborate rituals of
humiliation. Specialist Charles Graner, identified as a ringleader in the Abu
Ghraib depravity, has worked at that prison since 1996.

Some of the worst abuses have surfaced in Texas, America's death penalty state
and home to more prisoners than Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands
combined. When President George W. Bush was governor, a federal judge ruled that
the state's entire penal system was pervaded by a 'culture of sadistic and
malicious violence'. Texas prison guards regularly rely on excessive force, the
judge concluded, officials ignore sexual enslavement and the state isolation
units function as 'virtual incubators of psychoses'.

Despite this appalling record, the US occupation authorities in Iraq appointed a
former director of the Texas prison system, Mr Lane McCotter, to help set up
operations at Abu Ghraib in May last year. Two months earlier, Mr McCotter's
private prison company was cited by the US Justice Department for lax
supervision and mistreatment of inmates in a New Mexico jail. Before that, Mr
McCotter led Utah's corrections department, but was forced to resign after the
death of a schizophrenic inmate who had been stripped naked and strapped to a
restraining chair for 16 hours.

GHASTLY SCANDALS

OF COURSE, malicious imprisonment is by no means uniquely American. Even in
Western Europe, which boasts the most rehabilitation-oriented penal systems,
ghastly scandals erupt periodically.

In 2000, the chief physician at Paris's crumbling La Sante penitentiary, Dr
Veronique Vasseur, wrote a scathing expose of 'virtually mediaeval' conditions,
complete with rat infestations, rotten food, extreme temperature variations,
desperate self-mutilations, bullying, drug-dealing guards, and widespread sexual
assault, often perpetrated by staff.

According to a report last year, conditions have worsened since Dr Vasseur's
report, and France's overcrowded prisons are on a 'descent to hell'.

Particularly troubling is France's protracted incarceration of pre-trial
suspects. In a country that regards itself as a civilised counterweight to
belligerent American hegemony, nearly half of all prisoners have never been
convicted of a crime.

Why do prisons the world over concentrate such suffering and misconduct? Partly
by design.

Prisons herd together angry, unruly people against their will. While the best
facilities provide programmes to help prisoners reintegrate into society,
prisons also subject inmates to strict, often arbitrary discipline and
depersonalising rituals like numbering and strip searches - practices that
foster more rage than reformation.

On the other side of the bars, lowly paid, often poorly trained corrections
officers exercise near-absolute authority over an irascible population. In time,
even the most well-meaning come to regard their wards with cold detachment, if
not dehumanising contempt.

Not all prisons succumb to these corrosive and polarising dynamics. But
penologists recognise that certain factors - including overcrowding,
insufficient guard training, detached management, shoddy infrastructure, racial
tensions and lack of public accountability - make disaster almost inevitable.

Many of these conditions pervade prisons worldwide. All of them were present in
Iraq - in addition to the strains of combat and officially approved
interrogation techniques that senior US officials now admit violated the Geneva
Convention. Rather than heed warnings from the Red Cross and others, however,
Pentagon officials let dangerous prison dynamics spin out of control.

A flurry of investigations will now try to figure out what went disastrously
awry at Abu Ghraib. But ensuring 'justice is done', as Secretary of State Colin
Powell promised, means judgment must not stop at the low-ranking soldiers who
were foolish enough to pose for demented snapshots. More important, the abuses
in Iraq demand careful scrutiny of detention practices not only there, but in
our own communities as well.

The writer is assistant professor of American studies at the University of
Hawaii and is writing a book on the history of Texas prisons. Copyright: Project
Syndicate.

* * *


May 27, 2004

RECENT EVENTS SPOTLIGHT JAG CORPS

BY Chuck Mccutcheon

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/mccutcheon052704.html

WASHINGTON -- The popular TV show "JAG," a high-stakes drama of confrontation in
the military's justice system, has had plenty of competition lately from real-
life JAGs.

Lawyers in the Judge Advocate General Corps, the military's in-house law firm,
have publicly blasted the procedures for trying suspected terrorists at
Guantanamo Bay. Others have held secret meetings with civilian human rights
attorneys urging them to object to the Bush administration's standards for
detaining and interrogating captured prisoners.

"If people didn't know what (JAGs) were about before all this, then they ought
to now," said retired Rear Adm. Don Guter, the Navy's chief legal official from
2000 to 2002.

Guter and other military lawyers say JAGs are aggressively upholding legal
principles, even if it means bucking a culture of saluting and obeying orders.
Some military lawyers fear recent events mean their role is at risk, which has
led Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. -- a military lawyer himself -- to introduce
legislation aimed at ensuring their independence.

Guter and other former JAGs say the abuse of detainees in Iraq might have been
avoided if military lawyers had been involved in overseeing guidelines for their
treatment. They say the Defense Department's civilian leadership cut JAGs out of
the loop in the policy-making process -- a charge that Pentagon officials deny.

One of the main principles at stake is the Geneva Conventions, the international
agreement covering treatment of prisoners of war.

"For most of these guys, the Geneva Conventions are like a sacred honor; they're
proud of this great tradition of scrupulously applying the conventions," said
Scott Horton, who met privately last year with a group of JAGs when he was head
of the New York Bar Association Committee on International Human Rights. "For
that to have gone wrong is something that's really demoralizing to them."

Horton declined to name the meeting participants.

Marine Maj. Michael Mori, a JAG attorney, said military lawyers have an
obligation to speak their minds.

"You're the one who's supposed to be the conscience and say, `Commander, I don't
think this is right, even though it might be technically permissible,"' said
Mori, who is representing David Hicks, an Australian detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Though he declined to discuss Iraq, Mori has surprised and delighted civil
rights activists by publicly complaining that the Bush administration's system
of military tribunals for prisoners at the U.S. base on Cuba has made it
impossible for his client to receive a fair trial.

Under the tribunals, called commissions, military officers will act as both
judge and jury. Defense lawyers' conversations with clients may be monitored by
the government.

"The only reason I've had to speak out is that they've created an unfair
system," Mori said. "I've said all along that if there's credible evidence
against Hicks, take it to an established justice system. This system has removed
all the basic fundamental protections -- they've set up a system where it would
be like having the district attorney rule on defense motions."

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, another JAG lawyer, filed a federal lawsuit in
April claiming the government has violated the rights of his client -- a Yemeni
captured in Afghanistan who was once Osama bin Laden's driver -- by holding him
at Guantanamo without being charged.

Such actions are the latest chapters in a long history. Gen. George Washington
set up the Judge Advocate General Corps after taking command of the Continental
Army in 1775. Military lawyers conducted trials, assisted accused soldiers,
acted as prosecutors and served as legal advisers to the court.

Congress enacted the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950 to establish a
standard set of legal procedures for the service branches. The scope of JAGs'
legal duties has expanded beyond courts-martial to encompass environmental law
and other specialties. Practitioners contend they have become skilled enough to
put to rest the old joke: "Military justice is to justice what military music is
to music."

"The JAGs have always had a fine sense of due process, more so than civilians,"
said Jack Zimmerman of Houston, a former Marine lawyer who co-chairs the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' section on military law. "I'm
a defense lawyer in the civilian world, and I'd rather have a client at a court-
martial than a civilian court."

Some critics say most JAGs' loyalty remains to the armed services rather than to
upholding the law.

"The wheels have been coming off the train that is the U.S. military for years,"
said Walt Fitzpatrick of Bremerton, Wash., who runs a Web site called "JAG
Hunters" that tracks military legal matters. "JAGs -- and Congress -- have been
sitting on their hands doing nothing, protecting the commanders," he said.

Fitzpatrick, a former Navy officer who has been feuding with the service over a
career-ending reprimand for alleged misuse of his ship's welfare and recreation
funds, described Mori, Swift and the lawyers who approached Horton as
"apostates."

Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, a veteran military lawyer and judge who
is providing advice to the Pentagon on the proceedings for Guantanamo detainees,
said not all JAGs have had problems being heard by civilian officials.

"I honestly think that the only people I've had disagreements with are very,
very low down in the food chain, not the political appointees and those in other
policy areas," Hemingway said.

Some former military lawyers see a need for legislation to insulate JAGs from
politics. Graham, who served as an Air National Guard lawyer in his state during
the Persian Gulf War, recently introduced legislation that would spell out the
authority of JAGs as the official legal advisers to military commanders.

Graham said he is concerned about long-standing efforts by the Pentagon's
civilian appointees to put military lawyers under their control.

"One thing you never want to have happen is to have the military justice system
influenced by political appointees beyond what's required by law," he said. JAGs
"absolutely must be independent, and I'm trying to reinforce that."

* * *


May 27, 2004

UK FACES GUANTANAMO LEGAL CHALLENGE

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Lawyers acting for two Britons held at the U.S. prison in
Guantanamo Bay have begun court action to force the British government to
officially demand the detainees be sent home.

The legal action, started at the High Court on Thursday by lawyers acting on
behalf of Feroz Abbasi and Martin Mubanga, says the men have been tortured and
would not receive a fair trial.

When the case is heard, a judge will be asked to rule that the government has
been wrong not to make such a call already.

Lawyer Louise Christian said they would argue that links between Guantanamo and
the Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad, the centre of revelations of abuse of Iraqi
prisoners, and statements from those already freed from the jail in Cuba gave
"compelling" evidence that prisoners were treated inhumanely.

"The papers include compelling evidence of an institutionalised regime of
torture and inhuman and degrading treatment," Christian said in a statement.

She said the government had promised to bring the detainees home if they could
not be guaranteed a fair trial.

"It is absolutely clear that that point has already been reached," she said.

Britain says it is still in discussion with the U.S. over the detainees but
insists they be tried in accordance with international law or returned home.

The proceedings on Thursday are the second to be issued against the government
on behalf of detainees at Guantanamo Bay where more than 600 people have been
held without charge or access to lawyers, some for more than two years.

Earlier moves brought on behalf of Abbasi at the end of 2002 ended with the
Appeal Court branding the detention regime as "a black hole" but not ordering
the Government to act.

Five Britons were released from Guantanamo in March but four others -- Mubanga,
Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, and Richard Belmar who are said by Washington to be more
dangerous -- remain captive.

Last month two of those freed from the jail said they had been tortured by U.S.
interrogators using shackles, dogs and loud music.

Washington says it treats the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay humanely, but it also
says they are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions, which
forbid abusing prisoners of war.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

May 26, 2004

CHALABI 'BOASTED OF IRANIAN SPY LINK'
Iraqi accused by CIA made claim in 1997, says former inspector

Julian Borger in Washington

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224916,00.html

Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader accused by the CIA of passing US secrets to
Tehran, claimed to have close links with Iranian intelligence seven years ago,
according to a former UN weapons inspector.

Scott Ritter, who before the war insisted that Saddam Hussein did not have
significant weapons stocks, made the claim to Andrew Cockburn, a Washington-
based journalist and the author of a biography of the ousted Iraqi dictator.

"When I met [Mr Chalabi] in December 1997 he said he had tremendous connections
with Iranian intelligence," Mr Ritter said, according to an article by Mr
Cockburn published today in the Guardian. "He said that some of his best
intelligence came from the Iranians and offered to set up a meeting for me with
the head of Iranian intelligence."

Mr Chalabi has repeatedly denied passing secrets to the Iranians and has
denounced the allegations made by US intelligence officials as a CIA "smear".

He also denied providing false information about weapons of mass destruction to
the US.

He said he only put the CIA in touch with three defectors, who were believed to
have had critical information. The FBI and US intelligence agencies are re-
examining information provided by or channelled through Mr Chalabi's Iraqi
National Congress, to determine whether the decision to go to war in Iraq was
influenced by Iran.

Mr Ritter told the Guardian he stood by his allegation. He said he never made
the trip to Iran because the CIA refused permission.

Meanwhile, both Democratic and Republican senators have called for an
investigation into the alleged links between Mr Chalabi and Iranian
intelligence.

US intelligence officials have said they have hard evidence that Mr Chalabi
passed US secrets to Tehran, and that his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib,
was an Iranian agent. Mr Habib is being sought by Iraqi police, and according to
one American press report is now in Tehran.

"This is a very, very serious charge," Senator Chuck Hagel, a moderate
Republican from Nebraska, told CNN. "There is no way the Senate intelligence
committee is not going to be in this."

The Pentagon defends the INC's intelligence input. An official said yesterday:
"We should point out that the INC has provided valuable intelligence that has
saved coalition lives and has provided great quantities of documents from
Saddam's regime that are of great value."

Mr Chalabi has offered to travel to Washington to deny the allegations and make
his case directly to Congress.

Richard Perle, a former adviser to the Pentagon, and one of the INC's most
outspoken backers in the capital, said he did not believe the CIA's allegations
against Mr Chalabi.

"I believe they have been hostile to Ahmad Chalabi for a long time and are not
to be trusted on this and I think they are seeking to transfer responsibility
for their own intelligence failures to others," Mr Perle told BBC Radio 4's
Today programme yesterday.

According to US intelligence sources, the FBI has opened an investigation into
the leak of secret information to the INC from within the administration.

A Pentagon official said yesterday he was not aware of any investigation.

Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East desk at the Defence Intelligence
Agency (DIA), said the agency was re-examining prewar intelligence provided by
the INC in the light of the CIA's findings of a link with Iranian intelligence.

"The people investigating this aren't sure yet, but the investigation is under
way, and the DIA are looking through its documents and realising they've been
had," Mr Lang said.

"If it turns out to be true, it was certainly a genius operation. [The Iranians]
created an anti-Saddam opposition to get rid of him, and they got us to pay for
it."

A Pentagon official confirmed that a "reassessment process" was under way, but
refused to give details.

* * *


Financial Times:

May 25 2004

GUANTANAMO: 'HONOR BOUND TO DEFEND FREEDOM'

By Alastair Macaulay

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=
StoryFT&cid=1084907816569

The Tricycle Theatre is the most valuable home of political theatre in Britain
today. Above all, its documentary plays are a breakthrough genre.

Guantanamo: "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom", the latest Tricycle production,
brilliantly fills our heads, almost to bursting, with information of many kinds.

Assembled by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, directed by Nicolas Kent and
Sacha Wares, it brings us into close contact with the thoughts and experiences
of Guantanamo Bay detainees and those in contact with them.

In the background, it lightly evokes the physical atmosphere of life there, with
its stupefying nullity punctuated by men doing physical exercise on their bunk
beds or by Muslim calls to prayers, while, in the foreground, family members,
politicians or lawyers talk about them.

We learn of torture, of gross political distortions of language, of human
tenderness, of the basic illegality of the Guantanamo Bay detentions without
trial.

The words we hear are taken from spoken or written evidence. The characters we
watch include Moazzam Begg, who is still detained in Guantanamo Bay, his father,
who was present on press night and spoke after the show, and the brother of
another detainee, a British man who was released from Guantanamo Bay.

They are all Muslims, though of various degrees of unorthodoxy. Other characters
include the brother of a woman who died in the September 11 2001 terrorist
attacks, Donald Rumsfeld, Jack Straw, Lord Justice Johan Steyn and the solicitor
Gareth Pierce.

We learn how the suicide attempts at Guantanamo Bay appeared to stop because the
American military had reclassified them as "manipulative self-injurious
behaviour" of which there were more than 40 instances in six months.

We hear letters about the many camel spiders that leave festering bites on
Guantanamo detainees, Mr Begg's account of how he finds himself talking to his
beloved absent son, Jamal Al-Harith's memories of solitary confinement, the
multiple American violations of the Geneva Convention even in basic matters of
camp organisation and how "interrogation" was re-worded as "reservation" or
"exhibition".

There are still 650 people imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, and increasing evidence
of torture. At the after-show discussion on press night, a journalist quoted
David Davies, the Conservative MP, as saying the west cannot win while
Guantanamo exists.

I would like to hear an after-show discussion composed of people who think that
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are wise, and who think that the detention
centre in Guantanamo Bay is not an evil example of barbarism sustained by the
world's foremost democracy: what do they have to say in the face of such
evidence?

Above all, I want anyone who is seriously interested in the values that sustain
civilisation to see this production. Tel 020 7328 1000

***


BBC:

May 25, 2004

ECHOES OF GUANTANAMO
Theatre has broken in where international law was locked out.

By Neil Arun, BBC News Online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3746121.stm


Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom is a play about the British men held
without trial at the US military base in Cuba, captives from the early days of
the "war on terror".

The writers, Gillian Slovo and Victoria Brittain, say it is "taken from spoken
evidence" - what you hear on stage is what was said in letters and interviews by
the detainees, their relatives and lawyers.

They depict a crime - or rather, a punishment - so unjust it appears to mock the
very liberties the "war on terror" was apparently meant to defend.

The shocking accounts of confinement are more credible now than they may have
been even a month ago, before graphic evidence emerged of US troops allegedly
torturing Iraqi detainees in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

Trial run

Even now, there is a feeling that much of what is heard on stage ought to go
before a jury, not a theatre audience.

But the US is unlikely to let that happen - it has ruled that its 600-odd
captives in Cuba do not enjoy the rights accorded to all prisoners of war under
the Geneva Convention.

Many of them have yet to be tried, despite over two years in prison.

Those trials that do happen are before a special tribunal, without any of the
"checks and balances" associated with US military or civilian courts, according
to Major Michael Mori, an American military lawyer quoted in the play.

In the absence of these safeguards, the audience plays the role of surrogate
jury, watching something closer to testament than theatre.

'Seaside resort'

Detainees and their relatives recount the route to Guantanamo Bay.

The stories are colourful, diverse, exposing the arbitrary logic with which
these young Britons - businessmen, seekers and adventurers - found themselves
shackled in a series of cages next to the Caribbean Sea.

Jamal al-Harith (Patrick Robinson), one of four British detainees to have been
released this year, used to think, "Gosh, I'm from Manchester, what am I doing
here?"

"I'd look at the cage and think, "Is Beadle going to come round or something?" -
a reference to the British television prankster, Jeremy Beadle.

Mr Beg (Badi Uzzaman) describes his son, Moazzam, a devout boy from Birmingham
who went to Afghanistan as a voluntary aid worker.

Wahab al-Rawi (Aaron Neil) tells of his brother Bisher, a UK resident and
motorcycle enthusiast who ended up in Cuba after being arrested on a disastrous
business trip to Gambia.

Bisher (Daniel Cerqueira), once a student at an exclusive English school, writes
acerbic letters from "the seaside resort of Guantanamo Bay", where he arrived
"all expenses paid", "after winning first prize in a competition".

"Everybody is very nice," he says. "The neighbours are very well behaved. The
food is first class, plenty of sun and pebbles, no sand I'm afraid."

Cry for justice

But unwitting farce swiftly gives way to the slow, brutal drudgery of prison
life.

To the play's organisers - and to Mr Begg, who watched the performance - the
British audience is the one that matters most.

As citizens of America's biggest ally in the "war on terror", the British are in
a unique position to push for these prisoners' human rights to be restored.

"I seek justice and not forgiveness," Mrs Jahida Sayyadi, Bisher al-Rawi's
mother, writes in the programme. "My son has done nothing to be forgiven for."

At least six Britons and UK residents are still being held in Guantanamo Bay.

[ Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom runs at London's Tricycle Theatre
until 12 June. ]

* * *


The Star (Malaysia):

May 25, 2004

LAWYER: SAUDIS SAY THEY WERE TORTURED AT GUANTANAMO

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/5/25/latest/17504LawyerSa

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Five Saudis who were detained at Guantanamo
Bay claim they were tortured at that American military installation, their
lawyer said amid an international furor over U.S. soldiers' mistreatment of
Iraqi prisoners.

The Saudi allegations follow allegations by Britons released from Guantanamo
that they were abused there. Images of U.S. soldiers brutalizing and humiliating
Iraqi prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad have focused
new attention on U.S. treatment of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and
raised concerns among families of detainees.

U.S. officials have denied any major instances of abuse at Guantanamo.

The International Red Cross Committee, the only international entity allowed
access to the Guantanamo prisoners, has said it will inspect the facility and
interview detainees there later this month.

Five Saudis who were released from Guantanamo and returned home in May 2003
"confirmed they were subjected to torture and mistreatment when they were first
incarcerated in Afghanistan, and later on during questioning at Guantanamo,''
lawyer Kateb al-Shemmari told The Associated Press during a series of phone and
fax interviews over the past week.

Al-Shemmari said the five offered few details, but said that one reported being
forced to look at naked women, which a devout Muslim would consider humiliating.
The treatment improved after a Saudi delegation visited the detainees, al-
Shemmari said.

Al-Shemmari, speaking from the Saudi capital Riyadh, said he could not
immediately put the AP in contact with the five, who have never been publicly
named. Their exact whereabouts in Saudi Arabia were unknown.

According to official Saudi estimates, 124 Saudis remain detained in Guantanamo
out of about 600 confined there. Four other Saudis were sent from Guantanamo to
Saudi detention last year under a U.S.-Saudi agreement.

"Even before the photos from Abu Ghraib emerged we were worried that they were
being mistreated,'' Abdel Rahim al-Dabbah, whose 23-year-old son Abdulaziz is
among the Saudis still being held at Guantanamo, told the AP in a telephone
interview from Saudi Arabia. "The photos from Iraq only confirmed our doubts.''
The elder al-Dabbah said his son has not directly complained about abuse in
letters he had sent, "but then again these letters are 100 percent written under
American supervision and for sure the men were not free to say all they
wanted.''

Al-Dabbah said he had not received mail from his son since September.

Al-Shemmari, the lawyer, said the majority of the Saudi families now are
complaining that for over eight months they have not been receiving letters from
their loved ones in Guantanamo. Several letters sent to the detainees have been
returned for unknown reasons, he said.

Yemenis have voiced similar concerns.

"The fact that they (detainees) are not free to contact their families and
lawyers is torture and mistreatment in itself,'' said Mohammed Naji Allam, head
of a private Yemeni organization handling the case of more than 100 Yemeni
detainees. Allam said the letters that have gotten through "imply they were
written under tight control.''

"Detainees have no privacy there, nor are they allowed to meet international
organization representatives. How would they be free in whatever they write?''
he said.

An uncle of one of the Yemeni detainees, Farouq Seif al-Kawary, who refused to
give his name, said in one of the two letters they received from al-Kawary he
said, "The prison conditions were tough.'' The uncle did not elaborate.

Lawyer Al-Shemmari said the Abu Ghraib scandal could increase international
pressure on the U.S. administration to improve conditions and "find a legal
solution for the fate of the Guantanamo detainees - either by trying them or
acquitting them.''

The U.S. government maintains that because the men were picked up overseas on
suspicion of being terrorists, they may be detained in open-ended military
custody, without charges or trial. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide
soon whether the Guantanamo detainees may challenge their detention in American
courts.

Khaled al-Odah, the head of a private group lobbying for the release of the 12
Kuwaitis held at Guantanamo, said Kuwaitis concerned that their relatives might
be being mistreated were getting more worried with every new photo they see of
Abu Ghraib abuses. He said they had relayed concerns to the Kuwaiti Embassy in
Washington, which is expected to ask U.S. authorities for guarantees that what
happened at Abu Ghraib will not happen to their sons.

[ four stars on a scale of five ]

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

May 24, 2004

WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

The horrific images from Abu Ghraib have come to define the ill-starred
occupation of Iraq, but what do they really tell us about America? Are they
simply the work of a few rogue soldiers, or the result of the new foreign and
domestic policies of the Bush administration, which find ready approval in an
increasingly brutalised society? Susan Sontag on the ugly face of the war on
terror

By Susan Sontag

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1223344,00.html

For a long time - at least six decades - photographs have laid down the tracks
of how important conflicts are judged and remembered. The memory museum is now
mostly a visual one. Photographs have an insuperable power to determine what
people recall of events, and it now seems likely that the defining association
of people everywhere with the rotten war that the Americans launched
preemptively in Iraq last year will be photographs of the torture of Iraqi
prisoners in the most infamous of Saddam Hussein's prisons, Abu Ghraib.
The slogans and phrases fielded by the Bush administration and its defenders
have been chiefly aimed at limiting a public relations disaster - the
dissemination of the photographs - rather than dealing with the complex crimes
of leadership, policies and authority revealed by the pictures. There was, first
of all, the displacement of the reality on to the photographs themselves. The
administration's initial response was to say that the president was shocked and
disgusted by the photographs - as if the fault or horror lay in the images, not
in what they depict. There was also the avoidance of the word torture. The
prisoners had possibly been the objects of "abuse", eventually of "humiliation"
- that was the most to be admitted. "My impression is that what has been charged
thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture,"
secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld said at a press conference. "And therefore
I'm not going to address the torture word." Words alter, words add, words
subtract. It was the strenuous avoidance of the word "genocide" while the
genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda was being carried out 10 years ago that meant
the American government had no intention of doing anything. To call what took
place in Abu Ghraib - and, almost certainly, in other prisons in Iraq and in
Afghanistan, and in Guantanamo - by its true name, torture, would likely entail
a public investigation, trials, court martials, dishonourable discharges,
resignation of senior military figures and responsible cabinet officials, and
substantial reparations to the victims. Such a response to our misrule in Iraq
would contradict everything this administration has invited the American public
to believe about the virtue of American intentions and America's right to
unilateral action on the world stage in defence of its interests and its
security.

Even when the president was finally compelled, as the damage to America's
reputation everywhere in the world widened and deepened, to use the "sorry"
word, the focus of regret still seemed the damage to America's claim to moral
superiority, to its hegemonic goal of bringing "freedom and democracy" to the
benighted Middle East. Yes, Mr Bush said in Washington on May 6, standing
alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan, he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered
by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families". But, he
went on, he was "as equally sorry that people seeing these pictures didn't
understand the true nature and heart of America".

To have the American effort in Iraq summed up by these images must seem, to
those who saw some justification in a war that did overthrow one of the monster
tyrants of modern times, "unfair". A war, an occupation, is inevitably a huge
tapestry of actions. What makes some actions representative and others not? The
issue is not whether they are done by individuals (ie, not by "everybody"). All
acts are done by individuals. The question is not whether the torture was the
work of a few individuals but whether it was systematic. Authorised. Condoned.
Covered up. It was - all of the above. The issue is not whether a majority or a
minority of Americans performs such acts but whether the nature of the policies
prosecuted by this administration and the hierarchies deployed to carry them out
makes such acts likely.

Considered in this light, the photographs are us. That is, they are
representative of distinctive policies and of the fundamental corruptions of
colonial rule. The Belgians in the Congo, the French in Algeria, committed
identical atrocities and practised torture and sexual humiliation on despised,
recalcitrant natives. Add to this corruption, the mystifying, near-total
unpreparedness of the American rulers of Iraq to deal with the complex realities
of an Iraq after its "liberation" - that is, conquest. And add to that the
overarching, distinctive doctrines of the Bush administration, namely that the
United States has embarked on an endless war (against a protean enemy called
"terrorism"), and that those detained in this war are "unlawful combatants" - a
policy enunciated by Rumsfeld as early as January 2002 - and therefore "do not
have any rights" under the Geneva convention, and you have a perfect recipe for
the cruelties and crimes committed against the thousands incarcerated without
charges and access to lawyers in American-run prisons that have been set up as
part of the response to the attack of September 11 2001. Endless war produces
the option of endless detention, which is subject to no judicial review.

So, then, the real issue is not the photographs but what the photographs reveal
to have happened to "suspects" in American custody? No: the horror of what is
shown in the photographs cannot be separated from the horror that the
photographs were taken - with the perpetrators posing, gloating, over their
helpless captives. German soldiers in the second world war took photographs of
the atrocities they were committing in Poland and Russia, but snapshots in which
the executioners placed themselves among their victims are exceedingly rare.
(See a book just published, Photographing the Holocaust by Janina Struk.) If
there is something comparable to what these pictures show it would be some of
the photographs - collected in a book entitled Without Sanctuary - of black
victims of lynching taken between the 1880s and 1930s, which show smalltown
Americans, no doubt most of them church-going, respectable citizens, grinning,
beneath the naked mutilated body of a black man or woman hanging behind them
from a tree. The lynching photographs were souvenirs of a collective action
whose participants felt perfectly justified in what they had done. So are the
pictures from Abu Ghraib.

If there is a difference, it is a difference created by the increasing ubiquity
of photographic actions. The lynching pictures were in the nature of photographs
as trophies - taken by a photographer, in order to be collected, stored in
albums; displayed. The pictures taken by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib reflect
a shift in the use made of pictures - less objects to be saved than evanescent
messages to be disseminated, circulated. A digital camera is a common possession
of most soldiers. Where once photographing war was the province of
photojournalists, now the soldiers themselves are all photographers - recording
their war, their fun, their observations of what they find picturesque, their
atrocities - and swapping images among themselves, and emailing them around the
globe.

There is more and more recording of what people do, by themselves. Andy Warhol's
ideal of filming real events in real time - life isn't edited, why should its
record be edited? - has become a norm for millions of webcasts, in which people
record their day, each in his or her own reality show. Here I am - waking and
yawning and stretching, brushing my teeth, making breakfast, getting the kids
off to school. People record all aspects of their lives, store them in computer
files, and send the files around. Family life goes with the recording of family
life - even when, or especially when, the family is in the throes of crisis and
disgrace. (Surely the dedicated, incessant home-videoing of one another, in
conversation and monologue, over many years was the most astonishing material in
the recent documentary about a Long Island family embroiled in paedophilia
charges, Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans [2003].) An erotic life is,
for more and more people, what can be captured on video.

To live is to be photographed, to have a record of one's life, and therefore, to
go on with one's life, oblivious, or claiming to be oblivious, to the camera's
non-stop attentions. But it is also to pose. To act is to share in the community
of actions recorded as images. The expression of satisfaction at the acts of
torture one is inflicting on helpless, trussed, naked victims is only part of
the story. There is the primal satisfaction of being photographed, to which one
is more inclined to respond not with a stiff, direct gaze (as in former times)
but with glee. The events are in part designed to be photographed. The grin is a
grin for the camera. There would be something missing if, after stacking the
naked men, you couldn't take a picture of them.

You ask yourself how someone can grin at the sufferings and humiliation of
another human being - drag a naked Iraqi man along the floor with a leash? set
guard dogs at the genitals and legs of cowering, naked prisoners? rape and
sodomise prisoners? force shackled hooded prisoners to masturbate or commit
sexual acts with each other? beat prisoners to death? - and feel naive in asking
the questions, since the answer is, self-evidently: people do these things to
other people. Not just in Nazi concentration camps and in Abu Ghraib when it was
run by Saddam Hussein. Americans, too, do them when they have permission. When
they are told or made to feel that those over whom they have absolute power
deserve to be mistreated, humiliated, tormented. They do them when they are led
to believe that the people they are torturing belong to an inferior, despicable
race or religion. For the meaning of these pictures is not just that these acts
were performed, but that their perpetrators had no sense that there was anything
wrong in what the pictures show. Even more appalling, since the pictures were
meant to be circulated and seen by many people, it was all fun. And this idea of
fun is, alas, more and more - contrary to what Mr Bush is telling the world -
part of "the true nature and heart of America".

It is hard to measure the increasing acceptance of brutality in American life,
but its evidence is everywhere, starting with the games of killing that are the
principal entertainment of young males to the violence that has become endemic
in the group rites of youth on an exuberant kick. From the harsh torments
inflicted on incoming students in many American suburban high schools - depicted
in Richard Linklater's film Dazed and Confused (1993) - to the rituals of
physical brutality and sexual humiliation to be found in working-class bar
culture, and institutionalised in our colleges and universities as hazing -
America has become a country in which the fantasies and the practice of violence
are, increasingly, seen as good entertainment, fun.

What formerly was segregated as pornography, as the exercise of extreme sado-
masochistic longings - such as Pasolini's last, near-unwatchable film, Saló
(1975), depicting orgies of torture in the fascist redoubt in northern Italy at
the end of the Mussolini era - is now being normalised, by the apostles of the
new, bellicose, imperial America, as high-spirited prankishness or venting. To
"stack naked men" is like a college fraternity prank, said a caller to Rush
Limbaugh and the many millions of Americans who listen to his radio show. Had
the caller, one wonders, seen the photographs? No matter. The observation, or is
it the fantasy, was on the mark. What may still be capable of shocking some
Americans was Limbaugh's response: "Exactly!" exclaimed Limbaugh. "Exactly my
point. This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation
and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our
military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a
good time." "They" are the American soldiers, the torturers. And Limbaugh went
on. "You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about
people having a good time, these people. You ever heard of emotional release?"

It's likely that quite a large number of Americans would rather think that it is
all right to torture and humiliate other human beings - who, as our putative or
suspected enemies, have forfeited all their rights - than to acknowledge the
folly and ineptitude and fraud of the American venture in Iraq. As for torture
and sexual humiliation as fun, there seems little to oppose this tendency while
America continues to turn itself into a garrison state, in which patriots are
defined as those with unconditional respect for armed might and for the
necessity of maximal domestic surveillance. Shock and awe was what our military
promised the Iraqis who resisted their American liberators. And shock and the
awful are what these photographs announce to the world that the Americans have
delivered: a pattern of criminal behaviour in open defiance and contempt of
international humanitarian conventions. But there seems no reversing for the
moment America's commitment to self-justification, and the condoning of its
increasingly out-of-control culture of violence. Soldiers now pose, thumbs up,
before the atrocities they commit, and send off the pictures to their buddies
and family. What is revealed by these photographs is as much the culture of
shamelessness as the reigning admiration for unapologetic brutality. Ours is a
society in which secrets of private life that, formerly, you would have given
nearly anything to conceal, you now clamour to get on a television show to
reveal.

The notion that "apologies" or professions of "disgust" and "abhorrence" by the
president and the secretary of defence are a sufficient response to the
systematic torture and murder of prisoners revealed at Abu Ghraib is an insult
to one's historical and moral sense. The torture of prisoners is not an
aberration. It is a direct consequence of the doctrines of world struggle with
which the Bush administration has sought to fundamentally change the domestic
and foreign policy of the US. The Bush administration has committed the country
to a new, pseudo-religious doctrine of war, endless war - for "the war on
terror" is nothing less than that. What has happened in the new, international
carceral empire run by the US military goes beyond even the notorious procedures
enshrined in France's Devil's Island and Soviet Russia's Gulag system, which in
the case of the French penal island had, first, both trials and sentences, and
in the case of the Russian prison empire a charge of some kind and a sentence
for a specific number of years. Endless war permits the option of endless
incarceration - without charges, without the release of prisoners' names or any
access to family members and lawyers, without trials, without sentences. Those
held in the extra-legal American penal empire are "detainees"; "prisoners", a
newly obsolete word, might suggest that they have the rights accorded by
international law and the laws of all civilised countries. This endless "war on
terror" inevitably leads to the demonising and dehumanising of anyone declared
by the Bush administration to be a possible terrorist: a definition that is not
up for debate. An interminable war inevitably suggests the appropriateness of
interminable detention.

The charges against most of the people detained in the prisons in Iraq and
Afghanistan being non-existent - the Red Cross estimates that 70% to 90% of
those being held have apparently committed no crime other than simply being in
the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in some sweep of "suspects" - the
principal justification for holding them is "interrogation". Interrogation about
what? About anything. Whatever the detainee might know. If interrogation is the
point of detaining prisoners indefinitely, then physical coercion, humiliation
and torture become inevitable.

Remember: we are not talking about that rarest of situations, the "ticking bomb"
scenario, which is sometimes used as a limiting case that justifies torture of
prisoners. This is information-gathering authorised by American military and
civilian administrators to learn more of a shadowy empire of evildoers about
which Americans know virtually nothing, in countries about which they are
singularly ignorant - so that any "information" might be useful. An
interrogation which produced no information (whatever the information might
consist of) would count as a failure. All the more justification for preparing
prisoners to talk. Softening them up, stressing them out - these were the usual
euphemisms for the bestial practices that have become rampant in American
prisons where "suspected terrorists" are being held. Unfortunately, it seems,
more than a few got "too stressed out" and died.

The pictures will not go away. That is the nature of the digital world in which
we live. Indeed, it seems they were necessary to get our leaders to acknowledge
that they had a problem on their hands. After all, the report submitted by the
International Committee of the Red Cross, and other, sketchier reports by
journalists and protests by humanitarian organisations about the atrocious
punishments inflicted on "detainees" and "suspected terrorists" in prisons run
by the American military, have been circulating for more than a year. It seems
doubtful that any of these reports were read by Mr Bush or Mr Cheney or Ms Rice
or Mr Rumsfeld. Apparently it took the photographs to get their attention, when
it became clear they could not be suppressed; it was the photographs that made
all this "real" to Mr Bush and his associates. Up to then, there had been only
words, which are a lot easier to cover up in our age of infinite digital self-
reproduction and self-dissemination.

So now the pictures will continue to "assault" us - as many Americans are bound
to feel. Will people get used to them? Some Americans are already saying that
they have seen "enough". Not, however, the rest of the world. Endless war:
endless stream of photographs. Will American newspaper, magazine and television
editors now debate whether showing more of them, or showing them uncropped
(which, with some of the best-known images, gives a different and in some
instances more appalling view of the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib), would
be in "bad taste" or too implicitly political? By "political", read: critical of
the Bush administration. For there can be no doubt that the photographs damage,
as Mr Rumsfeld testified, the reputation of "the honourable men and women of the
armed forces who are courageously and responsibly and professionally protecting
our freedoms across the globe". This damage - to our reputation, our image, our
success as an imperial power - is what the Bush administration principally
deplores. How the protection of "our freedoms" - and he is talking here about
the freedom of Americans only, 6% of the population of the planet - came to
require having American soldiers in any country where it chooses to be ("across
the globe") is not up for debate either. America is under attack. America sees
itself as the victim of potential or future terror. America is only defending
itself, against implacable, furtive enemies.

Already the backlash has begun. Americans are being warned against indulging in
an orgy of self-condemnation. The continuing publication of the pictures is
being taken by many Americans as suggesting that we do not have the right to
defend ourselves. After all, they (the terrorists, the fanatics) started it.
They - Osama bin Laden? Saddam Hussein? what's the difference? - attacked us
first. James Inhofe, a Republican member, from Oklahoma, of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, before which secretary Rumsfeld testified, avowed that he
was sure he was not the only member of the committee "more outraged by the
outrage" over what the photographs show. "These prisoners," Sen Inhofe
explained, "you know they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in
cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists,
they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and
here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals." It's the
fault of "the media" - usually called "the liberal media" - which is provoking,
and will continue to provoke, further violence against Americans around the
world. More Americans will die. Because of these photos.

There is an answer to this charge, of course. It is not because of the
photographs but of what the photographs reveal to be happening, happening at the
behest of and with the complicity of a chain of command that reaches up to the
highest level of the Bush administration. But the distinction - between
photograph and reality, between policy and spin - easily evaporates in most
people's minds. And that is what the administration wishes to happen.

"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist," Mr Rumsfeld
acknowledged in his testimony. "If these are released to the public, obviously,
it is going to make matters worse." Worse for the US and its programmes,
presumably. Not for those who are the actual victims of torture. The media may
self-censor, as is its wont. But, as Mr Rumsfeld acknowledged, it's hard to
censor soldiers overseas who don't write letters home, as in the old days, that
can be opened by military censors who ink out unacceptable lines, but, instead,
function like tourists, "running around with digital cameras and taking these
unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the
media, to our surprise". The administration's effort to withhold pictures will
continue, however - the argument is taking a more legalistic turn: now the
photographs are "evidence" in future criminal cases, whose outcome may be
prejudiced if the photographs are made public. But the real push to limit the
accessibility of the photographs will come from the ongoing effort to protect
the Bush administration and its policies - to identify "outrage" over the
photographs with a campaign to undermine the American military might and the
purposes it currently serves. Just as it was regarded by many as an implicit
criticism of the war to show on television photographs of American soldiers who
were killed in the course of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it will
increasingly be thought unpatriotic to disseminate the aberrant photographs and
tarnish and besmirch the reputation - that is, the image - of America.

After all, we're at war. Endless war. And war is hell. The only good Indian is a
dead Indian. Hey, we were only having fun. In our digital hall of mirrors, the
pictures aren't going to go away. Yes, it seems that one picture is worth a
thousand words. And there will be thousands more snapshots and videos.
Unstoppable. Can the video game, "Hazing at Abu Ghraib" or "Interrogating the
Terrorists", be far behind?

© Susan Sontag 2004


* * *


The Guardian (UK) --

May 24, 2004

QUESTIONS AND LIES

When Victoria Brittain interviewed the families of Guantanamo detainees for a
new play, she discovered a game of chance being played with their lives

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1223144,00.html

The interviews that form Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom originally
filled up 25 hours of tape and represent a cross section of Britain not often
accessible in one slice. Gillian Slovo and I travelled from London to
Manchester, Birmingham, Tipton and Leeds, meeting families originally from
Jamaica, St Lucia, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. For three weeks, we
totally immersed ourselves in the realities of life for the families of British
detainees in Guantanamo. All are battling a system that had detained their sons
and brothers, and plunged them into a limbo of desperate anxiety, where letters
do not arrive, there are no answers to their questions, and powerlessness is the
all-pervading feeling.

We usually met just one family member, always in their choice of territory: in
pubs, hotel bars, impeccable sitting rooms, in rooms that doubled as bedrooms,
in lawyers' offices, in the Tricycle's rehearsal rooms. They gave us tea, or
wonderful Indian sweets, a baby to hold or a lift to the station. There were no
prepared questions. We wanted the families to decide what they most wanted to
say.

Several started with a hatred of the media. Out came a torrent of accusations:
they had been exploited, lies had been told about their detained relation.
Sharon Fiddler, one of the campaigning sisters of recently released Mancunian
Jamal al Harith, spoke for many families when she confessed to a hatred of the
Foreign Office: "They lied to us." Jeanette Belmar, the sister of Londoner
Richard Belmar, who is still detained, talked of shouting down the phone at the
impersonal officials - "Home Office ... Foreign Office" - who would ring the
family.

Before the flights that ended with their arrests in the Gambia, Wahab Al-Rawi
and Jamil el Banna (originally from Iraq and Jordan) had long discussions with
Special Branch about their business plans for a mobile peanut oil plant in
Africa. The men believed the officers when they said there was no problem with
their travel plans. Wahab, educated at British private schools, and from an old,
moneyed Iraqi family, told us his story as calmly as though it had happened to
someone else. But then pain etched his face as he described his insomnia, and
the nightmares in which he sees the pleading face of his still-detained brother
Bishar as he is beaten up.

Just before the two men and their Muslim partners were seized at Banjul airport,
their families were moved into hotels, and Special Branch searched their homes
in London. In one surreal moment, Wahab phoned home and spoke to a Special
Branch man; he asked if he should come back, whether there was a problem, only
to be told: no problem. Then interrogations by US officials began. "My partner
and myself were held for 27 days ... my brother and Mr El Banna have been in
prison ever since," he said. The two men were flown from Gambia to the US base
at Bagram in Afghanistan before being moved to Cuba. Wahab has woken up to a
different Britain - one in which his brother is labelled a terrorist, and he
himself has lost $250,000 in a business venture.

Most of the families say they were initially bewildered by the lack of help from
those who had been expected to provide it: British embassies and high
commissions in Kabul and Banjul, the British government in London, their MP, the
International Committee of the Red Cross. They have a burning sense of
injustice; anger and a sense of alienation from all things British - in
particular Tony Blair - is very sharp.

Azmat Begg, whose son Moazzam is still in Guantanamo and may face a Military
Commission, likes to describe himself as "patriotic" and "loyal to the Queen",
and to talk of his family's history in the British army in India. He has been
hit hard by the betrayals by the British authorities he had believed in. Sitting
in his Sparkbrook front room, he struggled to hold back tears as he looked for
the word to describe where his son is kept: "Not cells ... cages." And he re-
read a letter from Moazzam, in which he first revealed how he was "beginning to
lose the fight against depression and hopelessness".

Shortly after his release, Jamal Al-Harith described to us the back-packing trip
that ended with him being captured by bandits in a hijacked truck, handed over
to the Taliban, told by the Red Cross when the Taliban fell that he was free,
promised a flight home by the British embassy in Kabul, suddenly whisked to
interrogation by the Americans, then flown to Cuba. Sitting in a hotel in
Manchester, with ordinary English life going on all around us, his matter-of-
fact description of torture, and of the prisoners' resistance to dehumanisation,
was an overwhelmingly uncomfortable experience.

Two policemen patrol the block in Tipton where the three families of the ex-
detainees - Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul - live within five minutes
walk of each other. They are a stark reminder of how many of the detainee
families fear increased racism. The part of the estate where the Ahmeds live is
a classic of British urban destitution, with abandoned mattresses in front
gardens, vandalised cars, and a BNP presence. We were welcomed into Mr and Mrs
Ahmed's front room where their son Ruhal's trophies for kickboxing take up one
corner, above the TV tuned to an Asian satellite station. Mr Ahmed explained
with pride how he got the boy a new suit for a competition, before life became
difficult: Ruhal's eyesight deteriorated, a new development in the countryside
killed the urban area where they had a successful restaurant, and Ruhal left
with his friends for Pakistan. Mr Ahmed had been visiting his ill mother in
Bangladesh when he heard on the telephone that Ruhal had been arrested in
Afghanistan. His son, he said, came back from Guantanamo different,
unrecognisable; to his father, Ruhal's future is now frighteningly uncertain.

The interviews kept throwing up new connections between detainees, in Guantanamo
and in Belmarsh prison here, and posing new questions. We heard of innocent
people sold to the Americans, of people whose false confessions to being part of
al-Qaida were by chance invalidated by MI5. "Arbitrariness", as Lord Justice
Steyn put it in his critique of Guantanamo, was part of every story - and that
made them all the more frightening. Solicitor Gareth Pierce, who represents many
of the detainees' families, described as "stark medieval horror" what happened
to the three boys from Tipton. And when Ben Emmerson QC, who represents most of
the Belmarsh detainees, described the legal processes he had been involved in as
"totally Kafkaesque", we were not surprised - it was a phrase we had used
ourselves.

· Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom opens at the Tricycle Theatre,
London NW6, tonight. Box office: 020-7328 1000.

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

May 23, 2004

DOCUMENTS PROVIDE NEW DETAILS OF ABUSE

* Army investigators heard accounts from inmates of Abu Ghraib and intelligence
officers.

By Richard A. Serrano and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-prison23may23,1,3865832.story

WASHINGTON -- Military investigators who combed through the Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq this year were told that one detainee was slammed head-first into a wall
and later died, and that another was dunked in urine.

They also encountered intelligence officers who said they never saw the abuse
and humiliation that was occurring.

Only one intelligence team member acknowledged seeing any of the thousands of
photographs and videos that were floating through the complex -- images of naked
detainees so accessible that some were visible on computers at an Internet cafe
in the prison.

Six military prison guards are awaiting courts-martial on charges of abusing
prisoners and a seventh has pleaded guilty. As they seek to determine how far up
the chain of command responsibility lies, agents of the Army's Criminal
Investigative Command are turning their attention to intelligence officers,
civilian contractors and linguists who routinely had contact with detainees.

But their insistence that they were in the dark about prisoner abuse could make
it difficult for investigators to seek criminal charges against intelligence
unit members who the guards claim encouraged them to get rough with detainees in
the first place.

Revelations about the intelligence squads and new forms of abuse are found in
more than 100 pages of case files compiled by Army investigators. The material
includes questionnaires, agents' handwritten notes, victim statements and prison
flow charts. It is not clear how much of the material was seen by Maj. Gen.
Antonio M. Taguba, who investigated the abuse and issued a highly critical
report that became public this month.

The documents obtained by The Times also provide new details of the treatment of
Iraqi prisoners.

Detainees were forced to participate in contests in which military police tried
to see how many detainees they could make cry or urinate on themselves. Happy
faces were drawn across the bare chest of one detainee, who was nicknamed "Happy
Nipples."

Some of the documents are notes taken by an investigator as he worked his way
down the cellblocks interviewing detainees. One prisoner told him he smelled
alcohol on guards "many times." Another said he was whipped, beaten and held for
40 days in isolation. A third said "they beat me with a broom and stepped on my
head with their feet."

Both victims and guards cited by Army investigators tended to confirm
characterizations of Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. as the most violent on Tier 1A
in what was known as the prison's "hard site," where inmates considered high
risk were kept. A guard said Graner would beat prisoners and then encourage his
colleagues to "come get some of this."

At one point Graner, who worked in a state prison in Pennsylvania before being
deployed to Iraq, allegedly told another guard: "The Christian in me says it's
wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss
himself.' "

Another guard described in the investigative reports as particularly vicious was
Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, who previously worked in a Virginia
prison. After the investigation into the abuse was launched, he allegedly told a
fellow soldier that this would ruin his civilian career.

"Nineteen and a half years down the drain," he lamented.

The investigation began Jan. 13 when Spc. Joseph Darby, another member of the
military police unit, slipped an anonymous, typewritten note under the door of
the Army investigation command's office at the prison, along with a photo disc
that Graner had given him.

"To Whom It May Concern," the note began. "I am writing this letter as a matter
of moral ethics."

Darby said he recently had seen "some very disturbing photos of inmates in the
hard site prison, Tier 1A to be specific. I had heard stories in the company
about the incidents that were taking place but I did not believe them till I was
given these photos."

He identified Graner, Frederick, Pfc. Lynndie England, Spc. Sabrina Harman and
Spc. Megan Ambuhl, all charged in the investigation, as key figures in the
abuse, as well as Spc. Jeremy Sivits, who pleaded guilty last week to abusing
prisoners and was sentenced to a year in prison. Sivits is expected to testify
against the others.

"I am writing this to try to right the wrongs that I have seen in these photos
and video clips," Darby wrote. "Since no one will come forward ... I feel
something must be done. So I am giving this disc to you. Do with it as you
wish."

He signed the note, "Concerned MP."

Much of the alleged abuse began last October, when the military was under
mounting pressure to collect information regarding the whereabouts of Saddam
Hussein and other potential threats to U.S. forces.

After being tipped off by Darby, agents first interviewed guards, then gave
intelligence team members a one-page sheet with 11 questions. Twenty-five
members filled them out.

Only seven acknowledged witnessing any mistreatment, and most of that consisted
of minor incidents outside the prison. Only one said he saw a photograph of
abuse. And while 15 said they had heard about abuse, only one reported it to a
superior.

Of those who said they knew of mistreatment, Staff Sgt. Russell Henderson said
he was told of two occasions in which "several" soldiers "used undue force with
host nationals at the front gate" of the prison.

Capt. Tyler Craner said he had heard that three soldiers from the 519th Military
Intelligence Battalion based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., were disciplined for having "a
female detainee strip."

Torin Nelson, a civilian working with interrogators, said that an angry guard
shoved a prisoner and that an interrogator "picked up [an elderly] detainee by
the cuffs and dragged him to the interrogation booth, yelling at him because he
had fallen to the ground."

Spc. Paul Son answered "yes" to whether he had witnessed abuse at Abu Ghraib,
then used the back half of the questionnaire to lash out at his command for
forcing interrogators to work in open areas while the compound was under nearly
daily mortar attack.

Two soldiers died and 13 others were injured in an attack Sept. 20 "as a direct
result of obeying the orders given by the chain of command to continue with
night operations in tents rather than hardened facilities," Son wrote. "Hardened
facilities were available, and efforts were made to convince the chain of
command to allow soldiers to work in the bunkered buildings or to discontinue
night interrogation operations."

Other interrogators acknowledged that they suggested that guards use tactics
such as sleep deprivation and playing loud music to keep prisoners awake. The
interrogators denied telling guards to hit detainees, strip them naked, pile
them on the floor or force them to masturbate. They also denied requesting
photographs of the humiliations to scare other detainees into talking, as has
been reported.

The investigation documents include wrenching accounts from prisoners. In one
case, a detainee said he was severely punished after guards accused him of
planning to use a broken toothbrush to attack them.

The prisoner, identified as Abdoul Wahab Younes Ahmed, denied that the
toothbrush was his. He said he was stripped, deprived of his mattress and cuffed
to the cell floor.

"After that they took me to a closed room and more than five of the guards
poured cold water on me and ordered me to put my head in someone's urine that
was already in that room," he said. "They beat me with a broom and stepped on my
head with their feet while it was still in the urine. They pressed my [rear end]
with a broom and spit on it" while a female soldier stood on his legs.

He said a leader of the day shift crew would give him his clothes back, but that
"at night Graner took them away." The treatment went on for three days, the
prisoner said.

Another prisoner, identified as Solaiman Saadi Solaiman, said his hands were
cuffed to a prison wall merely for asking a guard, Sgt. Hydrue S. Joyner, what
time it was. When Graner came on duty that evening, the prisoner said, "he hit
me hard on my chest and he cuffed me to the window of the room about five hours
and did not give me any food that day."

During 67 days in the cellblock, the prisoner said he "saw lots of people
getting naked." During the first days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,
guards came in "with two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face
and Graner was beating them."

"Other guards were watching and taking pictures from top and bottom" of the
prison tier, he said.

England told investigators that it was Graner's idea to stack naked prisoners in
a pyramid, and that Frederick forced them to masturbate. Sgt. Javal S. Davis,
another accused guard, said Graner "handled" the unidentified prisoner who was
plowed into a wall, suffering cuts that required stitches. That prisoner is
"deceased now," Davis said.

It was not clear which prisoner Davis was referring to, although the Pentagon is
investigating as possible homicides two cases involving blunt force injuries at
the prison.

Lawyers for the six guards awaiting trial maintain that intelligence officers
pressured their clients to abuse prisoners to extract more information.

Graner's lawyer, Guy Womack of Houston, said recently published photos of the
abuse prove it was engineered by military intelligence officers. He said guards
did not know enough about Iraqi society to humiliate prisoners in such ways.

Womack said they would not have known that licking the bottom of a shoe -- which
some prisoners were allegedly ordered to do -- is seen as a particularly
offensive act.

"Only the intelligence officers who study the psyche of the prisoners know that
there are certain poses and ways to stage them," Womack said. "They know what
type of humiliation will be the most effective. The MPs would have had no way to
understand the significance of that. It's a cultural thing."

Womack said intelligence officers ordered the construction of a plywood wall
inside Abu Ghraib so there would be fewer witnesses to abuse, and he said they
orchestrated the mistreatment so that almost all of it took place at night.

The Army investigators' notes also say that one of the accused guards, Davis,
lied when he said that he unintentionally stepped on prisoners' fingers and
toes. Davis told investigators that he and a detainee he was escorting "both
fell as we stumbled over another prisoner" lying on the cellblock floor, and
stepped on the prisoner as he was trying to help him up.

Investigators did not believe that account and said in the report obtained by
The Times that Davis "lied on first statement about abuse."

In another incident in which detainees were piled naked in a pyramid and Graner
posed for a photograph as if he were about to punch one of them, the notes say
that Harman, another accused guard, "did not feel what happened was wrong."

[ Times staff writer Scott Gold in Houston contributed to this report. ]

* * *


Newsday:

May 23, 2004

HIGH-PRESSURE TACTICS
Critics say Bush policies - post-9/11 - gave
interrogators leeway to push beyond normal limits
By Craig Gordon, Washington Bureau

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-
wopent233815685may23,0,7932296.story

WASHINGTON - Near the end of 2002, interrogators at the U.S. military detention
center at Guantanamo Bay were worried.

One of their most valuable prisoners, a man believed to be the planned 20th
hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, appeared to have crucial information about
future terrorist plots, but they could not get him to reveal it, senior defense
officials said.

So interrogators wanted to ratchet up the pressure in their questioning of
Mohamed al-Qahtani - and they had the legal backing to do just that.

It was a controversial White House decision made almost a year earlier that top
defense officials say made al-Qahtani subject to harsher techniques than
normally permitted under the Geneva Conventions.

With the approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the interrogators got
what they wanted. More aggressive techniques were put in place for use at the
prison known as Gitmo, some of which were used on al-Qahtani to get him to talk,
the defense officials said.

Now some in Congress and prisoner-rights groups say those Bush administration
decisions opened the door to the abuses that later appeared in shocking images
from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Those policies did not authorize physical or sexual abuse explicitly, but
critics argue they sent a strong signal to interrogators that limits could be
pushed beyond the standard, widely taught Army practices in pursuit of all-
important intelligence.

"I think what happened is that you took a sophisticated concept at Gitmo, where
the Geneva Convention did not apply ... and you put it in the hands of people
[in Iraq] who should have been driving trucks, or doing something else instead
of guarding prisoners. It was a disaster waiting to happen," Sen. Lindsey Graham
(R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said recently.

The policies "put these detainees into a legal black hole, into which nosy
judges and prosecutors could not peer," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights
Watch. "That creates a climate of disdain for the law, which gets communicated
down to the ranks."

But the Pentagon's top policy official, Douglas Feith, defends those decisions.
He first argued as far back as 1985 that terrorists or guerillas, like those of
today's al-Qaida, should not be granted prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva
Conventions, an argument the Bush administration essentially adopted for use at
Guantanamo Bay in early 2002.

Feith acknowledged in an interview Friday with Newsday that lifting those
protections from al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan made them subject to more
coercive questioning. He insisted that any techniques still fell well within a
"large buffer zone" of requirements for humane treatment and banning torture.

"We have been guardians, champions, of the DOD interest in upholding the Geneva
Conventions," said Feith, referring to the Department of Defense. "This is one
of the major protections that exists for our own forces all over the world."

U.S. policy a moving target

Yet nearly three weeks into the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, the often-
conflicting statements of senior military and civilian officials have
demonstrated U.S. policy on prisoner interrogation was a moving target.
Different rules existed for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where all detainees
are covered by the Geneva Conventions, international agreements designed to
safeguard the rights of prisoners of war.

In Abu Ghraib prison alone, senior officials have testified that no less than
three sets of interrogation policies were put in play at different times - those
cited in Army field manuals, those used by interrogators who previously worked
in Afghanistan and a third set created by Iraq's commanding general, modeled
after policies used at Guantanamo Bay.

The policies outlined by the Afghanistan unit included a variety of harsher
measures - including withholding food, sleep deprivation for more than 72 hours
and the use of uncomfortable stress positions for more than 45 minutes - that
had to be approved by the commanding general. Those methods were banned
recently.

The former commander at Guantanamo, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, has testified
that he brought his interrogation procedures from that base to Abu Ghraib.
Miller said military police should help "set the conditions" for questioning,
though some MPs have said military interrogators went further, asking them to
"soften up" prisoners, or treat them harshly to break down their resistance.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) told Miller and other top generals at a Senate
hearing last week that he believed such a policy could easily go awry.

"How would you expect an average soldier in the Army to understand the term
'successful exploitation' isn't simply a euphemism for 'anything goes?'" Kennedy
said.

Post-9/11 decision

The crucial decisions about how to handle detainees go back to the weeks and
months after Sept. 11, when the Bush administration made the legal determination
that the al-Qaida and Taliban members captured in Afghanistan would not be
granted prisoner-of-war status. The administration reasoned that because al-
Qaida was a terrorist group and the Taliban fighters did not follow the normal
practices of a standard army, they would be declared "enemy combatants."

That was the same argument that Feith had advanced some 16 years earlier,
asserting in an article that the United States should not ratify a proposed
protocol of the Geneva Conventions that covered "irregular" soldiers, or terror
groups.

Today, Feith argues that the White House decision to deny prisoner-of-war status
in Afghanistan was done not as a way to diminish the authority of the Geneva
Conventions but as a way to uphold them - in effect, not cheapening the
conventions by extending them to those like terrorists who do not honor the laws
of war.

"What the Geneva Conventions did is they built an incentive system ... If you
play by the rules, then when you get captured, you get prisoner-of-war status,"
Feith said. "I understand that there are people in good faith who argue, 'Give
everybody POW status. Be nice to everybody.' But the people who drafted the
Geneva Conventions were, I think, interested in making sure that nobody was
treated inhumanely, but not everybody got the full privileges."

But critics like Malinowski scoff at that explanation and say the administration
had a darker motive - giving interrogators leeway to bend the rules of the
Geneva Convention and use harsher techniques.

That question gained urgency in late 2002, when interrogators needed to find a
way to press al-Qahtani for what he might know. Al-Qahtani had arrived in the
United States just five weeks before the Sept. 11 attack under suspicious
circumstances and was deported, only to be captured later in Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld approved the use of more coercive techniques on al-Qahtani, said
defense officials, who refused to describe them. After military lawyers objected
that some techniques had gone too far, Rumsfeld revised the list, but the April
2003 policy reportedly still allows techniques such as subjecting prisoners to
heat, cold and sensory disorientation, like loud music.

'Need for intelligence'

Rumsfeld spokesman Lawrence Di Rita argued the final procedures took into
account the need to do what was necessary, within legal boundaries, to get
information that could save American lives. "It was balancing the need for
intelligence versus the need to do it right," Di Rita said.

But Malinowski said the most damning indictment of the Pentagon's approach came
from its own No. 2 general, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who was asked at a recent
hearing whether some of the practices once available for use in Iraq were good
interrogation methods or a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

"I would describe it as a violation, sir," Pace said.

[ Anne Q. Hoy of the Washington bureau contributed to this story. ]

* * *


The Observer (UK):

May 23, 2004

IRAQIS LOSE RIGHT TO SUE TROOPS OVER WAR CRIMES
Military win immunity pledge in deal on UN vote

By Kamal Ahmed, political editor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1222853,00.html

British and American troops are to be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraq
after the crucial 30 June handover, undermining claims that the new Iraqi
government will have 'full sovereignty' over the state.

Despite widespread ill-feeling about the abuse of prisoners by American forces
and allegations of mistreatment by British troops, coalition forces will be
protected from any legal action.

They will only be subject to the domestic law of their home countries. Military
sources have told The Observer that the question of immunity was central to
obtaining military agreement on a new United Nations resolution on Iraq to be
published by the middle of next month.

The new resolution will lift the arms embargo against Iraq, allowing the country
to rearm its 80,000-strong army in readiness for taking over the nation's
security once coalition forces finally leave.

'The legal situation in Iraq will be very difficult after 30 June, with some
confusion over where jurisdiction lies,' said one Whitehall official. 'We wanted
to ensure that British troops maintained the immunity they already have under
Order 17.'

Order 17 refers to an agreement signed by the Coalition Provisional Authority
giving American and British troops protection. That will now be extended to the
new multinational force made up of British and American forces which will remain
in Iraq at the invitation of the interim government.

Last night MPs demanded that Iraqi citizens should have some form of legal
redress following allegations that people had died unnecessarily during
gunfights with British forces.

'How is anyone in Iraq expected to bring a case in the British courts?' said
Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East, who has been credited with
uncovering many of the claims made against British troops.

'It is taking the idea of diplomatic immunity and applying it to 130,000 troops.
There is a danger that you are actually going from immunity to being able to act
with impunity.'

Price said that there should be a military ombudsman based in Iraq who could
investigate any allegations against coalition troops and call for further
action.

The British army was facing fresh embarrassment yesterday when the Attorney
General, Lord Goldsmith, published a statement admitting that allegations
against a British soldier now facing possible criminal proceedings over the
death of an Iraqi civilian during an arrest were initially dismissed by the
forces.

The Crown Prosecution Service is considering pressing criminal charges against
the soldier over the same incident. 'The case currently under consideration by
the CPS was referred to the Attorney General after charges were dismissed by the
soldier's commanding officer,' Goldsmith said.

'In these circumstances, the case cannot be tried by court martial.'

Earlier this month the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, said all allegations of
mistreatment by British troops were thoroughly investigated by the Royal
Military Police Special Investigations Branch.

The soldier's case is one of the two which he said had now reached 'an advanced
stage with decisions on prosecutions pending'. The first picture of how the new
Iraq will look after the handover is now starting to emerge. Senior diplomatic
sources told The Observer that the new UN resolution, which will give a legal
basis to the Iraqi interim government, will be published in the middle of next
month.

It is likely to say that this government should be able to give 'strategic
direction' to the multinational force although it will not take over full
command, a move that has already been rejected by the American and British
armies.

Iraq's new ministers will also take over control of the prisons, including the
notorious Abu Ghraib jail where Americans have been photographed and videotaped
abusing prisoners.

It will also be allowed to equip its army, run a police force and all of the
departments of state.

'We will give full sovereignty back,' said one source closely involved in the
negotiations. 'There must be a partnership between the Iraqi government and the
multi-national force. There can't be subservience.'

Iraq will be allowed to control its oil revenues, which will raise $48 billion a
year within the next three years, although it will have to pay tens of billions
of pounds in reparations imposed following the Gulf war. After the invasion and
occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1990 and the subsequent war,
the UN oversaw a reparations programme, mostly payable to the Kuwaiti
government. Iraq has so far paid $18bn funded from its oil reserves.

After the new resolution is passed it will still have to use a proportion of its
revenues to pay off the outstanding amount.

Diplomatic sources made it clear, however, that after the handover a lot of work
would go into debt relief for areas of the country, particularly around Baghdad
and in the north, where there are high levels of poverty.

* * *



The Observer (UK):

May 23, 2004

WILL IRAQ'S NEW PRIME MINISTER HAVE A COUNTRY TO RUN?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1222727,00.html

Within a matter of days, the identity of the man the allies have chosen to run
Iraq after 30 June will be revealed. There are three ways that the fractured
nation could go, reports Peter Beaumont


In eight days or so, Paul Bremer, the US proconsul in Iraq, will stand up in the
vast conference centre in Baghdad with Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special
representative in Iraq. Between them will be the man who has been selected to be
the first prime minister of post-Saddam Iraq.

Already the position has been offered to one - as yet unnamed - candidate who
has yet to accept the job, his identity known only to senior officials in
London, Washington and Rome and other capitals of the coalition forces. On his
shoulders rest the hopes for a peaceful outcome for Iraq.

For, as officials make clear, it will be in the announcement of the identity of
the new prime minister - and not the formal 30 June date for hand-over of
sovereignty - that Washington and London are putting all their hopes for the
redemption of Iraq: the birth of a democratic, unified and sovereign state.

Few have any doubt that the new prime minister will have little time to make a
difference in a country whose mood has soured against the occupying powers;
perhaps a month at most.

And with demand for an 'exit strategy' growing on both sides of the Atlantic,
think-tanks, chancelleries, defence ministries and business risk strategists are
drawing up the likeliest scenarios and contingencies.

The brightest outlook is that embraced by Downing Street, the White House and
the Coalition Provisional Authority.

It envisages a new beginning, with the announcement of a new prime minister and
interim government and, following the progress towards elections next year and
the drafting of a permanent constitution, optimists hope that Iraqis will work
towards a democratic civil society and the marginalisation of the men of
violence.

'A lot of weight will fall on the shoulders of the new prime minister,' concedes
David Richmond, Britain's special representative in Baghdad.

'I think he will have a fine line to walk from his appointment at the end of May
until the handover at the end of June, and he will have to deliver a message
that there should be no sectarianism.'

It is only one of the messages that the new prime minister - who is likely to be
drawn from the Shia majority - will have to get across if the transfer of power
to a new government is to work.

While the prime minister is working with his new government, Richmond explains,
he will also need to convince Iraqis of all backgrounds that the interim
government represents an end to occupation and a step towards elections next
year.

'On 30 June,' says Richmond, 'there is going to be a real change. The occupation
is going to end. The Coalition Provisional Authority is going to be dissolved.
Ambassador Paul Bremer will leave.'

It will be a new start. And the view shared by Tony Blair and George Bush is
that, given the right leadership, Iraq has the capacity to heal itself, in the
process of building a new civic society that will eventually marginalise those
involved in the present violence.

'I have no doubt that there are divisions in Iraq,' says Richmond, 'and they
have been exacerbated.' But he adds that, despite atrocities intended to tear
apart Iraq's ethnic groups - including the bombings of the Shia ashura
ceremonies earlier this year - there is still more cohesion in Iraqi society
than potential for division.

'What will also be important is that a few days after the announcement of the
prime minister, the electoral commission will be announced and the new prime
minister is going to need to put a lot of emphasis on the fact that the
elections are going to happen.'

What happens next, he believes, is up to Iraqis, with the security support of
what will then be known as the multinational forces, which will be there at the
invitation of the new government.

'What I am struck by is how many Iraqis say they do not define themselves as
Shia or Sunni, but Iraqi, which is why I am optimistic that it will work and
that, over time, this belief in Iraq will grow. We will get over this period of
instability and the elections next year will work.'

Richmond is optimistic, too, that Iraqis will pursue consensus rather than
divide over guarantees for minority rights or the role of religion in the state,
issues that divide the more secular Kurds and the majority Shias.

The most depressing scenario is that the very same mechanisms that Richmond
hopes will lead to greater cohesion - a new government, elections and
negotiations for a permanent constitution - have the opposite effect, becoming
the focus for irreconcilable differences between the ethnic groups.

This second scenario is one that has been propounded by the former US ambassador
to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, a veteran of the fracturing wars of the former
Yugoslavia, who also served with the UN in East Timor.

'Americans like to think that every problem has a solution, but that may no
longer be true in Iraq,' wrote Galbraith in a recent issue of the New York
Review of Books. 'Early in 2005,' believes Galbraith, 'Iraq is likely to see a
clash between an elected Shia-dominated central government trying to override
the interim constitution in order to impose its will on the entire country, and
a Kurdistan government insistent on preserving the de facto independent status
that Kurdistan has enjoyed for 13 years.

'Complicating the political struggle is a dispute over the oil-rich province of
Kirkuk, involving Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Sunni Turkmen and Shia
Turkmen.

'It is a formula for civil war.'

A second version of Galbraith's doomsday scenario was presented last week in a
more unexpected place, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army's War
College, which published a 69-page report entitled 'Iraq and Vietnam:
Differences, Similarities and Insights'.

Its authors point to a second fault line in Iraq that they believe could lead to
civil war, again with its roots not in the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad and the
Sunni Triangle, but within the Shia majority. And author W Andrew Terrill
believes that the difficulties being faced in the transition of sovereignty
should not be underestimated.

'In Vietnam, we were trying to prop up a government that had little legitimacy.
In Iraq, we're trying to weave together a government and support it so it can
develop legitimacy. Both are extremely hard to do.

'The main threat to state-building in Iraq lies not in the insurgency in central
Iraq but rather in the potential for the recent uprising of Shia militants to
re-ignite, expand, and include large elements of that community, or the
development of the kind of sectarian civil war that plunged Lebanon into near
anarchy for almost two decades.'

This pessimistic outlook is shared by Gareth Stansfield of Exeter University,
who has lived in Iraq and is one of the contributing authors to the Royal
Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House's own set of scenarios for
the future of Iraq, to be published on 28 June.

Like Galbraith, Stansfield believes that the most likely point of fracture in a
new sovereign Iraq is between Kurds and a majority Shia government over issues
like the status of religion in the new state.

'If you ask me what are the chances of democracy succeeding in the next few
decades, I don't see much chance. So the real question for me is: what kind of
state will it be? There is a chance of a dictatorship, but I think the chances
of the integrity of the state surviving are about as implausible as democracy.'

If the Galbraith and Bush/Blair scenarios for Iraq stand at two ends of a
spectrum, perhaps the most likely outcome is a partial success, which produces a
government and elections that have a limited effect on the high levels of
violence, produce lit tle opportunity for calling troops back home, and where
Iraq holds together - just.

Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East programme at Chatham House, is among
those who doubt whether the future of Iraq is likely to be cut and dried. She
agrees, however, that the biggest problems are likely to be encountered in
negotiating a new constitution.

'I do not see 30 June as being the be-all and end-all,' says Hollis. 'The major
problems lock in only when Iraqis begin trying to devise a permanent
constitution, especially negotiating the veto that has been given to the Kurds
under the interim Transitional Law and determining the role of religion in the
new state.'

Hollis is uncertain, too, as to whether Iraq can now be held together either by
the Americans or under the auspices of the UN. 'If the answer to both those
questions is no, is the answer then some kind of national movement of liberation
that would unify Iraq?'

The question, she believes, is whether foreign forces should remain if they
become the sole focus of violence.

While Hollis is struck by historical parallels - including the Lebanese civil
war - she does agree with many British and US officials that there will be a
very short honeymoon period in which the new interim government will have the
chance to make an impact and in which the US will have to show it has genuinely
relinquished control.

'It has got to hit the ground running. It has got to change the dynamic of what
is happening in Iraq and the perceptions of ordinary Iraqis of what is going
on.'

And what most troubles Hollis about a middling scenario, halfway between success
and failure, is the politi cal effect on the electorates in the US and Britain.
'If it is not getting better and it is not getting worse, you ask yourself, how
long the British public would put up with it?'

Hollis's view - that any outcome is likely to be far more complex than that
expected by either the optimists or the pessimists - is shared by Josh Mandel,
an analyst with Control Risks, which advises businesses on both the risk to
their personnel and to their investments.

Mandel, who recently returned from Iraq, says he was struck most by a sense of
uncertainty over where Iraq was heading after 30 June. 'I was just amazed how
people there still have no clear picture of what will happen after the transfer
of sovereignty.'

Mandel is worried that the most likely scenario for Iraq - rather than either a
strong national government of unity or a civil war of the kind envisaged by
Galbraith - is a kind of 'Afghan' outcome: a weak government in Baghdad, beset
by divisions, in control of ineffectual and partisan security forces, and with a
continued potential for lawlessness and terrorism.

'I just can't see a significant potential for a reduction in foreign forces in
18 to 20 months' time, as some believe. It will be at least two or three years
at the same levels we have now.

'If I were advising investors, I would say there was a very high degree of risk
of getting involved in Iraq in the next five years. I still remain sceptical
about the whole civil war and fragmentation scenario. But I am much less certain
about that than I was four months ago.

'I do think it is very unlikely that we will have strong central government or a
federal system that functions throughout the country.'

* * *


Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

May 22, 2004

DEFENSE ASKS FOR DISMISSAL OF CHARGES AGAINST TRAVIS AIRMAN

By Kim Curtis, Associated Press Writer

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040522/APN/405220841

SAN FRANCISCO Defense lawyers asked a judge Saturday to dismiss all charges
against a Travis Air Force Base translator accused of spying while working at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Citing "repugnant and illegal government and prosecutorial misconduct," lawyers
for Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi filed their formal request with a military
judge.

The U.S. Air Force has a week to respond in court. Master Sgt. Dan Murphy, an
Air Force spokesman, said Saturday that he could not comment.

"We're just duty bound to make sure he gets a fair and impartial trial and for
us to comment on anything before the motion is heard by a judge would be
premature," Murphy said.

Al Halabi, 25, is a Syrian-born U.S. citizen accused of attempting to deliver
more than 180 e-mail messages to Syria from detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where
the U.S. government is holding suspected terrorists. Al Halabi also is charged
with mishandling classified material and repeatedly lying to Air Force
investigators.

If convicted, Al Halabi could be sentenced to life in prison. He has not yet
entered a plea during his court-martial pretrial hearings.

In their filing obtained by The Associated Press, defense lawyers outlined
testimony by the lead investigator in the case, Special Agent Lance Wega, that
shows there "simply was no evidence to support the wild speculation surrounding
the allegation of sending e-mails with 'classified' material to 'enemy' agents."

Al Halabi's civilian lawyer, Donald G. Rehkopf, said Wega "repeatedly,
deliberately and criminally" testified during the military equivalent of a grand
jury proceeding and initially got a death penalty recommendation from a judge.

Last December, Air Force officials, without explanation, dropped a single count
against Al Halabi that carried the death penalty - a charge of "aiding the
enemy." Also dropped were counts dealing with e-mailing information about
Guantanamo detainees and transmitting information to unauthorized recipients.

But Rehkopf used Wega's testimony concerning those charges to show an alleged
pattern of lies and exaggerations.

He also questioned why Wega, a probationary special agent with the Air Force's
Office of Special Investigations, was the lead investigator in what was
"purported to be the most significant criminal case in the history of Travis
AFB."

The supervisory agent, Tech Sgt. Marc Palmosina, was relieved of his duties in
November 2003 after being criminally accused of keeping classified intelligence
reports about operations in Afghanistan at his home, according to the 50-page
defense filing.

A judge last week released Al Halabi from a military jail, saying he's no longer
a flight risk. He's returned to work as a supply clerk. Pretrial motions are
scheduled to continue next month.

* * *


May 22, 2004

LIST OF DETAINEE DEATH INQUIRIES EXPANDED TO 37

* The Pentagon's higher figure for Iraq and Afghanistan includes at least eight
unresolved homicide cases that may have involved assaults.

By John Hendren, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-
prison22may22,1,3407078.story?coll=la-home-headlines

WASHINGTON -- Pentagon officials on Friday increased to 37 the number of
detainee deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan that have prompted investigations,
including at least eight unresolved homicides that may have involved assaults
before or during interrogation.

Earlier this month, defense officials detailed 25 cases of prisoners who died in
U.S. Army detention centers. But in an unscheduled briefing at the Pentagon, a
senior defense official and a senior Pentagon medical official said the number
had risen to 30 cases, including some involving more than one death, for a total
of 37 deaths. Thirty-two deaths occurred in Iraq and five in Afghanistan.

Although military officials cautioned that some of the deaths involved
justifiable use of force, the rising number of detainee deaths intensified
concerns among lawmakers and critics of the American-led occupation of Iraq.

"Time after time, we've said ... there are a few bad apples, and every day we're
finding out that this apple cart is getting bigger," said Rep. Kendrick B. Meek
(D-Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee who was briefed on the
cases Friday. "I'm concerned not only about getting to the bottom of this, but
also getting to the top of it."

Human rights activists have denounced detention practices.

"It's important that the Pentagon seems to be releasing these figures with some
semblance of transparency, but it's difficult to know if we're far -- I would
even say frighteningly far -- from the whole truth," Amnesty International
spokeswoman Wende Gozan said.

The senior defense official said the number of known deaths in detention was a
small proportion of the 45,000 detainees who have been handled in Iraq alone. He
compared the 37 deaths with what he said was a 3.3% death rate in federal and
state prisons in the United States.

Photographs and video images of detainees being abused at the Abu Ghraib prison
-- site of two of the newly disclosed suspected homicides -- have drawn
international condemnation and prompted more than half a dozen probes of U.S.
military detention centers and inquiries in both chambers of Congress.

The latest images were published in Friday's Washington Post.

Of the 37 deaths detailed Friday, investigators found that 15 were due to
"natural or undetermined" causes other than homicide, in many cases heart
attacks.

Eight deaths were ruled justifiable killings. In those cases, soldiers followed
so-called standard rules of engagement and killed detainees either to protect
other troops or prevent prisoners from escaping, the senior military medical
official said.

Two are wrongful deaths, while as many as nine are homicides still under
investigation. The remaining three are in a special category because they
occurred outside of any detention facility.

Among the cases is a fatal shooting at southern Iraq's Camp Bucca in April 2003
that the Army ruled justifiable. But a Red Cross team that witnessed the
incident at the facility concluded that "at no point" did the prisoner pose a
serious threat to guards.

The deaths of the others deemed justifiable homicides all occurred at Abu Ghraib
-- four in November 2003, one in March 2004 and two in April 2004.

Both of the wrongful deaths were in Iraq.

In a September 2003 incident, a soldier fatally shot a prisoner who was throwing
rocks at him at a forward operating base.

He was later downgraded in rank from specialist to private and discharged from
the Army, apparently the only soldier to date to be prosecuted for killing a
detainee. He was not imprisoned.

The second case, of a CIA contract worker who allegedly killed an Iraqi prisoner
at Abu Ghraib in November, was referred to the Justice Department, the official
said. As a civilian, the worker could not be prosecuted under the Uniform Code
of Military Justice, officials said.

The Justice Department said Friday that it had received another referral from
the Defense Department "regarding a civilian contractor in Iraq" and had opened
an investigation. Officials would not say if the incident involved a death. It
was the first Justice Department criminal investigation sought by the Pentagon.

The CIA has referred at least two other cases to the department.

Of the nine unresolved homicide cases, three occurred in Afghanistan and six in
Iraq, including the two at Abu Ghraib.

In one of the cases, a preliminary assessment has found that an Abu Ghraib
detainee died of natural causes, but the investigation is continuing.

Among the specifics offered by the Pentagon were details regarding 23 autopsies
by military medical examiners. Twelve of the death certificates concluded that
the deaths were from natural causes. One Iraqi death was labeled an accident.
One other case is pending; defense officials could provide no information about
it.

Some of those labeled homicides involved gunshots, but the most common reason
was blunt-force injuries. Six died at detention centers throughout Iraq:

* On June 6, 2003, Naem Sadoon Hatab was found strangled in an outdoor
isolation area at the Whitehorse detention facility in Nasiriya, Iraq, according
to his death certificate.

* On June 13, Dilar Dababa died of a severe head injury in Iraq.

* One Nov. 4, Manadel Jamadi died of blunt-force injuries complicated by
"compromised respiration" at Abu Ghraib. The suspected homicide occurred while
he was with Navy SEALs and other special operations troops.

* On Jan. 9, Abdul Jaleel died of blunt-force injuries and asphyxiation at a
prison in Al Asad, Iraq. His case is one of the suspected incidents of homicide
still under investigation. Jaleel was found gagged and shackled to a cell door
with his hands over his head.

* On April 28, Ali Gumaa Fahin died of complications due to multiple gunshot
wounds in Baghdad.

* On May 12, Maj. Gen. Abid Mowhosh, former commander of Iraq's air defenses,
died of asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression in Qaim, Iraq.

Three detainees were killed in Afghanistan, according to their death
certificates.

Most recently, on Nov. 6, Abdul Wahid died of multiple blunt-force injuries --
complicated by what examiners suspect was a condition in which toxins are
released to the body, sometimes due to a crushing injury or an electrical shock
-- at a detention center in Helmand province.

Two deaths at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul have been investigated for 17
months. On Dec. 3, 2002, Habib Ullah died of a blood clot caused by a blunt-
force injury at Bagram. A week later, an Afghan whose last name was Dilawar died
of blunt-force injuries to his lower body that complicated his coronary artery
disease at the base outside Kabul, according to the death certificates.

Human rights groups have been pressing for an accounting of the deaths of Ullah
and Dilawar.

The senior military official said the investigations have gone on so long
because they were "very difficult" and "very complicated."

The three deaths that occurred outside of detention centers since August 2002
include one in which a soldier shot and killed an Afghan who allegedly lunged at
his gun, the senior military official said.

In the second, an Iraqi was fatally shot after he allegedly moved menacingly
toward a sergeant who was escorting him, he said.

In the third, an Iraqi drowned after he allegedly was forced to jump off a
bridge by U.S. troops, officials said, confirming media reports about the
fatality for the first time.

Separately, Army officials have closed 14 cases in which detainees were
allegedly assaulted, and they are pursuing two assault investigations.

* * *


Chicago Tribune:

May 22, 2004

JOURNALISTS SUBPOENAED IN CIA LEAK

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/
chi-0405220273may22,1,4673702.story

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Journalists at Time magazine and NBC News were subpoenaed
Friday to appear before a federal grand jury investigating whether
administration officials illegally leaked the name of undercover CIA officer
Valier Plame last summer.

Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," and Time reporter Matthew Cooper
were subpoenaed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. NBC said would fight
the subpoena, as did a lawyer for Time.

Under federal law, it is a crime to reveal a covert officer's identity if it is
done with the intention of exposing the officer's undercover status.

* * *


The New Republic:

May 20, 2004 Issue date 05.31.04

OUTSOURCING
by Peter Beinart

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040531&s=trb053104

Conservatives have been hearing about Abu Ghraib for three weeks now, and
they've had just about enough. To hear them tell it, the media is taking one
isolated, unfortunate event and using it to undermine the military, the Bush
administration, and American morale. They're tired of introspecting and
apologizing, and they want to refocus on the real bad guys. As Weekly Standard
editor Bill Kristol put it on Fox News this Sunday, "We've got to win this war.
And it is insane for this country to be obsessing about a small prisoner-abuse
scandal."

The problem is that the conservative insistence that the Abu Ghraib abuse was
isolated or "small" is more a statement of faith than of fact. In recent days,
The New Yorker and Newsweek have alleged that top Pentagon officials authorized
interrogators to terrify and humiliate high-value detainees throughout the
international prison system the United States established after September 11. If
the right wants to defend this policy, which the Red Cross called "tantamount to
torture," that's one thing. But it can't just demand that the media change the
subject.

One reason it can't is that a Canadian inquiry is about to draw attention to
another kind of U.S. complicity in torture. On September 26, 2002, Maher Arar, a
Canadian citizen born in Syria, was flying home to Montreal from a family trip
to Tunisia. During a stopover at New York's JFK Airport, he was detained by
American immigration officials, who questioned him about connections to Al
Qaeda, then threw him into Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. Two weeks
later, he was flown to Washington and then to Amman, where, he claims, the
Jordanians "blindfolded and chained me, and put me in a van.... Every time I
tried to talk, they beat me." Hours later, he was transferred again, this time
to Syria. The Syrians placed him in a nearly pitch-black, three-by-six cell.
Periodically, they beat him with an electrical cable and threatened him with
electric shocks and a device called "the metal chair," which stretches the
spine. During one such session, he confessed to attending an Al Qaeda training
camp in Afghanistan (a confession he now disavows). Ten months later, he was
released back to Canada, where he has not been charged with any crime. Next
month, the Canadian government will launch an inquiry into the case, which has
garnered front-page coverage north of the border.

The inquiry will spotlight a policy called "extraordinary rendition," in which
the United States hands suspected terrorists over to authoritarian Muslim
regimes. American officials say those regimes are better culturally equipped to
elicit information from suspected Islamic militants. But there is little doubt
that one of their primary "cultural" tools is torture. As one American official
told The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, who broke the
"rendition" story in December 2002, "We don't kick the shit out of them. We send
them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them."

The policy seems to have begun in the 1990s. According to George Tenet, the CIA
took part in over 70 renditions before September 11. No one knows how many have
occurred since, as Congress is not notified about individual cases. But the
practice has probably increased. According to the Post, the Clinton
administration stopped sending suspected terrorists to Egypt after repeatedly
complaining about Cairo's brutal interrogation methods. "You can be sure," said
one Bush administration official of such human rights complaints, "that we are
not spending a lot of time on that now."

The United States usually hands over lower-level Al Qaeda captives, keeping the
key suspects for itself. The most common destinations are Egypt, Jordan, and
Morocco, although suspects have also been sent to Syria, Pakistan, Uzbekistan,
and Saudi Arabia. In January 2002, for instance, Indonesian authorities picked
up Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni on CIA intelligence that he assisted shoe-bomber
Richard Reid in his plot to blow up an American Airlines flight. Madni was put
on a U.S.-registered jet and flown to Egypt. In October 2001, Pakistani
authorities picked up Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a Yemeni linked to the attack
on the USS Cole. A U.S.-registered plane took him to Jordan. Perhaps the
Egyptians and Jordanians promised the United States they would not employ
torture, as Syria reportedly did in the Arar case. But it's hard to imagine the
United States believed them. After all, the State Department has condemned
Jordan for "methods of torture," such as "beatings on the soles of the feet" and
"prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions." It has noted that "[t]
he [Egyptian] security forces continued to mistreat and torture prisoners." And
it has accused Damascus of "administering electrical shocks; pulling out
fingernails; [and] forcing objects into the rectum." The U.N. Convention Against
Torture, which the United States has signed, prohibits sending a suspect to a
country "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in
danger of being subjected to torture."

In the wake of Abu Ghraib, Americans may find the rendition policy less
shocking. It's harder to be outraged by torture in Egypt when we do it
ourselves. But, when the United States does the torturing, we can at least
investigate the abuses and try, as a democracy, to pass new rules to make sure
they do not happen again. When we outsource the torture to our authoritarian
allies, there is no such democratic remedy, and thus no way to show that we are
fundamentally different from our enemies.

Rendition, ironically, is a form of multilateralism, a kind of dark
international cooperation from an administration often criticized for not
cooperating enough. But, in this case, the Bushies need to remember the value of
democratic unilateralism. As this administration has frequently noted, see-no-
evil alliances with tyrannical Arab allies have helped earn the United States
the enmity of billions throughout the Muslim world. And yet, by shipping those
allies our prisoners, we are associating ourselves even further with the very
behavior that breeds such hatred.

Perhaps President Bush really believes the United States will lose the war on
terrorism unless it relies on the brutality of friendly Arab governments. But
that would be surprising, since he has so clearly said that, unless we divorce
ourselves from that brutality, we can't possibly win.

Peter Beinart is the editor of TNR.

* * *


Reuters:

May 21, 2004

ICRC CONCERNED FOR DETAINEES IN SECRET US JAILS

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5220427

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Friday
voiced renewed concern about an unknown number of detainees, rounded up in the
U.S. global war on terror and being held secretly in various countries.

Spokesman Eros Bosisio said that the humanitarian agency had asked U.S.
authorities repeatedly for information on, and access to, such detainees,
arrested in countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past two
years.

Accusations that U.S. troops abused Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near
Baghdad, triggered in part by a leaked ICRC report, caused an international
outcry.

Many suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in the so-called war on
terror are being held at U.S. facilities in Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, but some are "held incommunicado at undisclosed locations," according
to the ICRC.

"The permission has not been granted yet. For us having access to them is a very
important humanitarian priority," Bosisio told Reuters. "It is not just related
to Afghanistan, it is a global matter."

The detainees are thought to include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered a top al
Qaeda leader and mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States
that killed some 3,000 people.

He was arrested in March 2003 in Pakistan and is among those who have
disappeared into secret locations in U.S. custody.

The New York Times reported last week that the CIA used a technique known as
"water boarding" on Mohammed, which involves strapping a person down and pushing
him under water to make him believe he might drown.

For the past two years, ICRC officials have regularly visited detainees at the
U.S. military airbase in Bagram, where some 300 people are being held.

It is the only detention center which ICRC visits in Afghanistan, but it remains
concerned that detainees are being held elsewhere, according to the spokesman.

"We have insisted that the ICRC be notified of all people arrested in
Afghanistan and that they quickly be transferred to places fit for detention
where they can be visited and registered upon arrival," Bososio said.

ICRC officials also regularly visit detainees held at Guantanamo Bay since
January 2002, who number 600. A visit is due later this month.

U.S. authorities are responsible for ensuring that detainees at Bagram and
Guantanamo Bay are treated in accordance with international humanitarian law,
according to the ICRC. It has repeatedly called for their legal status be
clarified.

* * *


The Scotsman (UK):

May 21, 2004

RED CROSS CONCERN OVER U.S. DETENTION OF TERROR SUSPECTS

By Andrew Woodcock, Political Correspondent, PA News

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2957415

The International Committee of the Red Cross today voiced concern over the
continued detention in undisclosed locations of senior al Qaida suspects by the
US authorities.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenger asked for his delegates to be given access to the
detainees to check on their welfare in a January meeting with US Secretary of
State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, but the
humanitarian organisation said today it had still been given no information on
their whereabouts.

A former senior CIA officer suggested that the detainees may have been held for
at least some time in US military bases on the Indian Ocean island of Diego
Garcia, a British overseas territory leased to the US since the 1960s.

The capture of suspected lieutenants of Osama bin Laden like Khaled Sheikh
Mohammed accused of being the planner behind the September 11 attacks and Abu
Zubayr were hailed as major blows in the fight against terror.

But the men have not yet been brought to trial and the US has given no
indication of where they are being held, or under what conditions they are being
interrogated.

It acknowledges holding prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq and in the Guantanamo Bay
base in Cuba, but refuses to disclose whether others are held elsewhere.

The ICRC's head of operations for North America and Central, Southern and
Eastern Europe Francois Stamm told the BBC this was a cause for concern.

Mr Stamm told Radio 4's Today programme: "As of now, the ICRC is visiting
Guantanamo, is visiting Bagram (airbase in Afghanistan) and has not come across
those persons during the course of these visits.

"We are very concerned. We don't know how many persons we are talking about, we
don't know how exactly they have been arrested. It has been made public for some
of them, but maybe not for all of them.

"We don't know where they are being detained. We don't know according to which
legal framework they are detained.

"This uncertainty, the fact of not knowing anything about the detention of these
persons, is a great source of concern."

Former CIA head of counter-terrorism operations Vincent Cannistraro told the
programme al Qaida suspects may well have been held on Diego Garcia.

"It's such a remote place it would probably only have served for initial
debriefing," he said.

"As an initial holding area where they are trying to disorient the person such
as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubayr they may very well have been taken there
because it is an ideal place to isolate someone and to cut him off from all
sources of information."

A Foreign Office spokesman told the programme: "The US authorities have
repeatedly assured us that reports that any suspected terrorists are or have
been held or interrogated on the island or in any vessel anchored there are
unfounded."

* * *


May 21, 2004,

LAWYERS OBJECTED TO GUANTANAMO QUESTIONING

By Robert Burns, AP Military Writer

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-guantanamo-
interrogation-rules,0,2359636.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has revealed that in the first year of interrogations
at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists, senior military
lawyers in Washington raised objections to the use of techniques that were
harsher than permitted under standard military doctrine.

As their protests "became more apparent" in late 2002, Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld ended the use of such tactics pending the outcome of a comprehensive
review that stretched from mid-January 2003 to mid-April, a senior civilian
Pentagon lawyer told reporters on Thursday.

The lawyer, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because details
are classified secret, said Rumsfeld in April 2003 approved new guidelines which
won the military lawyers' blessing.

Those guidelines are different -- allowing harsher methods -- than the
approaches used in Iraq because all prisoners in Iraq are deemed by the Bush
administration to be covered by prisoner protections of the Geneva Conventions,
whereas those at Guantanamo Bay are not, the lawyer said.

Larry Di Rita, chief spokesman for Rumsfeld, confirmed the basic timeline of the
Guantanamo Bay interrogation policy but said he could not reveal specifics about
the interrogation techniques used there.

"It's highly sensitive information," he said. "Everybody (was) mindful of the
uniqueness -- it was new, it was complicated, and it was balancing the need for
intelligence versus the need to do it right.

"It was a hard darn problem because we did have known al-Qaida (members) down
there, and known al-Qaida who were believed to have information involving
attacks on the United States," he added.

Di Rita described the interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay earlier in
2002 as "non-doctrinal." This means they were not in accordance with the
military doctrine written to apply to interrogations of prisoners of war, not
terrorists.

The military lawyers believed that some of those techniques went too far, other
officials said. They also questioned the policy of not applying the Geneva
Conventions at Guantanamo.

Recently, questions about limits on interrogation techniques and detention
methods have focused mainly on U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, following revelations
about abusive methods used against Iraqis. Investigators also are checking U.S.
interrogation practices in Afghanistan, but the Pentagon has not acknowledged
serious shortcomings at Guantanamo Bay.

In fact, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, a former commander of the Guantanamo Bay
prison complex, told a Senate committee on Wednesday that there "was no systemic
abuse at Guantanamo at any time."

Di Rita stressed that military commanders at Guantanamo Bay faced a difficult
situation because the individuals held there -- mostly Taliban and al-Qaida
fighters captured during the war in Afghanistan in 2001 -- were considered
terrorists and could have time-sensitive information.

"You had intelligence officials that were tugging in a direction that might have
been different from lawyers, and that's fair," Di Rita said. "This is a process
that involves, by definition, some tension."

Adding urgency was the suspicion by U.S. intelligence officials that one
prisoner at Guantanamo -- whom Di Rita did not identify -- had information about
a planned future attack on the United States. The New York Times on Friday
identified the prisoner as Mohamed al-Qahtani, who U.S. officials believe may
have planned to be the 20th Sept. 11 hijacker.

Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay wanted to use harsher methods against that
prisoner in late 2002. Military lawyers objected to at least some of those
proposed methods. "As that anxiety became more apparent," Rumsfeld ordered the
Pentagon's top civilian lawyer, Jim Haynes, to create an internal working group
to examine the issues more fully, a senior Pentagon lawyer said.

Officials would not say whether the prisoner believed to have information about
a pending attack on the United States ultimately provided information used to
pre-empt the attack. The senior official said "no extraordinary" interrogation
techniques were used against the man.

Di Rita said the Rumsfeld guidelines approved for Guantanamo Bay in April 2003
are secret and will not be made public.

The Pentagon has not been entirely clear in public statements about events
related to interrogation policies and practices at Guantanamo Bay, Di Rita said,
because it has not fully recreated a timeline that reaches back to January 2002,
when interrogations started at Guantanamo Bay.

"We're rediscovering a lot of this in the context of trying to make sure we
fully understand all aspects of detainee operations," he said.

Rumsfeld has ordered Pentagon officials to systematically review how detainee
and interrogation guidelines evolved, he added.

* * *


Reuters:

May 20, 2004

ATTACK FEARS SPARKED GUANTANAMO CRACKDOWN - OFFICIAL

By Charles Aldinger

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5211107

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon in late 2002 began using aggressive
interrogation techniques on a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who then
confirmed suspicions about a planned attack on U.S. interests, a U.S. official
said on Thursday.

The information was gathered after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved an
expansion of traditional U.S. military interrogation techniques when officials
at Guantanamo started to suspect the prisoner was hiding crucial information,
the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

The U.S. official said "a couple of dozen more aggressive" interrogation methods
are now available for use by U.S. jailers at Guantanamo Bay if higher officials
give their approval.

The official said it was likely that these methods included some of the
techniques that have now been placed off limits for use in Iraq, including
sensory and sleep deprivation, "dietary manipulation," the presence of guard
dogs, and body "stress positions."

U.S. interrogation techniques have come under scrutiny amid a scandal over the
physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Americans at the Abu Ghraib jail
outside Baghdad.

Senior defense officials, in a separate briefing with reporters, confirmed that
Rumsfeld approved requests from officials at the base because of concerns about
one specific prisoner, but refused to say what techniques were used or whether
results were obtained.

But the U.S. official said the interrogators managed to secure "information
about a planned attack and about financing" from the prisoner, but declined to
be more specific about the information or the identity or nationality of the
man.

The United States currently holds about 600 non-U.S. citizens at the Guantanamo
base. The first of the prisoners, most captured in Afghanistan, were brought to
Guantanamo in January 2002.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told reporters Rumsfeld must
personally approve the use of "certain specified" interrogation techniques at
Guantanamo, but "not on all" methods available for use.

Di Rita declined to say which methods required Rumsfeld's approval or any of
those authorized for use at Guantanamo, saying it involved classified
information.

MILITARY LAWYERS QUESTION AGGRESSIVE TECHNIQUES

Pentagon officials have been reluctant to say what interrogation techniques are
used at Guantanamo, either with or without approval up the chain of command. The
United States classifies prisoners at Guantanamo as "unlawful enemy combatants"
rather than prisoners of war due specific rights under the Geneva Conventions.

Defense officials said some military lawyers had questioned the more aggressive
interrogation techniques, saying they may stray too far from humanitarian
treatment required by the Geneva Conventions.

The issue of using tougher interrogation techniques first arose in fall of 2002,
defense officials said.

"There became some urgency because of an individual who had information that the
people at Guantanamo believed was important, not just about perhaps 9/11, but
about future events," said a senior civilian lawyer.

"And that's what first crystallized the first decision (by Rumsfeld in fall of
2002), which then was reconsidered" and changed in April of 2003, the lawyer
said.

Defense officials said Rumsfeld, based partly on objections from some military
lawyers, backed away from some of the new, aggressive interrogation techniques
at Guantanamo in January 2003. Some were reinstated in April 2003 under an
agreement reached among representatives of government agencies and the military,
they added.

(Additional reporting by Will Dunham)

* * *


The Guardian (UK) --

May 20, 2004

THE RELIGIOUS WARRIOR OF ABU GHRAIB
AN EVANGELICAL US GENERAL PLAYED A PIVOTAL ROLE IN IRAQI PRISON REFORM

By Sidney Blumenthal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1220622,00.html

Saving General Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October. After it was
revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defence for intelligence had been
regularly appearing at evangelical revivals preaching that the US was in a holy
war as a "Christian nation" battling "Satan", the furore was quickly calmed.

Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, explained that Boykin was exercising his
rights as a citizen: "We're a free people." President Bush declared that Boykin
"doesn't reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration".
Bush's commission on public diplomacy had reported that in nine Muslim
countries, just 12% believed that "Americans respect Arab/Islamic values". The
Pentagon announced that its inspector general would investigate Boykin, though
he has yet to report.

Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of a
secret operation to "Gitmoize" (Guantanamo is known in the US as Gitmo) the Abu
Ghraib prison. He had flown to Guantanamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey
Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend
X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld's orders.

Boykin was recommended to his position by his record in the elite Delta forces:
he was a commander in the failed effort to rescue US hostages in Iran, had
tracked drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia, had advised the gas attack on
barricaded cultists at Waco, Texas, and had lost 18 men in Somalia trying to
capture a warlord in the notorious Black Hawk Down fiasco of 1993.

Boykin told an evangelical gathering last year how this fostered his spiritual
crisis. "There is no God," he said. "If there was a God, he would have been here
to protect my soldiers." But he was thunderstruck by the insight that his battle
with the warlord was between good and evil, between the true God and the false
one. "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God
and his was an idol."

Boykin was the action hero side of his boss, Stephen Cambone, a conservative
defence intellectual appointed to the new post of undersecretary of
intelligence. Cambone is universally despised by the officer corps for his
arrogant, abrasive and dictatorial style and regarded as the personal symbol of
Rumsfeldism. A former senior Pentagon official told me of a conversation with a
three-star general, who remarked: "If we were being overrun by the enemy and I
had only one bullet left, I'd use it on Cambone."

Cambone set about cutting the CIA and the state department out of the war on
terror, but he had no knowledge of special ops. For this the rarefied civilian
relied on the gruff soldier - a melding of "ignorance and recklessness", as a
military intelligence source told me.

Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then
inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious
right. He allied himself with a small group called the Faith Force Multiplier
that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Its manifesto -
Warrior Message - summons "warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this
nation and the world ... "

Boykin staged a travelling slide show around the country where he displayed
pictures of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "Satan wants to destroy this nation,
he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian
army," he preached. They "will only be defeated if we come against them in the
name of Jesus". It was the reporting of his remarks at a revival meeting in
Oregon that made them a subject of brief controversy.

There can be little doubt that he envisages the global war on terror as a
crusade. With the Geneva conventions apparently suspended, international law is
supplanted by biblical law. Boykin is in God's chain of command. President Bush,
he told an Oregon congregation last June, is "a man who prays in the Oval
Office". And the president, too, is on a divine mission. "George Bush was not
elected by a majority of the voters in the US. He was appointed by God."

Boykin is not unique in his belief that Bush is God's anointed against
evildoers. Before his 2000 campaign, Bush confided to a leader of the religious
right: "I feel like God wants me to run for president ... I sense my country is
going to need me. Something is going to happen."

Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, tells colleagues that on September 20
2001, after Bush delivered his speech to the Congress declaring a war on terror,
he called Gerson to thank him for writing it. "God wants you here," Gerson says
he told the president. And he says that Bush replied: "God wants us here."

But it's Bush who wants Rumsfeld, Cambone and Boykin here.

· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior advisor to President Clinton, is Washington
bureau chief of Salon.com

Sidney_Blumenthal@yahoo.com


* * *


The Guardian (UK):

May 20, 2004 10:01 PM

EX-GUANTANAMO GENERAL SAYS HE WAS PRESSED

By Randall Richard, AP National Writer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4113549,00.html

BRISTOL, R.I. (AP) - The general who commanded the Guantanamo Bay prison for
seven months in 2002 says he was under constant pressure from military
intelligence officers to bend his "by-the-book" rules on how to treat al-Qaida
and Taliban suspects.

In interviews with The Associated Press, Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus said military
intelligence wanted him to make the suspects' lives less comfortable to get them
to cooperate with interrogators.

Baccus said he could not go into detail about everything military intelligence
wanted. But he said it generally involved "putting the detainees in isolation,
or in different locations. They thought that by throwing them into a whole new
set of circumstances that it might cause them to be a little more forthcoming."

He said they were always pressing: "Why are they getting two showers and two
exercise periods a week instead of one? Where did all these books come from? Why
are you doing this?"

Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on
Baccus's remarks.

Baccus, an activated Rhode Island National Guard commander at the time, left the
naval base in Cuba in October 2002 amid complaints from some interrogators that
his approach made their job more difficult. Baccus and the Pentagon said the
departure was a routine rotation of command.

Within days of his return to Rhode Island, Baccus was fired from his National
Guard job by its adjutant general, Reginald J. Centracchio, and placed on
standby reserve. Centracchio has declined to explain why.

Baccus said he was fired for refusing to answer questions about command
decisions in Guantanamo that Centracchio posed and that Army superiors had
ordered him not to answer.

The treatment of U.S. military prisoners has been under scrutiny since the
emergence of photos that depict American troops humiliating naked Iraqis at
Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. The relationship between military intelligence and
the military police at Abu Ghraib, where MPs allegedly were involved in
"softening up" prisoners for interrogations, has emerged as a central issue in
congressional hearings on the abuse.

Baccus, who has been informed by Pentagon lawyers that he may be called to
testify at the hearings, would not comment on the scandal.

Some 600 prisoners are held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to Afghanistan's
ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaida. Two British prisoners wrote a letter to
President Bush recently alleging that guards at Guantanamo used strobe lights,
dogs and loud music to extract information. It is unclear when the alleged abuse
occurred.

Baccus said that, during his command, he would not allow physical abuse,
degradation or photographing prisoners. He also said the International Red Cross
was given open access to the detainees and encouraged to report any complaints.

Baccus said the job of the interrogators was to get information, and that the
job of the military police under his command was to provide a humane environment
for the detainees and keep everyone safe. Those roles, he said, should not be
mixed. MPs are not trained in interrogation, he said, and involving them in it
can compromise everyone's safety.

Others with access to the detainees, both independent observers and soldiers,
confirmed Baccus' description of his procedures.

Sgt. Maj. Raymond W. Funaro, now retired, was the senior noncommissioned officer
under Baccus. "His philosophy was that we will abide at all times to the spirit
of the Geneva Conventions, that these people were under lock and key and would
be treated like human beings," he said.

That, Funaro said, is the reason abuses "didn't happen at Gitmo" under Baccus's
command.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

May 20, 2004

THE OTHER PRISONERS

Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But
what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq?

By Luke Harding

http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1220673,00.html

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph
but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of
Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at
first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying
to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.

The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and
are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant,
it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The
note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further
shame.

Late last year, Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women
detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and
torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without
charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she
put it, "happening all across Iraq".

In November last year, Swadi visited a woman detainee at a US military base at
al-Kharkh, a former police compound in Baghdad. "She was the only woman who
would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been raped,"
Swadi says. "Several American soldiers had raped her. She had tried to fight
them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, 'We
have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this.'"

Astonishingly, the secret inquiry launched by the US military in January, headed
by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed that the letter smuggled out of
Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor" was entirely and devastatingly
accurate. While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has
been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humilation in front of US women
soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees - who form a
small but unknown proportion of the 40,000 people in US custody since last
year's invasion - have also been abused. Nobody appears to know how many. But
among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there
are, according to Taguba's report, images of a US military policeman "having
sex" with an Iraqi woman.

Taguba discovered that guards have also videotaped and photographed naked female
detainees. The Bush administration has refused to release other photographs of
Iraqi women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although it has shown them
to Congress) - ostensibly to prevent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, but in
reality, one suspects, to prevent further domestic embarrassment.

Earlier this month it emerged that an Iraqi woman in her 70s had been harnessed
and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre
after being arrested last July. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who investigated the case
and found it to be true, said, "She was held for about six weeks without charge.
During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."

In Iraq, the existence of photographs of women detainees being abused has
provoked revulsion and outrage, but little surprise. Some of the women involved
may since have disappeared, according to human rights activists. Professor Huda
Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University who is researching
the subject for Amnesty International, says she thinks "Noor" is now dead. "We
believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release
from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbours said her family had moved
away. I believe she has been killed."

Honour killings are not unusual in Islamic society, where rape is often equated
with shame and where the stigma of being raped by an American soldier would,
according to one Islamic cleric, be "unbearable". The prospects for rape victims
in Iraq are grave; it is hardly surprising that no women have so far come
forward to talk about their experiences in US-run jails where abuse was rife
until early January.

One of the most depressing aspects of the saga is that, unaccountably, the US
military continues to hold five women in solitary confinement at Abu Ghraib, in
cells 2.5m (8ft) long by 1.5m (5ft) wide. Last week, the military escorted a
small group of journalists around the camp, where hundreds of relatives gather
every day in a dusty car park in the hope of news.

The prison is protected by guard towers, an outer fence topped with razor wire,
and blast walls. Inside, more than 3,000 Iraqi men are kept in vast open
courtyards, in communal brown tents exposed to dust and sun. (Last month, nearly
30 detainees were killed in two separate mortar attacks on the prison; about a
dozen survivors are still in the hospital wing, shackled to their beds with
leather belts.) As our bus pulled up, the men ran towards the razor wire. They
unfurled banners and T-shirts that read: "Why are we here?" "When are you going
to do something about this scandal?" "We cannot talk freely."

The women, however, are kept in another part of the prison, cellblock 1A,
together with 19 "high-value" male detainees. It is inside this olive-painted
block, which leads into a courtyard of shimmering green saysaban trees and pink
flowering shrubs, that the notorious photographs of US troops humiliating Iraqi
prisoners were taken, many of them on the same day, November 8 2003. A wooden
interrogation shed is a short stroll away. As we arrived at the cellblock, the
women shouted to us through the bars. An Iraqi journalist tried to talk to them;
a female US soldier interrupted and pushed him away. The windows of the women's
cells have been boarded up; birds nest in the outside drainpipe. Captain Dave
Quantock, now in charge of prisoner detention at Abu Ghraib, confirmed that the
women prisoners are in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. They have no
entertainment; they do have a Koran.

Since the scandal first emerged there is general agreement that conditions at
Abu Ghraib have improved. A new, superior catering company now provides the
inmates' food, and all the guards involved in the original allegations of abuse
have left.

Nevertheless, there remain extremely troubling questions as to why these women
came to be here. Like other Iraqi prisoners, all five are classified as
"security detainees" - a term invented by the Bush administration to justify the
indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or legal access, as part of the
war on terror. US military officials will only say that they are suspected of
"anti-coalition activities".

Two of the women are the wives of high-ranking and absconding Ba'ath party
members; two are accused of financing the resistance; and one allegedly had a
relationship with the former head of Iraq's secret police, the Mukhabarat. The
women, in their 40s and 50s, come from Kirkuk and Baghdad; none has seen their
families or children since their arrest earlier this year.

According to Swadi, who managed to visit Abu Ghraib in late March, the
allegations against the women are "absurd". "One of them is supposed to be the
mistress of the former director of the Mukhabarat. In fact, she's a widow who
used to own a small shop. She also worked as a taxi driver, ferrying children to
and from kindergarten. If she really had a relationship with the director of the
Mukhabarat, she would scarcely be running a kiosk. These are baseless charges,"
she adds angrily. "She is the only person who can provide for her children."

The women appear to have been arrested in violation of international law - not
because of anything they have done, but merely because of who they are married
to, and their potential intelligence value. US officials have previously
acknowledged detaining Iraqi women in the hope of convincing male relatives to
provide information; when US soldiers raid a house and fail to find a male
suspect, they will frequently take away his wife or daughter instead.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, whose devastating report on human
rights abuses of Iraqi prisoners was delivered to the government in February but
failed to ring alarm bells, says the problem lies with the system. "It is an
absence of judicial guarantees," says Nada Doumani, spokesperson for the ICRC.
"The system is not fair, precise or properly defined."

During her visit to Abu Ghraib in March, one of the prisoners told Swadi that
she had been forced to undress in front of US soldiers. "The Iraqi translator
turned his head in embarrassment," she said. The release of detainees,
meanwhile, appears to be entirely arbitrary: three weeks ago one woman prisoner
who spoke fluent English and who had been telling her guards that she would sue
them was suddenly released. "They got fed up with her," another lawyer, Amal
Alrawi, says.

Last Friday, about 300 male prisoners were freed from Abu Ghraib, the first
detainees to be released since the abuse scandal first broke. A further 475 are
due to be released tomorrow, although it is not clear if any of the women will
be among them. General Geoffery Miller, who is responsible for overhauling US
military jails in Iraq, has promised to release 1,800 prisoners across Iraq
"within 45 days". Some 2,000 are likely to remain behind bars, he says. Iraqi
lawyers and officials aredemanding that the US military hands the prisons over
to Iraqi management on June 30, when the coalition transfers limited powers to a
UN-appointed caretaker Iraqi government. Last week, Miller said "negotiations"
with Iraqi officials were ongoing.

Relatives who gathered outside Abu Ghraib last Friday said it was common
knowledge that women had been abused inside the jail. Hamid Abdul Hussein, 40,
who was there hoping to see his brother Jabar freed, said former detainees who
had returned to their home town of Mamudiya reported that several women had been
raped. "We've know this for months," he said. "We also heard that some women
committed suicide."

While the abuse may have stopped, the US military appears to have learned
nothing from the experience. Swadi says that when she last tried to visit the
women at Abu Ghraib, "The US guards refused to let us in. When we complained,
they threatened to arrest us."

* * *

UPI:

May 19, 2004
SENATE WANTS GITMO 'TORTURE' VIDEOS, TOO

By Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040519-070318-7612r

Videotapes that ex-inmates say show guards beating prisoners at the U.S.
military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been reviewed by the
inspector general of the Navy and will be provided to senate investigators, a
military spokesman told United Press International.

U.S. officials insist that detainees are treated and interrogated humanely at
Guantanamo and that any abuse is immediately reported and punished. Nonetheless,
news of the existence of the tapes raises the prospect of more images of alleged
U.S. brutality emerging, broadening and deepening the scandal over what
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called the "radioactive" pictures of
detainees being abused at the now twice-notorious Abu Ghraib prison complex in
Iraq.

One set of the Guantanamo allegations centers on the actions of the Immediate
Response Force, a special team of guards tasked to deal with detainee misconduct
and violence. In recent media interviews and letters to U.S. senators, three
Britons who were held at the camp until their release in March 2004 described
several incidents in which they say the team savagely assaulted inmates.

"They pepper-sprayed me in the face. ... They tied me up like a beast and then
they were kneeling on me, kicking and punching," Tarek Dergoul, one of the
three, told the Observer newspaper in London Sunday.

The allegations were dismissed by the Pentagon Wednesday. "These accounts are
not credible," a Defense Department official who asked not to be named told UPI.
"If they were credible, they would have been investigated and the perpetrators
punished."

Lt. Col. Leon H. Sumpter, the spokesman for the Joint Task Force that runs Camp
Delta, the detention and interrogation center at Guantanamo, confirmed to UPI
that all the interventions by the special team were videotaped "to ensure that
only the minimum force necessary is employed."

He added in an e-mail message that the teams -- which receive "specialized
training on how to ... use the minimum force necessary to overcome the
misconduct" -- know they are being filmed.

Sumpter said that Naval Inspector General Vice Adm. Albert T. "Tom" Church had
reviewed several of the tapes during a visit to the base earlier this month and
had taken some of them away with him.

At a subsequent media briefing, Church stressed that his two-day visit was a
review, not an inspection, and that "you can't be 100 percent confident of what
your findings are when you have that little time to do the job."

Church said that he was aware of eight incidents over the past two years,
including one in which a detainee was assaulted after he had been subdued by the
IRF team. All had been reported up the chain of command and swiftly dealt with
in proper fashion, he said. None approached the level of violence described by
the three former detainees.

He said he had urged Rumsfeld to follow up his brief visit by looking in more
detail at some issues raised by the Red Cross and by "reaching back" to
interview personnel who were stationed at the base prior to the current team
being deployed nine or 10 months ago.

The tapes have also been requested by senators seeking to resolve the lingering
questions about how widespread the kind of abuse seen at Abu Ghraib is.

"These tapes may help resolve some of the uncertainties about these
allegations," said an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who requested the tapes
in a letter to Rumsfeld on Monday. Sumpter said that he had no information about
the request, but the task force would always "comply fully with all authorized
requests."

"If the incidents described (by Dergoul and the others) really happened, it
suggests that some of the same cruel and degrading treatment that we know about
at Abu Ghraib also happened at Guantanamo," the aide said. "That would suggest
that it was much more pervasive than the administration has acknowledged."

Lawyers for the three men say the same techniques of stress and duress and
sexual humiliation revealed by the pictures from Abu Ghraib were used at
Guantanamo.

Barbara Olshansky, assistant legal director of the New York-based Center for
Constitutional Rights, represents two other British ex-detainees, Shafiq Rasul
and Asif Iqbal. She said last week that her clients were often taunted by female
personnel and menaced by dogs while being held naked in the same way the
notorious pictures from Abu Ghraib show detainees there being treated.

Olshansky said the men's treatment was a matter of "the policy of the American
military in handling all these situations." Of the men's treatment at Guantanamo
Bay, she said, "It appeared to them that this was the routine."

Olshansky suggested that there was a lot more photographic material at
Guantanamo than just that of the incidents involving the IRF teams.

Her clients were "videotaped and photographed during the duration of their
detention," she said.

--

(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)

* * *


Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

May 20, 2004

DEFENSE 'CEO' ACCOUNTABLE FOR PRISON ABUSES

By Ellen Podgor, Special to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0504/20podgor.html

What the military needs to ensure that prison abuses in Iraq cease and that
proper safeguards are instituted to prevent such conduct in the future is the
same "effective" program that the government demands of U.S. corporations.
Additionally, the CEO of this corporation needs to be held accountable.

In the early 1970s, U.S prosecutors brought criminal charges against the CEO of
a major U.S. corporation because of improper sanitation conditions in one of the
company's plants.

The Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Park found that a CEO who
oversaw "36,000 employees, 874 retail outlets, 12 general warehouses and four
special warehouses" was criminally liable after being notified of a rodent
problem in a Baltimore warehouse and failing to take appropriate action.

The CEO was criminally liable even though his office was in Philadelphia and the
problem was in another city. Corporate executives can be liable when their
company's employees do not comply with the laws of this country.

Since the Park case, a lot has happened in the corporate arena. CEOs are
regularly held responsible for their failures as responsible corporate officers.

Likewise, corporations regularly face government scrutiny and indictment when
they fail to adhere to the laws of this country. Most recently the government
prosecuted Arthur Andersen for obstruction of justice because of the conduct of
employees of the firm.

Today, corporations regularly use compliance programs to make certain that
employees do not stray from the mandates of the law. An effective program
includes, in appropriate situations, disciplining those who failed to detect an
offense.

Although it remains to be determined who knew of the wrongdoing, what wrongdoing
occurred, and who authorized or permitted it to happen, the conduct occurring in
the Abu Ghraib prison cannot be tolerated.

The pictures provide explicit evidence of the illegal abuses. And trials for
those directly involved are pending. But more needs to occur here.

The government needs to be the recipient of some of its own medicine, and
discipline the higher-ups who allowed this to happen.

The government needs to follow the guidelines it imposes upon others, namely
those in the corporate sector. Wars and military conflict cannot be used to
excuse violations of international standards that have been accepted by the
United States.

Perhaps what is needed here are Donald Trump's famous words, "you're fired," to
the top defense leader, as this happened under his watch.

[ Ellen S. Podgor is a professor at Georgia State University College of Law who
serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers and is a co-author of books on international criminal law and white-
collar crime. ]

* * *


Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

May 20, 2004

TALK OF POLICIES AND PROBLEMS
'Power to do everything'

By Linda Campbell, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/8711787.htm

Deep into the arguments on April 28, as Supreme Court justices pressed a Bush
administration lawyer on how long "enemy combatants" could be held without
charge before the courts had a role in reviewing the reasonableness of their
detention, John Paul Stevens posed a simple but eerily prophetic question.

"Do you think there is anything in the law that curtails the method of
interrogation that may be employed?" the justice asked Deputy Solicitor General
Paul Clement.

"Just to give one example, I think that the United States is signatory to
conventions that prohibit torture and that sort of thing. And the United States
is going to honor its treaty obligations," Clement replied.

To a follow-up from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clement offered this:

"It's also the judgment of those involved in this process that the last thing
you want to do is torture somebody or try to do something along those lines. ...
If you did that, you might get information more quickly, but you would really
wonder about the reliability of the information you were getting. ... the way
you would get the best information from individuals is that you interrogate
them, you try to develop a relationship of trust."

That night, CBS News' 60 Minutes II showed the first of the infamous photographs
of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated at the Abu Ghraib prison. Now come claims of
brutality toward some of those held at Guantanamo Bay.

Is this what comes of an executive branch undeterred by adequate checks from the
other branches?

Four detainee cases now before the justices already were sure to yield momentous
decisions. Their significance has only multiplied with unfolding revelations
about abusive interrogation techniques.

The Bush administration has continued to insist that hundreds of men captured as
possible terrorists and detained for more than two years at the base in Cuba
essentially have no legal rights.

They cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts. They cannot consult
lawyers. They are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. And they can be held
as long as the executive branch considers them a threat -- even though they have
had no mechanism, other than talking with interrogators, of disputing that
determination.

That hard-line position hardly changed with the Defense Department's Tuesday
announcement that Guantanamo detainees would be able to appear once a year
before a three-person military panel to argue why they should be released.

A news release said that the new procedures "will assist DoD in fulfilling its
commitment to ensure that no one is detained any longer than is warranted."

Officials had been talking for months about setting up the panels, but who can
deny the impetus of continuing complaints from human rights groups, Supreme
Court involvement and the pressure of public dismay and disgust over Abu Ghraib?

The administration also hasn't shifted its legal position on a pair of U.S.
citizens, Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi, whose cases also are before the
Supreme Court. Officials consider both men terrorists but have not charged
either.

Arguing that Padilla and Hamdi aren't entitled to the same constitutional
protections as criminal defendants, the Justice Department resisted for two
years allowing either man to consult a lawyer and still considers that a policy
choice rather than a matter of right.

There's an underlying reasonableness to the government's argument that enemy
combatants must be held so that they don't return to fighting U.S. troops and so
that valuable intelligence can be gleaned from questioning them.

What's not so reasonable is the argument that there can be no systematic
mechanism -- unless the administration wants to provide one -- for reviewing
whether a particular individual should remain in custody.

"I'm still honestly most worried about the fact that there would be a large
category of unchecked and uncheckable actions dealing with the detention of
individuals that are being held in a place where America has power to do
everything," Justice Stephen Breyer said during April 20 arguments in the cases
of 16 Guantanamo detainees, including Shafiq Rasul of Britain.

Rasul, who has been released from custody and sent home, wrote to President Bush
last week about being attacked, threatened with dogs and chained to the floor
while strobe lighting and loud music played.

Military officials have denied the claims. But how's an increasingly skeptical
public to know the truth if the key safeguard is the executive's assurance to
"just trust us"?

[ Linda P. Campbell is an editorial writer for the Star-Telegram. (817) 390-7867
or lcampbell@star-telegram.com ]

* * *


The Australian:

May 20, 2004
HICKS 'TIED UP AND BEATEN'
By Rory Callinan

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/
0,5744,9610612^601,00.html

SWAT VALLEY, PAKISTAN - US soldiers had something special in mind for David
Hicks when they began to interrogate him in a Northern Alliance prison in Mazar-
e-Sharif, Afghanistan, in December 2001.

First, the "white boy" was tied up, both hands and feet.

Then the beating started, according to a Taliban supporter who was Hicks's
cellmate in Afghanistan and in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Hicks was bashed at least three times in two-hour sessions by soldiers using
bare fists.

Shah Mohammed, 22, was released last year after spending three months in a cell
next to Hicks in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Speaking at his home in the Pakistani village of Alla Dand Dheri this week, Shah
said he remembered well seeing Hicks being beaten. His revelations came as the
first US soldier court-martialled over prisoner abuse in Iraq pleaded guilty.

Shah was one of hundreds of Taliban prisoners who were subjected to similar
brutal interrogation sessions in the Northern Alliance-run prison.

Inside the prison, he noticed there was one detainee the American interrogators
were particularly angry about.

The detainee was Hicks, the Australian who had joined the Taliban forces and
been captured at a Northern Alliance checkpoint.

Although there is not evidence Hicks was mistreated in Guantanamo Bay, what Shah
saw in the interrogation rooms at Mazar-e-Sharif appears to contradict claims
made by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer that there was no evidence that Hicks
had been mistreated during his time in US captivity.

A spokesman for Mr Downer said yesterday the US had provided assurances Hicks
had not been mistreated while in US custody, not only while in Guantanamo Bay.

The spokesman said if there were new allegations that Hicks had been mistreated,
the Government would examine them.

But so far, he said, no evidence had been produced and Hicks had not made any
complaint when visited again by Australian consular officials last week. Unlike
Hicks, Shah is able to speak about his experiences. The 22-year-old baker was
released back to Pakistan last year after being classified as posing "no threat
to the United States military and its interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

His village is about 320km north of Islamabad, in Pakistan's remote North West
Frontier Province.

Set at the base of steep rocky hills on the banks of a picturesque mountain
stream, the village seems a long way from the terror of the Mazar-e-Sharif
prison and the wire cages of Guantanamo Bay. But Shah's memory of his own
incarceration and what happened to fellow inmates such as Hicks is only too
clear.

Speaking this week in his uncle's spartan but neatly kept living room, he told
of clearly seeing Hicks being taken away and beaten during interrogation
sessions in prison at Mazar-e-Sharif.

"He (Hicks) was very angry about the Americans capturing innocent people," Shah
said, speaking through an interpreter.

But the Americans were also angry. "He was beaten," Shah said.

"They were saying to him, did you meet Osama (bin Laden), what was your
relationship with this or that Taliban figure.

"The other detainees would be tied up with rope on one hand and one foot, but
Hicks they tied up both hands and both feet."

Shah said it was because Hicks was a "white boy".

"There were three two-hour sessions. They used their fists. Three or four
Americans in uniform," he said.

"The Northern Alliance would come and get the prisoners and go and give them to
the Americans. Then the Americans would hand them back to the Northern Alliance
to put them back into their cells."

Shah said he knew the beatings were going on because he could see through a
window into one of the interrogation rooms.

He said the Americans filmed the beatings and the interrogations.

His comments raise questions about the claims that Australian officials are not
aware of any evidence of Hicks being mistreated during his captivity.

"If people are going to make allegations against other people of human rights
abuses, they need to come up with the evidence," Mr Downer told journalists on
Monday.

"They need to come up with the evidence, not just smear people and suggest that
something appalling has happened without providing the evidence."

Shah said he was willing to travel to Australia to give that evidence, although
he was worried about how he might be treated.

Hicks's Adelaide lawyer, Stephen Kenny, said yesterday that allegations of abuse
against enemy combatants were now "so overwhelming" that there needed to be a
"full and proper" inquiry into the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan and
Guantanamo Bay.

"It is absolutely vital now that the Australian Government immediately demand
copies of that video and that they be made public so that people can see the
truth of these matters," Mr Kenny said.

Mr Kenny said he was seeking instructions from Mr Hicks to confirm his co-
operation in any "properly instituted" inquiry into abuse of terror suspects
arrested in Afghanistan.

Mr Kenny first raised allegations last week that Mr Hicks was abused, but is
constrained from detailing specific incidents.

"I can confirm that David Hicks told me on the very first occasion I saw him of
a number of allegations of mistreatment towards himself and other prisoners, the
details of which I cannot reveal."

Mr Shah still has his own demons to deal with, however.

He said he did not fight and was only a simple baker who made bread for the
Taliban.

He was captured by villagers and sold to the Northern Alliance for $5000 after
the fall of the Taliban. His interrogation occurred under similar conditions to
that of Mr Hicks in the crowded prison and interrogation centre.

He said that during the three months he spent in a cell beside Mr Hicks in
Guantanamo Bay, he did not see the Australian suffer any obvious brutality.

But he said he himself was regularly drugged -- treatment that left him mentally
unstable and prompted him to try to kill himself.

Mr Hicks, however, appeared to be co-operating with the guards, Mr Shah said.

"He would make friends with them. They would come and chat and say 'why did you
go to Afghanistan?' It was another form of interrogation."

Mr Shah laughed, however, at suggestions from other released prisoners that Mr
Hicks had abandoned Islam during his lengthy incarceration in Camp X-Ray. "He
was a good Muslim," he said.

Mr Hicks would spend his days praying, reading the Koran and exercising.

* * *


May 19, 2004

BRUTAL INTERROGATION IN IRAQ
Five detainees' deaths probed

By Miles Moffeit, Denver Post Staff Writer

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11676~2157003,00.html

'VERY TROUBLING'

Pentagon records provide the clearest view yet of the U.S. tactics used at Anu
Ghraib and elsewhere to coax secrets from Iraqis.

Brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being
investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in
war-zone detention camps, Pentagon documents obtained by The Denver Post show.

The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was
shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The
documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the
general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation. Pentagon officials
declined to comment on the new disclosure.

Another Iraqi military officer, records show, was asphyxiated after being
gagged, his hands tied to the top of his cell door. Another detainee died "while
undergoing stress technique interrogation," involving smothering and "chest
compressions," according to the documents.

Details of the death investigations, involving at least four different detention
facilities including the Abu Ghraib prison, provide the clearest view yet into
war-zone interrogation rooms, where intelligence soldiers and other personnel
have sometimes used lethal tactics to try to coax secrets from prisoners,
including choking off detainees' airways. Other abusive strategies involve
sitting on prisoners or bending them into uncomfortable positions, records show.

"Torture is the only thing you can call this," said a Pentagon source with
knowledge of internal investigations into prisoner abuses. "There is a lot about
our country's interrogation techniques that is very troubling. These are
violations of military law."

Internal records obtained by The Post point to wider problems beyond the Abu
Ghraib prison and demonstrate that some coercive tactics used at Abu Ghraib have
shown up in interrogations elsewhere in the war effort. The documents also show
more than twice as many allegations of detainee abuse - 75 - are being
investigated by the military than previously known. Twenty-seven of the abuse
cases involve deaths; at least eight are believed to be homicides.

No criminal punishments have been announced in the interrogation deaths, even
though three deaths occurred last year.

Beyond the interrogation deaths, the military documents show that investigators
are examining other abuse cases involving soldiers using choking techniques
during interrogations, including the handling of prisoners at a detention
facility in Samarra, Iraq, where soldiers allegedly "forced into asphyxiation
numerous detainees."

Also under investigation are reports that soldiers in Iraq abused women and
children. One April 2003 case, which is awaiting trial, involves a reservist who
pointed a loaded pistol at an Iraqi child in front of witnesses, saying he
should kill the youngster to "send a message" to other Iraqis.

Pentagon officials, asked to comment on synopses of the cases provided by The
Post, released a statement saying they do not discuss ongoing investigations.
"Make no mistake; we will take whatever corrective actions are determined to be
appropriate," the statement said. "The offenders will be dealt with, and action
will be taken to prevent such situations from happening again."

Military officials and the Bush administration face international scrutiny over
the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, which entailed a range of physical
assault, mental abuse and sexual humiliation by military police officers. The
role of military intelligence personnel in abuse cases has been murky. On
Tuesday, The New York Times reported that an American officer who led
interrogations at the prison acknowledged that intelligence personnel sometimes
instructed military police to mete out abuse.

In the case of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who headed Saddam
Hussein's air force, intelligence officers' role was documented in abuse that
soon turned fatal, documents show,

Mowhoush, considered a "high-priority target," turned himself in for questioning
in November, according to documents. After two weeks in custody at an Al Qaim
detention facility, northwest of Baghdad, two soldiers with the 66th Military
Intelligence Company, slid a sleeping bag over his body, except for his feet,
and began questioning him as they rolled him repeatedly from his back to his
stomach, the documents show.

Then, one of the soldiers, an interrogator, sat on Mowhoush's chest and placed
his hands over the prisoner's mouth, according to the report: "During this
interrogation, the (general) became non-responsive, medics were called and he
was later pronounced dead." According to the documents, "The preliminary report
lists the cause of death as asphyxia due to smothering and chest compressions."

Immediately after Mowhoush's death was reported, U.S. military officials
released a statement acknowledging he died during an interview.

"Mowhoush said he didn't feel well and subsequently lost consciousness," read
the press statement, which is still posted on a Pentagon website. "The soldier
questioning him found no pulse, then conducted CPR and called for medical
authorities. According to the on-site surgeon, it appeared Mowhouse died of
natural causes."

An investigative report was finalized in late January, and the interrogating
soldiers received reprimands, in addition to being barred from further
interviews, documents show. According to the report obtained by The Post,
commanders have not taken criminal action against the soldiers, citing an
ongoing investigation.

Criminal punishments apparently have not been pursued in the other
interrogation-death cases, which also are ongoing.

Another Iraqi prisoner was assaulted by interrogators on two occasions in early
January of this year at the FOB Rifles Base in Asad, Iraq, documents state. U.S.
forces arrested him for allegedly possessing explosive devices, and he was later
placed in an isolation cell for questioning by special-forces soldiers with the
Operational Detachment Alpha, where he was shackled to a pipe that ran along the
ceiling. After he was allowed to sit, he lunged at one of the soldiers, grabbing
his shirt. "The three ODA members punched and kicked (the prisoner) in the
stomach and ribs for approximately one to two minutes," documents show.

Three days later, the prisoner escaped from his cell and was recaptured.

During questioning, the detainee refused to follow instructions. When he refused
orders to remain quiet in his cell, his hands were tied to the top of his cell
door, the report shows. When he still refused, he was gagged, the report notes,
and five minutes later, a soldier "noticed that he was slumped down and hanging
from his shackles" dead.

According to the investigative report, special forces commanders are reviewing
"consideration of misconduct" in the case.

Other prisoner deaths under homicide investigation, records show:

The beating in early April of a detainee at the LSA Diamondback facility in
Mosul, Iraq, who was found dead in his sleep. A death report showed "blunt-
force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia." He had gone to sleep
immediately after questioning by members of the Naval Special Warfare Team. No
disciplinary action was noted in the report, but the investigation continues,
the report states.

In June, at a "classified interrogation facility" in Baghdad, an Iraqi detainee
was found dead after being restrained in a chair for questioning. "While in
custody the detainee was subjected to both physical and psychological stress,"
the report shows. An autopsy determined that he died of a "hard, fast blow" to
the head. The investigation continues. No disciplinary action was noted.

On Nov. 4, an Iraqi died at Abu Ghraib during an interview by special forces and
Navy SEAL soldiers. "An autopsy revealed the cause of death was blunt force
trauma as complicated by compromised respiration." The report notes that Navy
investigators concluded Navy personnel did not commit a crime leading to the
detainee's death. But the investigation, including by CIA officials, is still
ongoing. No disciplinary action was noted.

Amid a storm of controversy over prisoner handling in recent weeks, U.S.
military officials have launched eight separate internal investigations into
abuse cases, administrative procedures and interrogation techniques.

They also have acknowledged that reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib violate the
Geneva Conventions and other treaties.

According to Human Rights Watch, which monitors prisoner maltreatment around the
world, the patterns of interrogation tactics known as "stress techniques" in the
death cases is tantamount to torture and should be investigated by an
"independent" body or government.

"It sounds as though the Iraqi general and others were being subjected to
extreme techniques we are only just now learning about, and it's clearly cruel
and degrading treatment," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights
Watch. "This highlights the need for independent scrutiny at a minimum by
Congress or possibly an independent commission of inquiry."

Of the detainee cases that were not homicides, commanders typically handed down
lenient job-related punishments to the accused, instead of seeking criminal
convictions. Of 47 punishments given to those accused of prisoner abuse,
according to the report, only 15 involved court-martial. Criminal penalties
ranged from reprimands to 60 days' confinement.

Unlike civilian practices, in the military, commanders decide whether to send
accused soldiers to trial.

Alleged abuses

Military investigations regarding allegations of Iraqi detainee abuse:

April 12, 2004: Member of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force abused a detainee
involved in shooting death of a Marine lieutenant and sergeant. During
interrogation, detainee was kicked in the rib cage, punched in kidney area and
slapped in the head. Incident being investigated.

Jan. 9, 2004: FOB Rifles Base detainee died while in custody. The detainee, an
escapee who had been recaptured, was shackled to the door of his cell with his
hands over his head and gagged. Five minutes later, he was found dead. The death
is under investigation.

Dec. 31, 2003: Military police officer used butt of M-4 rifle to strike a
detainee in the face and on the back of the neck. Then the officer placed the
muzzle of his M-4 rifle in the detainee's mouth and pulled trigger on the empty
weapon. Officer then chambered a round and pointed the rifle at detainee, firing
a round 5 or 6 feet from detainee. The incident is under investigation.

Nov. 26, 2003: At the 3rd ACR detention facility, Iraqi Gen. Abed Hamad
Mowhoush, a "high-priority target," was placed inside a sleeping bag with only
his feet exposed. He was rolled back and forth while being questioned. One of
the interrogators sat on his chest and placed hands over his mouth. He died
during the interrogation, and an autopsy confirmed evidence of blunt force
trauma to the chest and legs. The interrogating officers were given general
officer reprimands, prohibited from conducting further interrogations and
referred for consideration of misconduct charges.

Sept. 11, 2003: A guard at the FOB Packhorse detention facility fatally shot a
detainee who was throwing rocks. The soldier, who did not follow regulations,
was reduced in rank and discharged from the military in lieu of trial by court-
martial.

June 13, 2003: A sergeant beat a detainee while his squad leader was present.
Sergeant received rank reduction and 60 days' confinement. His commanding
officer - who also beat detainees - was charged with dereliction of duty, given
a reprimand and fined $2,000.

[ Staff researcher Monnie Nilsson contributed to this report. ]

Staff writer Miles Moffeit can be reached at 303-820-1415 or
mmoffeit@denverpost.com

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

May 19, 2004

ABUSE INQUIRY FOCUSES ON NEW HEAD OF IRAQ JAILS
* Critics say Maj. Gen. Miller's suggestions allowed misconduct. He calls
himself a reformer.

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/
la-fg-miller19may19,1,3508195.story

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- He was on the other side of the globe at the U.S. detention
camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when the now-infamous abuses at Abu Ghraib took
place last fall and winter.

At the time, he had no authority in Iraq and was in charge of a different group
of prisoners -- suspected terrorists and Taliban militants detained by U.S.
authorities after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who only recently took command of U.S.-run
detention facilities in Iraq, now finds himself deeply embroiled in the prison
abuse scandal that has rocked the Pentagon and the Bush administration. Critics
have suggested that Miller's recommendations for overhauling detention and
interrogation procedures in Iraq after an inspection tour here last summer
created a climate for the abuses to occur. Others said he declared it was time
to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib by introducing the kind of aggressive techniques used
to grill suspects in Guantanamo.

But Miller, who denies making such a declaration, casts himself as a reformer
who sought to impose discipline and order on a fledgling prison system.

The Senate Armed Services Committee today will question Miller; Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, head of U.S. forces in Iraq; and Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S.
Central Command, in its quest to determine who was responsible for the abuse.

"I'm going to want to find out chain of command, who gave the orders -- the
questions are obvious," committee member Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said
Tuesday.

Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) has asked for a "discussion and legal
review" by the Pentagon of interrogation techniques lawful under the Geneva
Convention. Warner has requested all documentation of such interrogation
techniques in Iraq and at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

Warner said he would call other witnesses in coming weeks, including L. Paul
Bremer III, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority; Undersecretary
of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith; and Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, director of
intelligence for U.S. operations in Iraq.

On Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee held a closed session with Army
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, author of a critical report on prisoner abuse at
Abu Ghraib. Republicans said Taguba concluded that problems were confined to Abu
Ghraib, but Democrats complained he would not testify beyond the scope of his
investigation.

Miller, 54, a Texan who during 30 years in the military earned a reputation as a
no-nonsense leader, said he welcomed scrutiny.

"The facts will support me," Miller said in an interview this week at the
sprawling detention complex here, as he took a break from escorting journalists
through a facility that he says has been revamped.

Human rights advocates portray Miller as an enabler of what they say is the Bush
administration's determination to disregard international law to get information
from suspected terrorists and insurgents.

"Miller seems to represent a rolling regime of lawless interrogation," said
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch in New York. "When he
went to Iraq, he brought with him an entire system of interrogation that
blatantly violated international conventions and treaties."

Miller said that he voluntarily eschewed most "aggressive" interrogation
techniques at Guantanamo and recommended that they be banned in Iraq -- a step
taken last week by Sanchez.

"Interrogation works best, in my opinion, when you develop a rapport between the
interrogator and he or she who is being interrogated," Miller said this week.
"Intelligence is like golden threads. You piece each one of them to be able to
weave together an intelligence picture."

Miller said he had always insisted on meeting the standards of the Geneva
Convention -- "except where military necessity dictates" -- even in Guantanamo,
where the Bush administration has declared the prisoners "enemy combatants" not
subject to full Geneva safeguards.

"We followed all of the protections of the Geneva Convention for food, shelter,
extraordinary medical care, access for the International Committee of the Red
Cross," Miller said of U.S. policy at Guantanamo. "We're dealing with human
beings. We have a ... responsibility to treat them with dignity and respect."

The Bush administration has maintained that detainees in Iraq are entitled to
Geneva Convention protections.

Congressional testimony and interviews suggest that the Army was unprepared for
a large-scale detention and intelligence-gathering operation in Iraq -- just as
the Pentagon was caught by surprise by postwar looting and the growing
insurgency.

"We had just transitioned from a major combat operation," Miller said. "We were
starting out with an interim facility."

Desperate for intelligence from thousands of prisoners pouring into makeshift
camps, the brass turned last summer to Miller, a former artillery officer and
paratrooper who earned high praise for his work in Guantanamo. He led a 30-
member team commissioned to assess detention practices in Iraq.

Miller acknowledged that he was taken aback by the lack of "clarity" of rules in
Iraq jails. At more than a dozen facilities, military intelligence interrogators
followed an outdated Army manual. Interrogators had the opportunity to choose
among dozens of techniques, a few of them questionable under the Geneva
Convention -- including sleep deprivation and pain-producing stress positions.
And commanders at the facilities had the authority to approve these techniques.

"My recommendation was that they take a more conservative look at the
interrogation techniques being used," Miller said.

During his inspection visit, Miller said he found it "odd" that no one appeared
to be in charge at Abu Ghraib, where responsibilities were split among the
military police and military intelligence units. His team recommended that
"everyone should answer to one person," Miller said, adding that he made no
specific suggestion about whom that should be.

Taguba's report suggested that Miller's insistence that military police assist
with the interrogation process may have contributed to an atmosphere in which
interrogators encouraged guards to "loosen ... up" detainees before questioning.

Miller said his team recommended guards' "passive" participation in the
interrogation process -- such as reporting on prisoners' habits and activities.
He said he never suggested that guards become directly involved in
interrogation.

Within weeks of receiving Miller's report, Sanchez approved a comprehensive
interrogation policy for the U.S. military in Iraq. By mid-October, some
techniques -- including the use of stress positions and prolonged sleep
deprivation -- required Sanchez's approval.

On Nov. 19, Sanchez issued an order putting Abu Ghraib under the military
intelligence unit. Critics have suggested that this may have contributed to an
atmosphere in which intelligence gathering took priority over humane treatment
of prisoners.

Miller said he has moved quickly to change the U.S. detention facilities in
Iraq. The 3,600 detainees at Abu Ghraib are being moved into a new tent city
dubbed "Camp Redemption."

Miller said he doesn't deny the need for U.S. military authorities to be
redeemed in the wake of the scandal.

"We are all embarrassed and ashamed by the actions of a very small number of
leaders and a very small number of soldiers," Miller told reporters recently
while standing in the cellblocks where the abuse took place. "We are men and
women of honor."

Miller cited "great improvements" at the prison. New training has been
introduced for guards, interrogators and other staff members. Meals and
amenities have been improved for prisoners. A new visitors center is allowing
regular family contact -- after months in which many relatives could not
determine if their loved ones were being held. Some Iraqis have said they had to
pay bribes to middlemen to facilitate visits.

Miller has accelerated the review of prisoners' cases and the release of those
not considered threats. A Red Cross report found that as many as 90% of U.S.
detainees were wrongly arrested.

"We're doing the right thing," Miller said.

[ Times staff writer Esther Schrader in Washington contributed to this report. ]

* * *


Seattle Times:

May 19, 2004
YEMENI'S LAWSUIT CONTENDS SPECIAL TRIBUNAL VIOLATES CONSTITUTION

By Maureen O'Hagan, Seattle Times staff reporter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001932869_tribunal19m.html

On the ninth floor of the federal courthouse in Seattle, a lawsuit is being
heard that weighs the foundations of American laws and values against the
mission of protecting the country from foreign terrorists.

At the center of the case is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who admits he was a
driver for Osama bin Laden.

The military lawyer assigned to represent him, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, is
using Hamdan's detention in Guantanamo Bay to question the power of his own
commander in chief, the president of the United States.

The issues, wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik in a procedural ruling last
week, have "monumental significance" and are reminiscent of the Japanese-
internment cases decided six decades ago in the same courthouse.

Swift argues not only that Hamdan is an innocent civilian, but that the military
tribunal President Bush's administration created to try him is unconstitutional.
Also, he says, the tribunal rules violate military law and the Geneva
Conventions.

In civilian court, that would be akin to a lawyer challenging the entire
criminal-justice system, from the judge to the rules of evidence to the law
books that line the walls.

The case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, is the first court challenge to the new tribunals,
and it offers a glimpse into a modern world of justice that has been created to
confront the terrorist threat.

Swift, a career military lawyer, is not the sort to take shots at his
government. But, in his opinion, this new justice is no justice at all.

Picked up in Afghanistan

Hamdan was picked up in Afghanistan in November 2001 by paramilitary troops
looking for Arabs to sell to the Americans as prisoners of war, according to the
lawsuit. He had arrived in Afghanistan five years earlier and began working as a
driver on a farm bin Laden owned, earning $200 a month to shuttle farmworkers
and, later, the terrorist chief himself.

The 34-year-old Muslim was taken to Guantanamo Bay and held at Camp Delta among
about 600 other prisoners labeled enemy combatants. Then last July, the Bush
administration selected him and five other detainees for trial before a military
tribunal.

These tribunals, announced by the president the same month Hamdan was arrested,
exist in a sort of legal netherworld designed to be outside of military courts-
martial, civilian courts where criminals are ordinarily tried, and the Geneva
Conventions that cover the laws of war.

In each of these, there are long-established rules that govern the treatment of
defendants. For example, under the Geneva Conventions, a suspect must not be
held longer than 90 days without going to trial.

But using his broad wartime powers, here's how the president has set up the
tribunals: The administration selects those to try and oversees their judges.
Officials under the president's supervision come up with a list of eligible
crimes as well as the rules under which the tribunals operate. There are no time
limits, and no oversight by Congress or the judicial branch.

That has put Hamdan into a "legal black hole," according to his legal briefs --
a through-the-looking-glass world in which "a factually innocent person can be
found guilty," according to Swift.

The government said Hamdan will be charged with a crime, but he still hasn't
been told what it is. He was transferred to solitary confinement in December in
preparation for trial, but no trial date has been set.

He has been told the trial will be fair but that evidence may be withheld from
him, and his lawyer must ask the government's permission before revealing any
facts of the case. He can seek redress only up the chain of command -- in other
words, to the people who decided he should be charged in the first place.

"Have you read up on your Kafka?" asked Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University law
professor who has written legal briefs for Hamdan and other detainees.

Last year, Hamdan was told he would remain in solitary until he agreed to plead
guilty to an unspecified offense, according to the pleadings.

Swift, who filed suit on Hamdan's behalf in April, says he is permitted to file
in Washington because he is a "next friend" of Hamdan's -- a person appointed by
a court to act in Hamdan's behalf -- and he had established legal residency here
after going to the University of Puget Sound School of Law, which is now part of
Seattle University. The government disputes Swift's right to file here and will
attack that point as the lawsuit progresses.

If the government is right and Hamdan cannot use this legal avenue, "the logical
result" is that Hamdan "could serve a potential life sentence without ever being
charged with a crime and without being afforded a chance to prove his
innocence," legal filings state.

To Katyal, that "flouts what the American system of justice has been since the
Civil War, if not before."

The Justice Department has declined to elaborate on the case. In legal filings,
it simply stated that there is "reason to believe" Hamdan was a member of al-
Qaida or otherwise involved in terrorism. Court papers also point out that all
detainees have gone through a "multi-step screening process to determine if
their detention is necessary." In news briefings, federal authorities have said
the tribunals were designed for flexibility, which is needed to fight the war on
terrorism.

Not protected by American law

Moreover, officials say that the detainees picked up in Afghanistan aren't
governed by the Geneva Conventions because they are suspected members of al-
Qaida, which belongs to no nation. Nor are they protected by American law
because they are not citizens and they are not being held on American soil. The
government is relying on a 1950 Supreme Court decision that denied
constitutional protections to Germans captured during World War II and held
overseas.

Unlike other detainee cases making their way through the courts, Hamdan's
lawsuit does not argue that the president has no right to round up terrorism
suspects to protect the country. Katyal and Swift say they support broad
executive powers during times of war, but believe that once the imminent threat
has passed and the question becomes one of guilt or innocence, as in Hamdan's
case, the president must allow justice to take its course using long-established
military and criminal procedures.

At this point, Swift's immediate goal is to get Hamdan out of solitary
confinement and put back into the general population. Then he wants the evidence
to be laid out so a neutral judge or jury can weigh his guilt.

Friday, Judge Lasnik denied the requests, ruling that the case would have to be
delayed until the Supreme Court issues opinions on two other cases involving
detainees. Those rulings are expected at the end of June, and Hamdan's hearing
was pushed back to September.

Swift says criticizing the government is not something he takes lightly.

"We all took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United
States," he said. "I have the absolute utmost respect for those of my colleagues
who are doing that with their bodies. I was called on to do it with my mind."

He says a role model is John Adams, who made the unpopular decision to defend
British troops accused in the Boston Massacre. All were spared the death
penalty, and several were acquitted. Adams, who went on to become president,
said later that it was "one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my
Country."

As for Swift, he says he's asking for only one thing.

"My hope," he said, "is that we get a day in court where these weighty issues
can be decided."

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com

* * *


Salon --

May 19, 2004

THE PRISONER-ABUSE SCANDAL AT HOME

The stories sound familiar: Muslim prisoners beaten and sexually humiliated by
American guards. But it happened in Brooklyn, not Baghdad.

By Michelle Goldberg

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/19/maddy/index.html

BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- The American guards took Mohamed Maddy's glasses before they
slammed him into the wall. A portly middle-aged father of two, Maddy was crying,
trying to move his shoulder in front of him so it would take the blow, but they
kept smashing him into the concrete, leaving him with dark purple bruises. Then
they told him to strip, and when he balked at removing his underwear -- "I am
Muslim, I can't do it," he said -- they screamed, "Fucking Muslim! Take them
off!"

They made him bend over and said, "Take your hand and open your ass." He sobbed
harder as they performed a cavity search. Afterward, they told him to get
dressed and put him in handcuffs and leg irons connected by a chain to his
waist. They ordered him to run and then stepped on his leg chain so he'd fall
down, only to be yanked back up and forced to run again, over and over. Without
his glasses, Maddy couldn't see where he was going, but he thinks he was running
in circles.

Finally he was thrown in a cell. For the first month, the light was left on 24
hours a day. If he tried to shield his eyes and snatch a moment of sleep, the
guards would kick the doors. On the rare occasions when he was taken out, he was
strip-searched, often twice in the same day, even if he hadn't been out of the
guards' sight. Sometimes they did the searches in public. Sometimes they laughed
and jeered. An official report later concluded that many of these searches had
nothing to do with safety -- they were about punishment and humiliation.

Stories like Maddy's have lately been pouring out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but
he's never been to those countries. Maddy's ordeal took place at the
Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where 84 of the 762 Muslim immigrants
who were detained after Sept. 11 were held. The torture there wasn't nearly as
severe as it was at Abu Ghraib, and, according to recent reports, at Guantanamo
in Cuba. But there are striking similarities, suggesting that what happened in
Iraq may be an escalation of a pattern of human rights violations that began
almost as soon as the World Trade Center crumbled.

In April 2003, as the war in Iraq dominated the headlines, the Justice
Department's Office of the Inspector General issued a 239-page report titled
"The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on
Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11
Attacks." Then, in December, the Inspector General's Office issued a
supplemental 49-page report detailing abuses at the Metropolitan Detention
Center, where Maddy was held. In its May 24 issue, Newsweek revealed that
attorneys for two detainees are pressing to release 300 hours of videotape that
captured the abuses -- tapes that were cited in the reports on the detention
center, but that have never been made public.

As the reports document, prisoners being held at MDC in connection with Sept. 11
were regularly stripped and sexually humiliated. Prolonged sleep deprivation was
common. Guards regularly slammed inmates against walls. Several detainees
claimed they were also punched and kicked. In Passaic County Jail, prisoners
were menaced with dogs. At several prisons, people were put in solitary
confinement for weeks or even months. They were denied access to visitors. Many
were never charged with any crime.

The reports paint a picture of mass roundups conducted without probable cause,
followed by "prolonged confinement for many detainees, sometimes under extremely
harsh conditions." It lists some of the rather specious justifications given for
classifying people as Sept. 11 detainees. One man was "arrested, detained on
immigration charges, and treated as a September 11 detainee because a person
called the FBI to report that the [redacted] grocery store in which the alien
worked, is operated by numerous Middle Eastern men, 24 hrs -- 7 days a week.
Each shift daily has 2 or 3 men ... Store was closed day after crash, reopened
days and evenings. Then later on opened during midnight hours. Too many people
to run a small store."

Something similar seems to have happened in Iraq, where the Red Cross estimated
that between 70 and 90 percent of the inmates at Abu Ghraib were innocent. On
May 5, a U.N. working group on arbitrary detention issued a statement saying,
"According to the information received by the Working Group, the majority of
persons in detention in Iraq have been arrested during public demonstrations, at
checkpoints and in house raids. They are being considered 'security detainees'
or 'suspected of anti-Coalition activities'. The Working Group's Chairperson-
Rapporteur is seriously disturbed by the fact that these persons have not been
granted access to a court to be able to challenge the lawfulness of their
detention, as required by the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights."

Policies of arbitrary detention often lead to coercive interrogation and abuse,
says David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University and author of "Enemy
Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism."
In both America and Iraq, he says, "the approach was to sweep broadly, to pick
people up on little or no evidence other than their religious or ethnic
identity. That process puts a premium on interrogation because the whole idea is
that we don't know how the bad guys are, so your job as an interrogator is to
find out who they are through interrogation. When they say we don't know
anything about it, it's going to put pressure on interrogators to use coercive
methods. Anytime you abandon the presumption of innocence and adopt a broad,
sweeping detention policy, it's going to lead to questionable interrogation
tactics."

It's not clear whether the guards in Brooklyn and those in Baghdad adopted
similar tactics independently, or whether they were acting under similar orders.
As Seymour Hersh has reported in the New Yorker, the Defense Department
authorized policies in Guantanamo and Iraq that were designed to enable
interrogations. According to Hersh, they included sexual humiliation, sleep
deprivation, "exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in
'stress positions' for agonizing lengths of time."

Milder versions of these methods were employed at MDC, but there's no evidence
that guards there were acting under orders from federal officials. Still, says
Cole, "[R]eports of [abuse] are so consistent among domestic detainees that it
seems it must have been a policy choice. Assuming the best of the policy makers,
would assume they're doing it for interrogation purposes."

Regardless of who ordered the abuse, prison officials were operating under
loosened legal constraints that encouraged mistreatment. "There was a perception
of guilt imposed in both cases," says Nancy Chang, senior litigation attorney at
the Center for Constitutional Rights. Those detained in America, like those in
Guantanamo and Iraq, "were abused as enemy combatants or potential enemy
combatants. They were treated quite differently from regular prisoners. They
were placed under the most extreme conditions of confinement without any prior
determination that they posed a danger."

In both the United States and Iraq, the tactics were similar, even if the
severity was not.

Images of the abuse at Abu Ghraib have forced Mohamed Maddy to relive the eight
months he spent in American prisons, and especially the months he spent at the
special housing unit at the Metropolitan Detention Center. "I can see that it is
almost the same," he writes in an e-mail from Cairo, where he's lived with his
two sons since being deported in May 2002. "[W]e were all pushed viciously
against the wall, hands tied behind back, chains on both legs, lots of hits on
the face and the rest of the body, severe humiliation like I never saw before,
they were cursing us almost every minute of the day and prevented us from
sleeping. In brief, the treatment was very inhuman and against all human rights
and ethics."

Of course, this may sound like the hyperbole of a traumatized man, but the
inspector general's report on conditions at MDC confirm most of what he says.
"[W]e concluded that it was inappropriate for staff members in the ADMAX SHU
[Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit] to routinely film strip searches
showing the detainees naked, and that on occasion staff members inappropriately
used strip searches to intimidate and punish detainees," the report says. It
cites videotapes of the strip searches in which the voices of female officers
can clearly be heard, confirming detainees' reports that they were stripped in
front of women. On some tapes, the report says, "staff members laughed,
exchanged suggestive looks and made funny noises before and during strip
searches."

The report also found evidence of routine physical abuse. "[W]e concluded, based
on videotape evidence, detainees' statements, witnesses' observations, and staff
members who corroborated some allegations of abuse, that some MDC staff members
slammed and bounced detainees into the walls at the MDC and inappropriately
pressed detainees' heads against walls," the report says. "We also found that
some officers inappropriately twisted and bent detainees' arms, hands, wrists,
and fingers, and caused them unnecessary physical pain; inappropriately carried
or lifted detainees; and raised or pulled detainees' arms in painful ways. In
addition, we believe some officers improperly used handcuffs, occasionally
stepped on compliant detainees' leg restraint chains, and were needlessly
forceful and rough with the detainees -- all conduct that violates [Bureau of
Prisons] policy."

There were also numerous reports that, in addition to the lights being left on
in the cell for 24 hours a day, officers went out of their way to keep detainees
awake. "For example, one detainee claimed that officers kicked the doors non-
stop in order to keep the detainees from sleeping," the inspector general's
report says. "He stated that for the first two or three weeks he was at the MDC,
one of the officers walked by about every 15 minutes throughout the night,
kicked the doors to wake up the detainees, and yelled things such as,
'Motherfuckers,' 'Assholes,' and 'Welcome to America.' ... Another detainee said
that officers would not let the detainees sleep during the day or night from the
time he arrived at the MDC in the beginning of October through mid-November
2001."

Almost all the 9/11 prisoners at MDC were being held for interrogation, not
because police had any evidence connecting them to terrorism. Maddy was one of
the few in the unit who had actually committed a crime -- while working for a
passenger services company at JFK airport, he had smuggled his wife and sons
into the country.

Today, Maddy lives in a cacophonous Cairo suburb where car horns compete with
mournful Arab pop singers and small boys driving donkey carts clatter down dusty
side streets. He's a hospitable man who cooks me a dinner of grilled chicken and
Greek salad while his teenage sons, Eslam and Karim, play a James Bond video
game on their Xbox and listen to the soundtrack from Eminem's "8 Mile." Friendly
as he is, though, he can't hide a sadness that's made him lose interest in
everything in the world except his boys and his misfortunes.

In prison, he was questioned "six, seven or eight times," he says, usually about
how often he went to the mosque and whether he knows any "bad people in the
USA." Not being a radical man -- he has a picture of Bill Clinton hanging on the
wall of his Cairo apartment -- he was little help. "I tell them the truth, but
they say, 'You are liar,'" he says.

Indeed, several detainees say it was their professions of innocence that led to
weeks of solitary confinement and other torments.

Khaled Betar, 34, is a happy-go-lucky blue-eyed bachelor from Amman, Jordan,
whose friends know him as a bit of a womanizer. Radical Islam holds no
attraction for him -- he's an agnostic who tends to see both his Arab and Muslim
identity as an accident of birth. The first time he prayed to Allah was when he
was thrown in prison by FBI agents who accused him of membership in al-Qaida.

Before arriving in America, Betar spent time working in both South Africa and
Hamburg, Germany. He traveled to America in April 2001 for the same reason many
immigrants do -- to earn money. A Jordanian family he knew owned a gas station
in Stony Point, N.Y., and they gave him a job that paid around $2,000 a month --
nearly 10 times what he could make at home.

Betar had a six-month tourist visa that was still valid in late September 2001,
when FBI agents showed up at his apartment to question him. "They asked me if I
know any people who give speeches in the mosque, if I'm religious or not," he
says. "They spoke to me for, like, half an hour and they asked me about my
passport. I showed them my visa." The visa would expire in a week.

Knowing that, the agents waited 10 days before visiting Betar again. When they
returned, there were two immigration agents with them. "They told me, your visa
expired and you have to go with us to the detention," he says.

Betar would spend the next nine months in Passaic County Jail, where he was held
as a material witness to the Sept. 11 attacks. "He was never charged with
terrorism, never charged with being a threat to national security," says his
attorney, Sin Yen Ling of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
"There were never any formal charges."

But there were many interrogations. Seven of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers spent
time in Hamburg, a city with a Muslim population of 130,000. Betar had lived
there, too, and investigators were convinced there was a connection.

During his first interview, there were four FBI agents. They showed him pictures
of some of the hijackers, and asked if he knew them. "They told me one of the
hijackers was in Germany," he says. "They said, 'How come you are Muslim and you
don't know this guy?' That's what they told me! I told them, man, I can't know
every Muslim!"

A few weeks later, the agents asked him if he would take a polygraph. He readily
agreed, but after hours of questioning, he was told that he failed (he's never
seen the transcript, and it wasn't given to his attorney). Several days later,
he was given a second polygraph. Again, he was told that he failed, and he was
taken to the hole. The guard told Betar he was acting on the FBI's orders.

"I was in a small cell. It's closed. There was an iron bed and mattress and
blanket, that's all that you have. I stayed there 24 days. All the time, they
keep the light on. Every day they came with dogs. The dogs made noise. Every day
they took me from the room to search me. I'm in the room, how can I get
anything?"

When he returned to the prison's general population after 24 days, "It was like
a paradise for me," he says. "You can't imagine. The hole is terrible. It was
the worst 24 days of my life. They make you crazy, really."

There was pressure, he says, to admit to some role in Sept. 11. "They just want
me to say I know one of these people," he says. "They want anybody. If you are
innocent, it doesn't matter for them. They just want to put anybody in the jail,
to show people that they are working. If this happened in Syria, Iraq, it's
normal, but in America it's different, really."

Eventually, though, the FBI cleared Betar of any terrorist ties, and he was
deported back to Jordan.

A resilient man, Betar seems to have largely put his ordeal behind him. "Now,
I'm all right," he says in Amman, where he and a friend have started a business
selling nuts. "Sometimes you remember, you get depressed, but I'm normal now.
I'm OK."

Maddy, who's found a job as an Internet marketing manager for a Cairo tourism
company, hasn't done as well. He has memory lapses and trouble concentrating.
"Sometimes at my job, it goes in my mind, everything that happened in the USA. I
get nervous and have to leave what I'm doing. Never I forget. Everything's like
videotape. I remember even when I'm sleeping. I don't feel safe when I'm
sleeping. I don't feel good about my life." He wants to sue the Justice
Department, but knows little about the American legal system, and isn't sure
where to look for a lawyer to represent him pro bono.

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, something further seemed to break in him.
Shortly after the first pictures of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqis were
published, he fired off an uncharacteristic message full of profanity and rage.
"How much the American people hate the Muslim people!" he writes. "[W]e hate the
stupid Bush and I will be happy when he go to the hell in November and I want
tell him go, not come back. Fuck you Bush and your government."

Two days later, he was mortified by his outburst. "I would like to express my
apology for using an inappropriate language, but I have bitter feelings that
squeeze my heart and soul," he writes in a second e-mail. "It sounds like it is
a policy for the American government to treat Arabs, especially Muslims, as bad
as they can, and it is totally untrue that the behavior was individual incidents
carried [out] by several guards."

"What I have saw with the Iraqi people made me feel very sick. It was really
disgusting and made me review all that happened to me," he says.

Maddy wasn't terribly religious before, but in prison he moved closer to God, he
says. Now, he fantasizes about suing the United States for what it put him
through, and using the money to build a big mosque, white, with a green light
shining from the minaret.

But first, he says, "I will give some money to my sons, so they don't need to go
to the USA

* * *


The Guardian (UK) --

May 19, 2004

FORMER GUANTANAMO CHIEF CLASHED WITH ARMY INTERROGATORS
General's sacking cleared way for Pentagon to rewrite rules

By Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1219887,00.html

The commander of Guantanamo Bay, sacked amid charges from the Pentagon that he
was too soft on detainees, said he faced constant tension from military
interrogators trying to extract information from inmates.

Brigadier General Rick Baccus was removed from his post in October 2002,
apparently after frustrating military intelligence officers by granting
detainees such privileges as distributing copies of the Koran and adjusting meal
times for Ramadan. He also disciplined prison guards for screaming at inmates.

In one of the general's first interviews since his dismissal, he told the
Guardian: "I was mislabelled as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we
were doing was our mission professionally."

Gen Baccus's unceremonious departure offers a rare insight into how the Pentagon
rewrote the rules of warfare to suit the Bush administration's view of a
radically changed world following the terror attacks of September 11 2001.

It also suggests what can happen to military personnel slow to sign on to the
Pentagon's changed view of the world. Eighteen months after being removed from
Guantanamo, Gen Baccus, 51, and a commander of the Rhode Island National Guard,
is still waiting for a new military assignment.

Meanwhile, the systems set in place at Guantanamo following his departure have
come to govern detention facilities in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

The connection between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib grew clearer this month when
Gen Baccus's successor at the camp, Major General Geoffrey Miller, was put in
charge of the US military's prisons in Iraq. Gen Miller's recommendations for
Abu Ghraib - merging the functions of prison guard and interrogator as he did at
Guantanamo - were cited in the Pentagon's internal report on abuse at the now
notorious prison.

Yesterday, new evidence emerged that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was systematic,
part of a policy instituted at US military detention centres from Guantanamo and
Afghanistan to Iraq, and not restricted to the seven low-ranking soldiers
charged so far in connection with the scandal.

Colonel Thomas Pappas, who commanded the military intelligence brigade at the
prison, said interrogators sometimes instructed the military police to strip
detainees and shackle them before they were questioned, a report in the New York
Times said.

Col Pappas said the practice was among the changes recommended by Gen Miller -
and among those resisted by Gen Baccus.

"There is a dynamic tension that exists in that kind of situation," Gen Baccus
said. "Often times, those kind of approaches led to questions as to why am I
doing that. Am I trying to coddle the detainees? Am I trying to bend to their
desires?" he said.

The Pentagon's frustration with Gen Baccus is well documented - although
officially denied. Officially, he was unceremoniously relieved of his duties as
part of a general re-organisation of the camp, which called for a commander of
higher rank.

Gen Baccus insists that he did his job honourably. "In no way did I ever
interfere in interrogations, but also at that time the interrogations never
forced anyone to be treated inhumanely, certainly not when I was there."

Although the detainees at Guantanamo were not given the protections of the
Geneva Convention, Gen Baccus says he took steps to ensure they were not
subjected to abuse.

"We had instances of individuals that used verbal abuse, and any time that that
was reported we took action immediately and removed the individual from contact
with detainees." Gen Baccus said there were fewer than 10 instances of abuse
during his seven months in command.

After his departure, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, gave military
intelligence control over all aspects of Guantanamo, including the MPs, and Gen
Miller was appointed commander.

Under his watch, Guantanamo instituted a "72-point matrix for stress and
duress", which the Washington Post said set out a guide for the levels of force
that could be applied to detainees. These included hooding or keeping prisoners
naked for more than 30 days, threatening by dogs, shackling detainees in
positions designed to cause pain, and extreme temperatures.

Human rights organisations say the directive shows that practices exposed at Abu
Ghraib took place on a far wider scale than the Pentagon is willing to admit.
"The pattern of abuse and disregard for fundamental human rights has been set by
the continuing indefinite detentions at Guantanamo bay, and at other undisclosed
locations around the world," said Sarah Green, of Amnesty Internation.
"Detainees are already denied their basic rights in these locations, and the
context has been set for abuse at Abu Ghraib."

Former inmates at Guantanamo have levelled the same charge. Last week, two
British men who were held at Guantanamo claimed their US guards had inflicted
abuse similar to that perpetrated at Abu Ghraib. In an open letter to President
George Bush, Britons Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal described a prison regime that
included assaults, prolonged shackling in uncomfortable positions, strobe
lights, loud music and being threatened with dogs.

Guantanamo formally came to Abu Ghraib last August, shortly before the abuse
reportedly began, when the Pentagon dispatched Gen Miller to Iraq on a mission
to improve the intelligence being extracted from prisoners held by the US
military.

He recommended that prison guards become "actively engaged" in helping to gather
intelligence from detainees at Abu Ghraib.

Major General Antonio Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib said Gen Miller's
instructions to military police to "set the conditions" for interrogation "would
appear to be in conflict" with army regulations.

In the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal, Gen Baccus is loth to criticise the
entire corps of military police at Abu Ghraib. "They were in a war zone. They
were under constant attack so I hesitate to make comments as to what or did not
happen over there, but there were military police involved, and they were
trained not to do the kind of things that we have seen," he said.

* * *


The Atlantic:

May 19, 2004

MUST WE BECOME MORE LIKE THE BARBARIANS TO SAVE OURSELVES?

Indiscriminate brutality brings strategic disaster. Short of slaughter on the
scale of a Saddam or a Stalin, it will reap more hatred than fear.

by Stuart Taylor Jr.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/nj/taylor2004-05-19.htm

My original headline posed a different question: "Presuming Guilt: Did Bush Set
the Stage for Abu Ghraib?" Then came the videotaped beheading of 26-year-old
American civilian Nicholas Berg. That ghastly demonstration of our enemies'
thirst for American blood may, a hard-line friend suggests, lead many Americans
to "see Abu Ghraib as an ugly fraternity hazing." Be that as it may, the whole
horrible tableau of news from Iraq wrenched my attention to the question posed
by my revised headline.

The two questions are related. A plausible (although unattractive) argument can
be made for continuing the apparently systematic use of extremely rough
interrogation techniques to "soften up" large numbers of prisoners, without
taking much time beforehand to sort out those who are innocent civilians. The
argument is that indiscriminate brutality is our best hope of suppressing the
insurgency in Iraq, and that suppression in turn is essential to stopping the
jihadist barbarians from destroying our civilization.

And when it comes to getting information out of prisoners, the urge to be as
brutal as necessary to break them becomes more palatable if we presume they are
all enemies, as President Bush has explicitly decreed in the case of those at
Guantanamo Bay, among others.

The more comprehensive argument for indiscriminate brutality, as I have heard
it, goes something like this:

It's very bad that so many of the Iraqis we expected to greet us as liberators
have ended up hating us. But it would be incomparably worse to let them drive us
from Iraq in defeat. Such a show of weakness would bring legions of new recruits
into the jihadist mass-murder movement. With America reverting to its pre-9/11
defensive crouch, triumphal jihadists would swarm the globe. It would be only a
matter of time before they got nuclear bombs, obliterated New York and
Washington, and thereby depopulated our other cities, destroyed our economy, and
brought our way of life to an apocalyptic end.

The only way to avoid such a chain of events is to make Iraqis and other Arabs
fear us more than they hate us. That requires unflinching brutality. We must
make an example of Falluja. We must spill as much civilian blood as it takes to
get at the insurgents. We must ally with Shiites and Kurds to crush the Sunnis
without mercy. When we take prisoners, we must break them -- how else to sort
out the innocent civilians from the terrorists? -- to obtain intelligence. And
all this legalistic second-guessing by the media and Congress will only cripple
our warriors' fighting spirit.

The post-Iraq nightmare sketched above is all too possible. And if brutalizing
thousands of Iraqis really were the best bet for averting apocalypse, the
argument for doing so would be strong. At least as strong as President Truman's
justification for incinerating Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and some 200,000 of their
inhabitants to end World War II.

But the anti-American firestorm over the torture -- and the killings, and the
alleged rapes -- of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere shows that in a war
that is televised worldwide, and in which the battle for hearts and minds is
critical, indiscriminate brutality brings strategic disaster. Short of slaughter
on the scale of a Saddam or a Stalin, it will reap more hatred than fear.

None of this is to suggest that either Bush or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
has overtly endorsed indiscriminate brutalization of prisoners. But by speaking
and acting in a way that inverts our law's foundational principle -- that all
prisoners should be presumed innocent until proven guilty -- they may have
fostered a climate conducive to such brutality.

The Pentagon has authorized the "softening up" of at least some suspected
terrorists for interrogation by techniques such as holding them naked in frigid
or sweltering cells, depriving them of sleep, forcing them into "stress
positions," menacing them with dogs, and employing sensory deprivation and
"sensory assault." If such techniques were carefully restricted to
interrogations of proven terrorists who may have potentially life-saving
information, they would be defensible, both morally and, under a narrow reading
of international human-rights law, legally.

But the Bush-Rumsfeld presumption that our prisoners (at least those at
Guantanamo) are guilty until proven innocent may have been seen by some as a
green light for indiscriminate brutalization of any and all prisoners who might
possibly be terrorists. No cause-and-effect connection has been established, and
the military's written interrogation rules for Iraq do require high-level
authorization for the tougher techniques. But the signals from the commander-in-
chief have surely communicated little respect for international law or for the
presumption of innocence.

"The only thing I know for certain is that these are bad people." So said Bush
last July, in response to a reporter's question about whether the 660 suspected
Qaeda and Taliban members then imprisoned at Guantanamo (aka Gitmo) were
"getting justice." The "bad people" included three Afghan boys between 13 and 15
years old who have since been released as harmless, after many months in
captivity.

Bush's assertion was of a piece with his rationale for classifying all Gitmo
detainees as "unlawful combatants" -- and thus outside the protections of the
1949 Geneva Conventions -- without the impartial tribunals that are required by
international law and Army regulations for all detainees who raise any doubt
about their status. The military has conducted thousands of such hearings in
other wars. It could easily have done the same for the many Gitmo detainees who
claimed to be POWs or innocent noncombatants, and thus immune from even mild
pressure to provide information.

Bush decreed in January 2002 that no Gitmo prisoner would be allowed to go
before a tribunal, because it was clear beyond doubt that every single one of
them was an unlawful combatant. This was ludicrous on its face. In the fog of
war -- against enemies without uniforms who hid among civilians, while dishonest
bounty hunters collected rewards for all the "terrorists" they could grab --
many of those detained will inevitably turn out to be civilian noncombatants.
Indeed, anonymous officials have asserted that, despite supposedly careful
screening in Afghanistan, dozens, if not hundreds, of men were sent to Gitmo by
mistake. And the Pentagon has released more than 130 Gitmo detainees.

Now consider Iraq. Rumsfeld claims to be honoring the Geneva Conventions there.
But the Red Cross's finding of systematic violations is supported by massive
evidence. And the military in Iraq has adopted many of the interrogation
techniques used at Gitmo. Indeed, last year, the Pentagon famously sent Maj.
Gen. Geoffrey Miller to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib and squeeze more information out
of its prisoners. Miller, who was then the commander at Gitmo, now heads our
prison system in Iraq.

It's unclear how many of the 43,000 people we have imprisoned in Iraq have been
abused or subjected to tough interrogation techniques. It is clear that more
than 30,000 of them were eventually classified as harmless enough to be released
-- in many cases, after harrowing treatment by their American jailers and
interrogators, according to media interviews. The Red Cross found that 70 to 90
percent of all prisoners in Iraq "had been arrested by mistake."

The Bush administration has not restricted its inversion of the presumption of
innocence to its overseas prison systems. In 2001 and thereafter, Attorney
General John Ashcroft repeatedly implied that most, or at least many, of the 762
mostly Middle Eastern men rounded up in the United States in the wake of the
September 11 attacks were terrorists or criminals. But as he knew, no evidence
connected the vast majority of them to terrorist activities. They were simply
caught in an understandably broad net that was thrown after 9/11 to disrupt any
planned follow-on attacks. Yet many whose harmlessness could have been quickly
established were held for months in punitive and degrading conditions, including
being subjected to serious physical abuse. And Ashcroft dismissed complaints by
smearing these men -- most of whom had committed only minor, noncriminal
immigration violations -- as "law violators."

The administration has also applied a presumption of "enemy combatant" status to
two American citizens, Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi, whom it has detained
indefinitely in a South Carolina naval brig and subjected to more than a year of
incommunicado interrogation. It has urged the Supreme Court to rubber-stamp such
detentions without meaningful judicial review of whether the prisoners are in
fact enemy combatants -- or whether they have been tortured. "Where the
government is on a war footing," Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement told the
justices during oral arguments on April 28, "you have to trust the executive."

That same evening, CBS broadcast the first expose of the torture at Abu Ghraib

* * *


The New Nation (Bangladesh):

May 18, 2004

ATROCITIES IN IRAQ: 'I KILLED INNOCENT PEOPLE FOR OUR GOVERNMENT'

By Paul Rockwell

http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_9198.shtml

FOR nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho,
Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling
indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.

The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S.
invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably
discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown,
Waynsville, N.C.

When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian
loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.

Q: You spent 12 years in the Marines. When were you sent to Iraq?

A: I went to Kuwait around Jan. 17. I was in Iraq from the get-go. And I was
involved in the initial invasion.

Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?

A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need
to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had
the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of
time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support.

Q: What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?

A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile
men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways.
There was this one particular incident - and there's many more - the one that
really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all
the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide
bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came
upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we
lit them up.

Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?

A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But
we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely,
and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We
didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Q: He spoke English?

A: Oh, yeah.

Q: Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying to get out, right?

A: Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just
throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were
still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons.

Q: You got to see the bodies and casualties?

A: Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.

Q: Over what period did all this take place?

A: During the invasion of Baghdad.

'We lit him up pretty good'

Q: How many times were you involved in checkpoint "light-ups"?

A: Five times. There was [the city of] Rekha. The gentleman was driving a stolen
work utility van. He didn't stop. With us being trigger happy, we didn't really
give this guy much of a chance. We lit him up pretty good. Then we inspected the
back of the van. We found nothing. No explosives.

Q: The reports said the cars were loaded with explosives. In all the incidents
did you find that to be the case?

A: Never. Not once. There were no secondary explosions. As a matter of fact, we
lit up a rally after we heard a stray gunshot.

Q: A demonstration? Where?

A: On the outskirts of Baghdad. Near a military compound. There were
demonstrators at the end of the street. They were young and they had no weapons.
And when we rolled onto the scene, there was already a tank that was parked on
the side of the road. If the Iraqis wanted to do something, they could have
blown up the tank. But they didn't. They were only holding a demonstration. Down
at the end of the road, we saw some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) lined up
against the wall. That put us at ease because we thought: "Wow, if they were
going to blow us up, they would have done it."

Q: Were the protest signs in English or Arabic?

A: Both.

Q: Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out?

A: Higher command. We were told to be on the lookout for the civilians because a
lot of the Fedayeen and the Republican Guards had tossed away uniforms and put
on civilian clothes and were mounting terrorist attacks on American soldiers.
The intelligence reports that were given to us were basically known by every
member of the chain of command. The rank structure that was implemented in Iraq
by the chain of command was evident to every Marine in Iraq. The order to shoot
the demonstrators, I believe, came from senior government officials, including
intelligence communities within the military and the U.S. government.

Q: What kind of firepower was employed?

A: M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.

Q: You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?

A: Oh, yeah. Well, I had a "mercy" on one guy. When we rolled up, he was hiding
behind a concrete pillar. I saw him and raised my weapon up, and he put up his
hands. He ran off. I told everybody, "Don't shoot." Half of his foot was
trailing behind him. So he was running with half of his foot cut off.

Q: After you lit up the demonstration, how long before the next incident?

A: Probably about one or two hours. This is another thing, too. I am so glad I
am talking with you, because I suppressed all of this.

Q: Well, I appreciate you giving me the information, as hard as it must be to
recall the painful details.

A: That's all right. It's kind of therapy for me. Because it's something that I
had repressed for a long time.

Q: And the incident?

A: There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot an individual with his
hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot. We lit him up. I don't know
who started shooting first. One of the Marines came running over to where we
were and said: "You all just shot a guy with his hands up." Man, I forgot about
this.

Depleted uranium and cluster bombs

Q: You mention machine guns. What can you tell me about cluster bombs, or
depleted uranium?

A: Depleted uranium. I know what it does. It's basically like leaving plutonium
rods around. I'm 32 years old. I have 80 percent of my lung capacity. I ache all
the time. I don't feel like a healthy 32-year-old.

Q: Were you in the vicinity of of depleted uranium?

A: Oh, yeah. It's everywhere. DU is everywhere on the battlefield. If you hit a
tank, there's dust.

Q: Did you breath any dust?

A: Yeah.

Q: And if DU is affecting you or our troops, it's impacting Iraqi civilians.

A: Oh, yeah. They got a big wasteland problem.

Q: Do Marines have any precautions about dealing with DU?

A: Not that I know of. Well, if a tank gets hit, crews are detained for a little
while to make sure there are no signs or symptoms. American tanks have depleted
uranium on the sides, and the projectiles have DU in them. If an enemy vehicle
gets hit, the area gets contaminated. Dead rounds are in the ground. The
civilian populace is just now starting to learn about it. Hell, I didn't even
know about DU until two years ago. You know how I found out about it? I read an
article in Rolling Stone magazine. I just started inquiring about it, and I said
"Holy s---!"

Q: Cluster bombs are also controversial. U.N. commissions have called for a ban.
Were you acquainted with cluster bombs?

A: I had one of my Marines in my battalion who lost his leg from an ICBM.

Q: What's an ICBM?

A: A multi-purpose cluster bomb.

Q: What happened?

A: He stepped on it. We didn't get to training about clusters until about a
month before I left.

Q: What kind of training?

A: They told us what they looked like, and not to step on them.

Q: Were you in any areas where they were dropped?

A: Oh, yeah. They were everywhere.

Q: Dropped from the air?

A: From the air as well as artillery.

Q: Are they dropped far away from cities, or inside the cities?

A: They are used everywhere. Now if you talked to a Marine artillery officer, he
would give you the runaround, the politically correct answer. But for an average
grunt, they're everywhere.

Q: Including inside the towns and cities?

A: Yes, if you were going into a city, you knew there were going to be ICBMs.

Q: Cluster bombs are anti-personnel weapons. They are not precise. They don't
injure buildings, or hurt tanks. Only people and living things. There are a lot
of undetonated duds and they go off after the battles are over.

A: Once the round leaves the tube, the cluster bomb has a mind of its own.
There's always human error. I'm going to tell you: The armed forces are in a
tight spot over there. It's starting to leak out about the civilian casualties
that are taking place. The Iraqis know. I keep hearing reports from my Marine
buddies inside that there were 200-something civilians killed in Fallujah. The
military is scrambling right now to keep the raps on that. My understanding is
Fallujah is just littered with civilian bodies.

Embedded reporters

Q: How are the embedded reporters responding?

A: I had embedded reporters in my unit, not my platoon. One we had was a South
African reporter. He was scared s---less. We had an incident where one of them
wanted to go home.

Q: Why?

A: It was when we started going into Baghdad. When he started seeing the
civilian casualties, he started wigging out a little bit. It didn't start until
we got on the outskirts of Baghdad and started taking civilian casualties.

Q: I would like to go back to the first incident, when the survivor asked why
did you kill his brother. Was that the incident that pushed you over the edge,
as you put it?

A: Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked with my
commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: "Are you OK?"
I said: "No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians." He goes:
"No, today was a good day." And when he said that, I said "Oh, my goodness, what
the hell am I into?"

Q: Your feelings changed during the invasion. What was your state of mind before
the invasion?

A: I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons of mass
destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he had all this might
and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the whole thing.

Q: What changed you?

A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what made the difference. That
was when I changed.

Q: Did the revelations that the government fabricated the evidence for war
affect the troops?

A: Yes. I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What did I do?
Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had a hand in some sort of
evil lie at the hands of our government. I just feel embarrassed, ashamed about
it.

Showdown with superiors

Q: I understand that all the incidents - killing civilians at checkpoints, itchy
fingers at the rally - weigh on you. What happened with your commanding
officers? How did you deal with them?

A: There was an incident. It was right after the fall of Baghdad, when we went
back down south. On the outskirts of Karbala, we had a morning meeting on the
battle plan. I was not in a good mindset. All these things were going through my
head - about what we were doing over there. About some of the things my troops
were asking. I was holding it all inside.

My lieutenant and I got into a conversation. The conversation was striking me
wrong. And I lashed out. I looked at him and told him: "You know, I honestly
feel that what we're doing is wrong over here. We're committing genocide."

He asked me something and I said that with the killing of civilians and the
depleted uranium we're leaving over here, we're not going to have to worry about
terrorists. He didn't like that. He got up and stormed off. And I knew right
then and there that my career was over. I was talking to my commanding officer.

Q: What happened then?

A: After I talked to the top commander, I was kind of scurried away. I was
basically put on house arrest. I didn't talk to other troops. I didn't want to
hurt them. I didn't want to jeopardize them.

I want to help people. I felt strongly about it. I had to say something. When I
was sent back to stateside, I went in front of the sergeant major. He's in
charge of 3,500-plus Marines. "Sir," I told him, "I don't want your money. I
don't want your benefits. What you did was wrong."

It was just a personal conviction with me. I've had an impeccable career. I
chose to get out. And you know who I blame? I blame the president of the U.S.
It's not the grunt. I blame the president because he said they had weapons of
mass destruction. It was a lie.

[ Paul Rockwell ( rockyspad@hotmail.com ) is a writer who lives in Oakland ]

* * *


Sacramento Bee:

May 18, 2004

SKEPTICISM ON SPY CASE IS REPORTED
A former investigator says her questioning of the evidence was ignored by
military.

By Sam Stanton and Denny Walsh, Bee Staff Writers

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/9336751p-10261490c.html

Military investigators repeatedly ignored warnings that they were overstating
their evidence against espionage suspect Ahmad I. Al Halabi, instead pushing
forward at all costs to prove the Travis airman was "a little fish" in an al-
Qaida ring based at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The claim comes from a former member of the Air Force intelligence team that led
the probe of Al Halabi, and is contained in a 74-page sworn statement, obtained
by The Bee, that she gave defense attorneys last month.

"My conscience was kind of bothering me," former Air Force interpreter Suzan
Sultan said in the statement. "I encountered situations while I was working with
the (Office of Special Investigations) agents that I didn't feel were right. I
saw things that I knew weren't right."

Sultan's statement played a role in a military judge's decision last week to
free Al Halabi from confinement pending trial, and could result in new hearings
questioning the truthfulness of military investigators and lawyers. The defense
has asked that all charges be thrown out as a result of Sultan's claims and
other evidence.

Air Force prosecutors have denied wrongdoing, and have said the defense claims
are moot because they involve charges that have since been dropped.

Al Halabi, a 25-year-old Syrian native and naturalized American citizen, was
arrested last July after serving as an Arabic interpreter at Guantanamo, where
the Navy has incarcerated 660 suspected Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists.

Al Halabi was arrested en route to Syria. His lawyers claim he was heading there
to get married and planned to return to the United States; the Air Force has
charged him with espionage and says he was trying to smuggle classified
information to Syria.

Al Halabi currently is working as a supply clerk at Travis Air Force Base in
Fairfield, where his court-martial is ongoing and a trial is expected to begin
later this year.

But the statement from Sultan, a 26-year-old former linguist for the Air Force,
may significantly affect the case.

Defense attorneys did not even know of Sultan's existence until early April,
when she called Al Halabi's civilian defense attorney, Donald Rehkopf, and said
she had important information for him.

Sultan subsequently met with defense attorneys and gave them a sworn statement
in which she said investigators believed from the start that Al Halabi was part
of a spy ring at the base in Cuba.

She recalled investigator Edward Slayton telling her that Al Halabi "was going
to be tried for treason and that he was involved in some kind of plan down in
Guantanamo Bay and that he had links to al-Qaida."

Investigators asked Sultan to use her knowledge of Arabic to cull through
computer and other information they had seized to build the case against Al
Halabi, she said in the statement.

But Sultan said her review came up with little that could be construed as
damaging.

"There were dialogues between him and his fiancee," she said. "There were CDs,
and these CDs were mostly music CDs and sermons given by a popular Egyptian."

The Egyptian was a "moderate" leader well known in the Muslim world, she said,
and she frequently found herself at odds with another translator who was not as
fluent in Arabic.

"And he would say, 'Well this word means this, so it must have to do with al-
Qaida or it must have to do with something like a plan to go against whatever,'"
Sultan said. "And I was like, 'I don't think so.'

"I just felt kind of pressured to be able to come up with translations."

At one point, Sultan said she suggested investigators contact specialists at the
U.S. Department of Defense Language Institute in Monterey, "and they pretty much
said no."

Sultan also singled out lead investigative agent Lance Wega as pushing a theory
that Al Halabi was in league with Capt. James Yee, an Army chaplain and Muslim
based in Guantanamo who was Al Halabi's boss.

Yee was held in custody for two months while the Army tried to come up with an
espionage case against him. Officials eventually dropped the case and released
him.

"When I first got there he (Wega) was telling me that Capt. Yee was the
ringleader in this whole operation and that Senior Airman Al Halabi was just one
of his little fish," Sultan said.

Last July, Wega slipped into Al Halabi's quarters in Guantanamo to secretly copy
the hard drive on the airman's computer to seize evidence, and in September he
discovered that there was a box sitting at the Travis post office that Al Halabi
had mailed to himself from Cuba before his arrest.

"Agent Wega came in," Sultan said. "He had the box, he was very excited.

"Basically what happened is that they were just getting happy, very cheery. They
went ahead, they opened the box. They said this was the smoking gun."

But instead of taking precautions to preserve the evidence, she said, the
gathering turned into a beer party.

"They took all the contents out," she said. "Everybody was looking at all the
contents. They got beer. They were celebrating."

Then, Sultan said, someone decided to repack the box. Agents then put on gloves
to protect against fingerprints and began photographing the process as they
removed items from the box.

Sultan said she became "very alarmed" as she watched the process, and the next
day she became even more worried as investigators had lunch with FBI agents who
wanted to perform fingerprint analysis on the contents of the box.

"However, the OSI agents were, they didn't want them to do that," she said.
"They wanted the OSI agents to do that processing themselves through whatever
means they had. ... They didn't want the FBI agents to know they mishandled the
evidence."

Investigators later said no fingerprints were taken off the documents because
that could potentially destroy them, something the defense contends was a ruse.

Sultan also said she had corrected investigators when they discussed using some
evidence as proof that Al Halabi was a radical. Instead, she said, some of the
evidence was everyday writing or symbols used by all Muslims.

"They just wanted me to try to find things that were, like al-Qaida-related,
that were terrorist-related," she said.

[ The Bee's Sam Stanton can be reached at 916-321-1091 or sstanton@sacbee.com ]

* * *


Newsday --

May 18, 2004

GOV'T WANTS TO INTERVIEW PRESS IN CIA LEAK

By Tom Brune, Washington Bureau

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-
uscia183807609may18,0,1008451.story

WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor probing whether the Bush administration
illegally disclosed a CIA operative's name has asked at least three publications
to allow him to interview journalists who have written about the leak.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has contacted Newsday, The Washington Post
and Time magazine to talk to reporters about the leak of the name of CIA
operative Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak last summer.

"We were contacted," said Newsday editor Howard Schneider in a statement
yesterday. "Our reporters have not spoken to the government."

Schneider declined to comment further.

On Friday, Fitzgerald told The Washington Post's lawyer, Eric Lieberman, that he
wants to talk to reporters Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler. Lieberman told
Fitzgerald he would respond this week. Neither Lieberman nor Washington Post
executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. would elaborate yesterday. Fitzgerald's
spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.

In January, Fitzgerald issued a subpoena to the White House seeking staff
contacts with more than two dozen journalists about Plame, Wilson or the leak.

But editors or representatives for some publications on the list, including The
New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, said yesterday that they
had not been contacted by Fitzgerald. Justice Department rules require
prosecutors to exhaust all other sources before seeking to require reporters to
produce information.

Fitzgerald was appointed special prosecutor, with the unusual grant of authority
to subpoena reporters and journalists, by Deputy Attorney General James Comey
after Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the investigation.

The investigation has targeted a July 14 column by Novak that said "two senior
administration officials" told him that Plame had gotten her husband, retired
ambassador Joseph Wilson, a CIA assignment to Niger to determine if Iraq had
sought to buy uranium.

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

May 18, 2004

INQUIRY INTO LEAK LOOKS TO REPORTERS

By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/whitehouse/
la-na-leak18_may18,1,1831839.story

WASHINGTON -- The investigation into whether the Bush administration illegally
exposed the identity of an undercover CIA operative has turned to some of the
journalists covering the inquiry.

A special prosecutor has asked reporters for the Washington Post and Newsday to
sit for questions in connection with the investigation of the case, the papers
acknowledged Monday. Other journalists might also be targeted for questioning,
sources said.

The informal requests suggest that the 5-month-old probe into the alleged
"outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame may be entering a critical phase. They
also raise the possibility of journalists being subpoenaed to testify about the
case before a federal grand jury.

The special prosecutor, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, is trying to determine
how Plame's CIA connection ended up in a Robert Novak syndicated column
published July 14 and whether laws governing the intentional disclosure of
agency operatives were broken in the process.

Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, has alleged that the exposure was
political payback by the Bush White House for writing an op-ed article,
published July 6 in the New York Times, challenging a claim made by the
president in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking to
purchase "significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Wilson had visited
Niger, the African country cited in an intelligence report, to assess the claim
for the CIA. Wilson concluded that it was baseless.

Eric Lieberman, associate counsel for the Post, said he received a call from
Fitzgerald last week requesting an opportunity to speak with two Post reporters
about the case. Lieberman said he had not yet responded to the request. He said
that Fitzgerald had declined to discuss what information he was seeking.

Newsday also acknowledged being approached by Fitzgerald. "We were contacted.
Our reporters have not spoken to the government," editor Howard Schneider said
in a prepared statement, declining further comment.

A lawyer for Novak, James Hamilton, declined comment when asked whether the
columnist had received such a request.

Since Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft chose him in December to head up the
investigation, Fitzgerald, who is the top federal prosecutor in Chicago, has
questioned members of the White House staff and subpoenaed various documents,
including transcripts of phone calls from Air Force One.

Whether the latest requests are an indication that he is close to making a case
-- or is still struggling to make one -- is impossible to tell. Fitzgerald is
also said to be looking into whether any people he has interviewed may have lied
under oath.

Criminal prosecutions arising from a leak of classified information are
notoriously hard to prove without the cooperation of journalists, who by
tradition decline to reveal their sources of information.

Some people close to the case viewed the requests as a prelude to subpoenaing
the journalists.

"I take it they do not have a smoking gun," said one lawyer close to the case
who requested anonymity. He noted that Justice Department policy requires that,
before calling journalists to a grand jury, prosecutors must first make an
attempt to talk with them on a voluntary basis.

A spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment about the investigation.

Both newspapers have reported critical facts about the events leading up to the
identification of Plame, as well as the subsequent investigation.

Newsday was considered the first publication to report that the Novak column had
blown Plame's status as an undercover CIA officer. The Post reported that, two
days before the Novak column appeared, one of its reporters had a conversation
with an unnamed administration official who identified Wilson's wife as an
agency analyst, without mentioning her by name.

In his new book, Wilson recounts receiving a phone call around the same time
from veteran Post national security correspondent Walter Pincus, "who alerted me
that 'they are coming after you.' "

* * *


Washington Times:

May 18, 2004

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

By John B. Roberts II

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040517-085416-3845r.htm

In the summer of 2002, Brig. Gen. John Custer was on assignment from the Army's
Military Intelligence training school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., to Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba. Military officials will not disclose the objective of Gen. Custer's
work in Guantanamo, but after his return he revised military training techniques
used in the Department of Defense's most elite interrogation schools.

In a 2003 interview published in the base newspaper, the Fort Huachuca Scout,
Gen. Custer himself said that he was proud of integrating the "lessons learned"
at Guantanamo into military intelligence doctrine. In the same interview, Gen.
Custer said that TRADOC, the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, had approved
the revisions he recommended and increased funding for Fort Huachuca to raise
the number of interrogation trainees by 400 percent this fiscal year.

Citing the need to maintain "operational security," an Army spokesman at TRADOC
declined to discuss the specific changes that resulted from Gen. Custer's
recommendations. But if my reading of Gen. Custer's on-the-record statements is
correct, it is the first indication of a command-level decision to incorporate
the coercive interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo into standard military
intelligence procedures. At the time of his Guantanamo mission, Gen. Custer was
deputy commanding general at Fort Huachuca. His current position is director of
intelligence (J2) for U.S. Central Command, where he reports directly to CENTCOM
Commanding Gen. John Abizaid.

There are indications of a change in military interrogation techniques in Maj.
Gen. Antonio Taguba's report on the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib. In his report,
Gen. Taguba references an earlier mission to Abu Ghraib by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey
Miller, who was then in charge at Guantanamo. According to Gen. Taguba, Gen.
Miller advised that prison guards employ "emerging strategic interrogation
techniques" in their handling of detainees, so as to create "conditions for
successful exploitation" during interrogations. Gen. Taguba further says that
Gen. Miller used Joint Task Force-Guantanamo "procedures and interrogation
authorities as baselines for its observations and recommendations."

Put simply, military police guards who say they were acting under the direction
of military-intelligence personnel are probably telling the truth. The
interrogation techniques the world has become familiar with through the leak of
photographs at Abu Ghraib were refined at Guantanamo over the past two-and-a-
half years. But the photographs don't tell the whole story. The approach relies
on carrot and stick. In addition to coercive interrogation tactics, Joint Task
Force-Guantanamo also uses rewards and incentives to encourage cooperation. It
is probable that the objective of Gen. Custer's assignment to Guantanamo was to
integrate JTF-GTMO techniques into standard military-intelligence training and
interrogation techniques, especially the Strategic Debriefer Course and
Intelligence Support to CounterTerrorism Course taught at Fort Huachuca.

Gen. Custer's Guantanamo mission did not occur in a vacuum. After September 11,
a broad spectrum of authorities across American society debated the ethics and
utility of torturing terrorist suspects. In 2002, law professor Alan Dershowitz
published an essay, "Torture of Terrorists," which recommended a quasi-judicial
approach, including the issuance of "torture warrants." Talk of torture was
widespread throughout the media.

The following year, the Defense Department sponsored a Joint Services Conference
on Professional Ethics that featured a debate over torture. The annual JSCOPE
conference exists to "clarify ethical issues for the conduct of military
professionals," according to organizers. The conference drew 200 attendees,
primarily from the armed services and service academies.

Air Force Maj. William D. Casebeer argued at the conference that "torture
interrogation is permissible in tightly constrained circumstances." Maj.
Casebeer outlined torture methods, including "putting a hood over a suspect,
bombarding them with noise, depriving them of food and sleep (only minimally),
or forcing them to stand." While theoretically ethical, Maj. Casebeer warned,
however, that in actual cases torture interrogation would be difficult to
justify. Jean Maria Arrigo presented an opposing paper cautioning that the
social consequences of torture usually outweigh its benefits.

Although Americans were horrified to see photographic images of prisoner abuse,
there is nothing new about any of the techniques used at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel lists identical
practices -- constraining detainees in painful positions, sexual abuse, solitary
confinement, lack of clothing, sleep deprivation, beatings and threats against
the detainee or family. It says Israel's General Security Service, or Shin Beth,
used such practices against Palestinians until the Israeli Supreme Court
prohibited the interrogation techniques. Britain employed similar interrogation
methods against Irish Republican Army suspects.

"Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back,"
Israel's Supreme Court ruled in 1999, "it nonetheless has the upper hand.
Preserving the rule of law and recognition of an individual's liberty
constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end
of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome
its difficulties."

Most opposition to torture is morally based, but there are also practical
reasons to oppose the interrogation techniques used at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo. Intelligence professionals say they often elicit garbage. To spare
themselves further abuse and humiliation, broken suspects tell interrogators
what they think they want to hear, even if they have to make it up.

In February 2003, President Bush raised the national threat level to orange
because of a high risk of terrorist attacks on "soft" targets,likeapartment
buildings, hotels or shopping malls. Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI
Director Robert Mueller and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge held a press
conference advising Americans to be on guard against terrorist attacks and
prepare family emergency plans. The heightened threat level remained in effect
for two-and-a-half months. No terrorist plot was detected, and no attack took
place.

According to a senior, knowledgeable CIA official, the information that led to
the heightened alert came from interrogation of Guantanamo detainees. There have
been similar spikes in the national threat level over the past two-and-a-half
years, stemming from coercive detainee interrogations.

Because the Guantanamo "emerging strategic interrogation techniques" appear to
have become the baseline for military intelligence interrogations worldwide,
what is urgently needed is an independent evaluation of the value of the
interrogation techniques being used at Guantanamo. They may be less valuable
than was originally believed.

We now have enough experience to make that determination objectively, by
comparing bad leads and false alarms to useful intelligence. This review should
not be left to those in charge of Guantanamo, who will predictably be inclined
to justify their methods, but should be undertaken by a multi-agency task force
of intelligence professionals.

Those charged with the review should bear in mind Jean Arrigo's warning at the
2003 JSCOPE debate:

"The historical record is not entirely clear, but suggests that initial gains
from torture interrogation are later lost through mobilization of moral
opposition, both domestically and internationally, and through demoralization or
corruption of the torturers and their constituencies."

[ John B. Roberts II worked in the Reagan White House. He writes frequently on
terrorism and national security. ]

* * *


Salon:

TRUST US

Defending the administration's enemy-combatant policy, the Justice Department
told the Supreme Court that the U.S. doesn't torture prisoners. Just hours
later, the Abu Ghraib story broke. Did the U.S. intentionally mislead the court?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Tim Grieve

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/17/trust/


     "When Mr. Clement said to the court that we wouldn't engage in
      that kind of behavior, either he was deliberately misleading the
      court or he was completely out of the loop. Either one would be
      disturbing when the government's main argument is 'trust us.'"

                   -- Prof. Jenny Martinez, Stanford Law School


May 17, 2004 -- Just after 10 o'clock on the morning of April 28, a Justice
Department attorney representing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appeared
before the Supreme Court to argue that the Bush administration is free to
imprison a U.S. citizen for as long as it likes -- without a lawyer, without a
hearing, without any contact with the outside world -- based solely on the
president's determination that the citizen is an "enemy combatant" in the war on
terror.

When skeptical justices asked about the risk that a detainee might be abused
while in custody, Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement told them they must
"trust the executive to make the kind of quintessential military judgments that
are involved in things like that." The government's interrogators understand
that information obtained through coercion may be unreliable, Clement said, and
they know that "the last thing you want to do is torture somebody or try to do
something along those lines."


When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that some governments engage in "mild
torture" to obtain information, Clement shot back: "Well, our executive
doesn't."

By the end of the day, the world had seen evidence to the contrary.

Just eight hours after Clement assured the Supreme Court that the United States
would honor its legal obligation to refrain from "torture and that sort of
thing," CBS aired photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners to
"soften them up" for interrogation at Abu Ghraib. The New York Times
subsequently reported that the Bush administration has authorized the CIA to use
interrogation techniques on suspected al-Qaida members so "severe" that the FBI
has distanced itself from the interrogations to avoid "compromising" agents. And
this weekend, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that Rumsfeld himself
authorized the expansion into Iraq of a black-box program of physical coercion
and sexual humiliation originally approved for use only in the hunt for al-Qaida
in Afghanistan.

Whatever the truth of the latest Hersh report -- the Pentagon has already
labeled it "outlandish, conspiratorial and filled with error and anonymous
conjecture" -- the disconnect between Clement's words and the government's
actions has raised serious questions about the trust to which the Bush
administration claims to be entitled.

Did Clement know he was misleading the justices, or was he kept out of the loop
so that he could avoid revealing truths that would undermine the
administration's "trust us" arguments in the enemy combatant cases? Did Joint
Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers persuade CBS to delay broadcasting the
photographs from Abu Ghraib to protect the lives of U.S. soldiers -- or to spare
the administration embarrassing questions during the Supreme Court arguments in
the enemy combatant cases?

If U.S. soldiers and CIA agents are meting out abuse -- "mild torture" -- to
random Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib and suspected al-Qaida members elsewhere,
what is the government doing to Jose Padilla, Yaser Hamdi and any other U.S.
citizens it may be holding as enemy combatants? And if the Bush administration
can't be trusted to tell the Supreme Court the truth about its interrogation
techniques, how can it be trusted with the power to detain U.S. citizens
indefinitely, without any oversight from the courts?

Paul Clement has what the Washington legal newspaper Legal Times calls a
"perfectly appointed conservative resume." And indeed, before Attorney General
John Ashcroft appointed him to the No. 2 job in the Solicitor General's Office,
Clement had built a career as a well-connected insider in Washington's
Republican legal circles.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Clement clerked for Laurence Silberman
-- the controversial D.C. Circuit judge Bush has appointed to head the inquiry
into pre-war intelligence on Iraq -- and then for Supreme Court Justice Antonin
Scalia. He took a job working for Kenneth Starr at Kirkland & Ellis in
Washington, but missed the chance to work under him when Starr left to become
the Whitewater (and later Monica Lewinsky) independent counsel. He later worked
for John Ashcroft in the U.S. Senate, then returned to private practice at King
& Spaulding, where he collaborated on legal briefs that took the side of the
Republicans in the Supreme Court case of Bush vs. Gore.

As the principal deputy solicitor general, Clement has been assigned to oversee
the Bush administration's most critical terrorism-related cases. Having argued
the cases of alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia and alleged
dirty-bomb plotter Jose Padilla in New York, Clement was a natural choice to
appear on behalf of Rumsfeld when the Supreme Court took up the cases of Padilla
and his fellow "enemy combatant," Yaser Hamdi, in April.

The question is, what did Clement know when he climbed the steps of the Supreme
Court building on the morning of April 28? Did he know what his client knew --
that the Department of Defense was investigating grave abuses at Abu Ghraib,
that the brigadier general in charge of the prison had already been removed from
her post? Did he know what his client's staff knew -- that Joint Chiefs chairman
Myers had been working to keep CBS from broadcasting photographs of the abuse?
Or did he know what the New York Times says some of his colleagues at the
Justice Department knew -- that the Bush administration, with the approval of
the Justice Department, had instituted policies allowing the CIA to use "severe"
interrogation techniques on detainees suspected of being high-level al-Qaida
members?

The Justice Department won't say. An employee in Clement's office referred a
call from Salon last week to Justice Department spokesperson Monica Goodling.
Asked what Clement or Ashcroft knew of the Abu Ghraib situation at the time of
oral arguments in the Hamdi and Padilla cases, Goodling said: "We wouldn't have
any comment." Pressed further, Goodling said the Justice Department would not
have any comment at all about the Padilla or Hamdi cases.

Jenny Martinez, the Stanford Law School professor who represented Padilla in the
arguments before the Supreme Court on April 28, says there are just two ways to
explain Clement's representations to the court. "When Mr. Clement said to the
court that we wouldn't engage in that kind of behavior, either he was
deliberately misleading the court or he was completely out of the loop. Either
one would be disturbing when the government's main argument is 'trust us.'"

Lawyers involved in the Padilla case and others who are watching it carefully
tend to believe that the latter explanation is the right one. Clement has a
reputation as a straight shooter, and they say it's unlikely that he would have
misled the court intentionally.

Even James Fitzpatrick, the Washington lawyer who first called attention to
Clement's comments in a May 6 letter to the Washington Post, told Salon he has
"no reason to think" that Clement was "dissembling." Although Fitzpatrick argues
that Gen. Myers "deprived the country of a full and forthright oral argument
before the Supreme Court" by successfully delaying CBS's broadcast of the Abu
Ghraib photographs, he does not lay the blame at the door of Clement or his
colleagues in Ted Olson's Solicitor General's Office. "The guys in the S.G.'s
office are of unimpeachable integrity," Fitzpatrick said. "It's highly unlikely
that information [about Abu Ghraib] would have come across their path."

Still, it's hard to imagine that someone as dialed in as Clement is -- someone
so well connected, someone so immersed in the legalities of the war on terror,
someone with such a reputation for immersing himself in the facts of the cases
he handles -- could have been so clueless about the government's interrogation
practices and policies, especially as the Pentagon was scrambling to deal with
the damning report on Abu Ghraib prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.

"If what we're to believe is that the Solicitor General's Office was not aware
of the existence of a Pentagon report that was floating around at the highest
levels of government months before oral argument, a report that said that the
United States was engaging in torture -- well, that's not a good answer," said
Deborah Pearlstein, a lawyer for Human Rights First.

Eric Muller, a former federal prosecutor and University of North Carolina law
professor, said he believes that there's enough information in the record now to
warrant a congressional inquiry into whether Clement made a "knowingly or
recklessly false assertion to the United States Supreme Court in order to
bolster the government's legal position" in the enemy combatant cases.

Muller made his call for an investigation in an entry in his blog last week,
setting off a small but fast-growing brushfire in the closely linked legal
blogosphere. Some writers have leapt to Clement's defense, arguing that when he
assured the court that "our executive" doesn't engage in what Justice Ginsburg
called "mild torture," Clement was suggesting only that the practices the
administration has approved do not meet a narrow legal definition of "torture,"
at least as the word has been interpreted by the Justice Department.

Muller doesn't buy it. "In a response to a question from Justice Stevens,
Clement gave assurances not just that the executive wasn't engaged in torture as
it might be legally or technically defined, but that the government wasn't
engaged in torture 'or that sort of thing,' and he said the government wouldn't
want to 'torture somebody or try to do something along those lines,'" Muller
told Salon. "It's quite clear to me that Clement was not subjectively, in that
moment, speaking of some narrowly defined legalistic concept called 'torture.'
He was referring to a more ordinary, everyday, pedestrian use of 'torture' as
'really nasty, brutal, unseemly interrogation practices.'"

Muller's broader definition of "torture" would presumably be expansive enough to
cover the "severe" interrogation tactics the Times says the administration --
with Justice Department approval -- has authorized for suspected al-Qaida
members. According to the Times, those practices include something called
"waterboarding" -- a process by which a detainee is strapped to a board, held
underwater and made to believe that he'll drown if he doesn't give interrogators
the information that they want.

A "pedestrian" definition of "torture and that sort of thing" would also
encompass the abuse U.S. soldiers visited upon Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Indeed, many in the human rights community say that the Abu Ghraib abuses fit
even a narrow, legalistic definition of torture. "This is torture with a capital
'T,'" said Pearlstein, the Human Rights First attorney. "You can't strip
somebody naked, strap wires to him, and sic angry dogs on him under any
definition of torture -- under U.S. law, under international law or otherwise."


Of course, the justice didn't know enough to ask Clement about Abu Ghraib on
April 28 because Gen. Myers had, until then, persuaded CBS to delay broadcasting
photographs of the abuse that took place there. Muller wants to know more about
Myers' efforts, and who was involved in them. Myers told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that, while he worked with Rumsfeld's staff on efforts to
delay the CBS broadcast, he did not discuss the issue with Rumsfeld himself. But
did he discuss his efforts with anyone in the Justice Department? Did he act
with an eye toward the upcoming Supreme Court arguments?

"I would be damned curious," Muller said. "For the military to do that at the
same time they've got the Padilla case pending is deeply troubling. If someone
at Justice knew, or if someone at OLC had been told that the military was going
to ask for a delay, that's scandal material right there. There you've got
Justice manipulating the Supreme Court."

In the end, it's not clear that such manipulation would have helped the
administration's cause. Indeed, there's a chance it will backfire now. "If the
theory was, 'Let's delay this until after the argument, and that's going to make
a difference,' then that was clearly wrong," said Elliot Mincberg of People for
the American Way. "The justices read the newspapers and watch television, and
they're clearly going to know about this."

They already do. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor met with a
panel of Iraqi judges in the Netherlands earlier this month, and they said
afterward that they had conveyed to the Iraqis -- subtly, for fear of exposing
any bias in court-martial cases to come -- their concern over the Abu Ghraib
abuses. In a follow-up interview with the Associated Press, Kennedy said the
Iraqi judges "innately knew, instinctively knew, how concerned we were" about
what happened at Abu Ghraib.

The question now is whether that concern will spill over into the court's
decisions in the cases of Jose Padilla, Yaser Hamdi and the detainees currently
being held at Guantanamo Bay. The conditions of confinement and the techniques
used in interrogation aren't directly at issue in these cases; indeed, the
lawyers challenging the administration's policies don't have enough information
about their clients' situations to make meaningful arguments about the way
they've been treated.

Donna Newman has represented Padilla for more than two years now. But ask her
today whether he has been abused while in military custody, and she'll tell you
she has absolutely no idea. "I don't know, and neither does anyone else," Newman
told Salon last week. "I don't mean to suggest that Mr. Padilla has been abused.
But the thing is, I just don't know."

Newman met with her client when he was in civilian custody, before he was
declared an enemy combatant and swept away into a Navy brig in June 2002. In the
ensuing year and half, the Department of Defense denied Newman any contact with
Padilla. Early this year, when Padilla's case was pending before the Supreme
Court, the Department of Defense finally allowed Newman and her co-counsel,
Andrew Patel, to meet with Padilla -- largely as window dressing for the Supreme
Court, and even then only with a Department of Defense lawyer in the room and a
video camera running.

Among the conditions the Department of Defense imposed on the meeting: "We were
prohibited from asking him about the conditions of his confinement," Patel says.

By barring Padilla's lawyers from asking about the conditions of his
confinement, the Department of Defense prevented them from gathering information
they might need to protect him. By failing to inform the Supreme Court about the
abuses at Abu Ghraib and the interrogation policies the administration has
adopted, the Justice Department -- inadvertently or intentionally -- prevented
the justices from possessing information highly relevant to the question of just
how much they should trust the administration.

In the words of the Bush administration, none of that really matters. As Clement
told the Supreme Court on April 28, "The fact that executive discretion in a war
situation can be abused is not a good and sufficient reason for judicial
micromanagement and overseeing of that authority."

When the Supreme Court begins handing down decisions this summer, the executive
will learn if the judicial branch agrees.

* * *


Army Times:

May 17, 2004

EDITORIAL: A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS

http://www.armytimes.com/print.php?f=1-292925-2903288.php

Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the
enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal:
the six morons who lost the war.

Indeed, the damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole by the
horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the notorious
prison is incalculable.

But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons.

There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the now-infamous
pictures and an even more damning report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Every
soldier involved should be ashamed.

But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges,
it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the
military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.

The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the
moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The
message to the troops: Anything goes.

In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at
least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at
least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its
captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world.

How tragically ironic that the American military, which was welcomed to Baghdad
by the euphoric Iraqi people a year ago as a liberating force that ended 30
years of tyranny, would today stand guilty of dehumanizing torture in the same
Abu Ghraib prison used by Saddam Hussein's henchmen.

One can only wonder why the prison wasn't razed in the wake of the invasion as a
symbolic stake through the heart of the Baathist regime.

Army commanders in Iraq bear responsibility for running a prison where there was
no legal adviser to the commander, and no ultimate responsibility taken for the
care and treatment of the prisoners.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also shares in the shame.
Myers asked "60 Minutes II" to hold off reporting news of the scandal because it
could put U.S. troops at risk. But when the report was aired, a week later,
Myers still hadn't read Taguba's report, which had been completed in March.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also failed to read the report until after the
scandal broke in the media.

By then, of course, it was too late.

Myers, Rumsfeld and their staffs failed to recognize the impact the scandal
would have not only in the United States, but around the world.

If their staffs failed to alert Myers and Rumsfeld, shame on them. But shame,
too, on the chairman and secretary, who failed to inform even President Bush.

He was left to learn of the explosive scandal from media reports instead of from
his own military leaders.

On the battlefield, Myers' and Rumsfeld's errors would be called a lack of
situational awareness -- a failure that amounts to professional negligence.

To date, the Army has moved to court-martial the six soldiers suspected of
abusing Iraqi detainees and has reprimanded six others.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the MP brigade that ran Abu Ghraib,
has received a letter of admonishment and also faces possible disciplinary
action.

That's good, but not good enough.

This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a
failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential -- even
if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

-- Military Times editorial, May 17 issue

* * *


Newsweek:

May 17, 2004

WEB EXCLUSIVE

MEMOS REVEAL WAR CRIMES WARNINGS

Could Bush administration officials be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result
of new measures used in the war on terror?

The White House's top lawyer thought so...

By Michael Isikoff, Investigative Correspondent Newsweek

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4999734/

May 17 - The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S.
officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox
measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to
an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over
the issue.

The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes -- and that it
might even apply to  Bush adminstration officials themselves --  is contained in
a crucial portion of an internal January  25, 2002, memo  by White House counsel
Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare
the  war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda
fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by
Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing
war crimes -- defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions.
Noting that the law applies to "U.S.  officials" and that punishments for
violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that  "it was
difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might
apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the
language in the Geneva Conventions -- such as that outlawing "outrages upon
personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners -- was "undefined."

One key advantage of declaring that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters did not have
Geneva Conventio protections is that it "substantially reduces the threat of
domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," Gonzales wrote.

"It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels
who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441
[the War Crimes Act]," Gonzales wrote.

The best way to guard against such "unwarranted charges," the White House lawyer
concluded, would be for President Bush to stick to his decision -- then being
strongly challenged by Secretary of State Powell --  to exempt the treatment of
captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from Geneva convention provisions.

"Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that (the War Crimes
Act) does not apply  which would provide a solid defense to any future
prosecution," Gonzales wrote.

The memo-and strong dissents by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his chief
legal advisor, William Howard Taft IV-are among hundreds of pages of internal
administration documents on the Geneva Convention and related issues that have
been obtained by NEWSWEEK and are reported for the first time in this week's
issue.

The memos provide fresh insights into a fierce internal administration debate
over whether the United States should conform to international treaty
obligations in pursuing the war on terror. Administration critics have charged
that  key legal decisions made in the months after Sept. 11, including  the
White House's February 2002 declaration not to grant any Al Qaeda and Taliban
fighters prisoners of war status under the Geneva Convention,  laid the
groundwork for the interrogation abuses that have recently been revealed in the
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

A copy of the Gonzales memo and the response to it  by Secretary of State Colin
Powell are being posted today on NEWSWEEK's web site accompanying this article.

As reported in this week's magazine edition, the Gonzales memo urged Bush to
declare all aspects of the war in Afghanistan -- including the detention of both
Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters -- exempt from the strictures of the Geneva
Convention. In the memo, Gonzales described the war against  terorrism as a "new
kind of war" and then added: "The nature of the new war places a high premium on
other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured
terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against
American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as
wantonly killing civilians."

But while top White House officials publicly talked about trying Al Qaeda
leaders for war crimes, the internal memos show that administration lawyers were
privately concerned that they could tried for war crimes themselves based on
actions the administration were taking, and might have to take in the future, to
combat the terrorist threat.

The issue first arises in a January 9, 2002, draft memorandum written by the
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) concluding that "neither the
War Crimes Act nor the Geneva Conventions" would apply to the detention
conditions of Al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The memo
includes a lengthy discussion of the War Crimes Act, which it concludes  has no
binding effect on the president because it would interfere with his Commander in
Chief powers to determine "how best to deploy troops in the field." (The memo,
by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, also concludes -- in response
to a question by the Pentagon -- that U.S. soldiers could not be tried for
violations of the laws of war in Afghanistan because such international laws
have "no binding legal effect on either the President or the military.")

But while the discussion in the Justice memo revolves around the possible
application of the War Crimes Act to members of the U.S. military, there is some
reason to believe that administration lawyers were worried that the law could
even be used in the future against senior administration officials.

One lawyer  involved in the interagency debates over the Geneva Conventions
issue recalled a meeting in early 2002 in which participants challenged Yoo, a
primary architect of the administration's legal strategy, when he raised the
possibility of Justice Department war crimes prosecutions unless there was a
clear presidential direction proclaiming the Geneva Conventions did not apply to
the war in Afghanistan. The concern seemed misplaced, Yoo was told, given that
loyal Bush appointees were in charge of the Justice Department.

"Well, the political climate could change," Yoo replied, according to the lawyer
who attended the meeting. "The implication was that a new president would come
into office and start potential prosecutions of a bunch of ex-Bush officials,"
the lawyer said. (Yoo declined comment.)

This appears to be precisely the concern in Gonzales's memo dated January 25,
2002, in which he strongly urges Bush to stick to his decision to exempt the
treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from the provisons of the Geneva
Conventions. (Powell and the State Department had wanted the U.S. to at least
have individual reviews of Taliban fighters before concluding that they did not
qualify for Geneva Convention provisions.)

One reason to do so, Gonzales wrote, is that it "substantially reduces the
threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act."  He added
that "it is difficult to predict with confidence what actions might be deemed to
constitute violations" of the War Crimes Act just as it was "difficult to
predict the needs and circumstances that could arise in the course of the war on
terrorism." Such uncertainties, Gonzales wrote, argued for the President to
uphold his exclusion of Geneva Convention provisions  to the Taliban and Al
Qaeda detainees who, he concluded, would still be treated "humanely and, to the
extent appropriate and consistent with military necessarity, in a manner
consistst with the principles" of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of
prisoners of war.

In the end, after strong protests from Powell, the White House retreated
slightly. In February 2002, it proclaimed that, while the United States would
adhere to the Geneva Conventions in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan,
captured Taliban and Qaeda fighters would not be given prisoner of war status
under the conventions. It is a rendering that Administration lawyers believed
would protect U.S. interrogators or their superiors in Washington from being
subjected to prosecutions under the War Crimes Act based on their treatment of
the prisoners.


THE WAR CRIME MEMOS:

* The Gonzales Memo January 25, 2002

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4999148/

* Colin Powell's response January 26, 2002

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4999363/


RELATED STORY --

* A Secret History: How Torture Took Root

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

* * *

USA Today --

May 17, 2004

THE ORDEAL OF CHAPLAIN YEE
By Laura Parker, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-05-16-yee-cover_x.htm

Last fall, he was the Muslim chaplain who had betrayed America.

Accused of espionage, Army Capt. James Yee saw his notoriety bloom overnight. He
was vilified on the airwaves and on the Internet as an operative in a supposed
spy ring that aimed to pass secrets to al-Qaeda from suspected terrorists held
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Yee ministered to them. After his arrest, Yee was
blindfolded, placed in manacles and taken to a Navy brig, where he spent 76 days
in solitary confinement.

Eight months later, all the criminal charges against the 36-year-old West Point
graduate have melted away. A subsequent reprimand has been removed from his
record. And while many legal analysts are questioning whether a security-
conscious military over-reached in its investigation, Yee is back home at Fort
Lewis, Wash., pondering what remains of his military career.

Military officials involved in the case won't say what they thought they had on
Yee, or why they pursued him with such zeal. Prosecutions are proceeding against
three other men -- two Arabic translators and an Army Reserve colonel -- who
worked at Guantanamo, where the military is holding nearly 600 suspected al-
Qaeda and Taliban operatives captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The decision to jail Yee was made by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then commander
of Guantanamo's detention camp. He oversaw the espionage investigations of all
four men. He has since been transferred to Iraq, where he is now engulfed in the
controversy involving prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

When the Army dropped six criminal counts against Yee in March, military
officials said they did so to avoid making sensitive information public -- not
because he was innocent. An Army general stressed that again in April, when he
took the unusual step of removing the case from Yee's permanent military record.

But a growing number of critics say the Yee case demands further examination.
The critics, who include former military judges and prosecutors well-versed in
military law, say the case offers a chilling glimpse into military anxiety at a
time of heightened concern about terrorism.

"This is a case that's so obviously wrong that (even) people who don't know
military law are, if not outraged, then very concerned about what happened,"
says Kevin Barry, a retired Coast Guard judge. "There apparently was no
evidence. If they had the goods, they would have prosecuted."

Like Barry, many of the critics suggest that the case collapsed not because of
national security concerns, but because the evidence against Yee, whatever it
was, didn't hold up. They wonder whether the military's threshold for suspicion
at Guantanamo was such that benign behavior too easily could have been mistaken
as sinister.

No espionage charges

They say that the military compounded its errors by leaking to the media, before
the Yee probe was complete, that the chaplain could face multiple death-penalty
charges tied to espionage. Those charges never materialized. The six counts
against Yee that were dropped later were significantly less serious and included
mishandling classified materials, adultery, storing pornography on his Army
laptop and lying to investigators.

"They let him languish in solitary confinement for 76 days. That's outrageous,"
says John Fugh, a retired Army judge advocate general. "When he saw his legal
counsel, he was in leg irons. We don't treat commissioned officers that way. I
don't care what he did."

Bob Barr, a Republican and former Georgia congressman, sees the Yee case as part
of a disturbing trend in the handling of terrorism-related cases. He cites some
cases brought by U.S. prosecutors against groups accused of laundering funds for
terrorists. The cases got headlines but collapsed, Barr says.

"What we're seeing in Guantanamo, and perhaps in this case, is what happens when
you've removed any judicial oversight over what the government is doing," says
Barr, who has criticized the administration's policy of detaining some terrorism
suspects indefinitely without charging them.

Two Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Edward Kennedy of
Massachusetts and Carl Levin of Michigan, have asked the Pentagon to investigate
the Army's treatment of Yee.

Gen. James Hill, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military
operations at Guantanamo, declined to be interviewed. In cleansing Yee's
military record last month, Hill called Yee's incarceration necessary, "given
the circumstances at the time."

Col. William Costello, a Southern Command spokesman, added: "There's really
nothing more that we're going to share on the case. We've dropped the
charges.... I'm not at liberty to talk about what the investigation entailed."

Yee, meanwhile, is under a new Army order not to talk about his ordeal in any
way that might be seen as critical of the military. If he does, he could face
further prosecution or discipline. He declined to be interviewed by USA TODAY.

Without an explanation from the military, the attorneys for Yee and the three
others arrested in the Guantanamo espionage probe can only theorize about what
might have triggered it. Was Yee too outspoken in his requests to superiors that
the prisoners receive better treatment? Did authorities suspect a "Syrian
connection" between Yee and a Syrian-born translator who worked for him? Did
cultural misunderstandings raise suspicions about Muslims at the base?

"We know basically nothing about what got this all started," says Eugene Fidell,
a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who worked with Yee's Army defense lawyers.

Yee arrived at Guantanamo on Nov. 5, 2002, and was assigned to minister to
Muslim prisoners. He and Muslim workers used a vacant office for their own
prayer sessions; sometimes they had a meal. The lawyers think the get-togethers
might have raised suspicions.

Yee was arrested Sept. 10 at the start of a one-week leave. Customs agents at
the Jacksonville (Fla.) Naval Air Station, tipped by an investigator at
Guantanamo that Yee could be carrying classified materials, confiscated drawings
and documents containing information about the prisoners and their
interrogators. A Customs agent later testified at a preliminary hearing that the
items were "of interest to national security."

Yee also had ties to Syria that apparently drew investigators' attention: His
wife, Huda, is Syrian. He met her while studying Islam in Damascus in the late
1990s, as he prepared to become one of the Army's first Muslim chaplains. (Born
in New Jersey and raised a Lutheran, he converted to Islam in 1991.)

Yee was baffled by his arrest, his attorneys say. But what came next was even
more surprising. At a confinement hearing two days later, a Navy prosecutor
argued that Yee was a flight risk and that he should be held in the maximum-
security Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Court papers said he would be charged
with espionage, spying, aiding the enemy, mutiny or sedition, and disobeying an
order. His attorneys were told that he could face execution.

On Sept. 16, Yee was driven to Charleston and was given the sensory-deprivation
treatment the military had used on Guantanamo prisoners when they were flown to
Cuba. He was blindfolded and placed in shackles, and his ears were covered to
block his hearing. He spent the next 76 days in solitary confinement.

On Sept. 20, details of Yee's arrest appeared in a story in The Washington
Times, which quoted unidentified government sources. A gush of publicity
followed and took root on the Internet, where it flourishes today.

Yee was held in maximum security until Oct. 24. He wore hand and leg irons when
he left his cell. Brig guards refused to recognize him as an officer and
required him to identify himself as an E-1, the lowest enlisted rank. He wasn't
allowed to send or receive mail, watch TV or read anything except the Koran.
Only his attorneys could visit. After Oct. 25, he could make two 15-minute calls
a day.

The case goes nowhere

Yee's defense team believes the case against him ran off the rails less than 48
hours after his arrest. At Yee's confinement hearing, they noted a disparity
between the severity of the charges listed against Yee and the vague arguments
the government made to justify his arrest. The prosecutor didn't have to tip his
hand then, but the defense team found it unusual that so little evidence was
presented.

"When you see a gulf between the shrill charges and this anthill of evidence ...
you have to wonder," Fidell says.

Many military law specialists say they became increasingly skeptical about the
quality of the government's case -- especially after Oct. 10, when the criminal
charges filed against Yee turned out not to be espionage and spying, but two
lesser counts of mishandling classified materials. Yet Yee remained in solitary
confinement.

On Nov. 24, Fidell wrote to President Bush, pleading for Yee's release. The next
day, Yee was released -- and was hit with four new charges. The new counts --
adultery, lying to investigators and two counts of downloading porn -- were
another sign to many observers that the evidence didn't support the original
allegations.

Fugh calls the added charges "Mickey Mouse stuff."

The crux of the case was the charges that Yee had mishandled classified
information. But prosecutors did not show the defense any evidence that Yee had
such materials. A hearing to determine whether he should be court-martialed was
delayed over the issue.

"The government has never produced the evidence that it believes was classified,
so I am somewhat at a loss," Fidell says. "We were playing Hamlet without Hamlet
here."

When the hearing began Dec. 8 at Fort Benning, Ga., prosecutors led off not with
their most serious charges, but with adultery. As Yee's parents, wife and 4-
year-old daughter watched, Navy Lt. Karyn Wallace testified under immunity about
her affair with Yee.

Under military rules, adultery rarely is prosecuted. It is a crime only if it is
"prejudicial to good order and discipline," meaning that it has to be disruptive
or be so widely known that it damages the service. Yee's affair apparently had
been secret. "It is arguable that there was no crime," Barry says.

On the second day of the hearing, prosecutors asked for a 41-day delay to
examine the classified issues. The hearing never resumed. The criminal charges
were dropped on March 19.

"This would have been a logical place to back off," says Gary Solis, a former
Marine prosecutor and staff judge advocate who teaches military law at
Georgetown University in Washington. But the military "kept going. They already
had enough egg on their face to make an omelet or two. But no, they wanted to
serve a table of 10."

On March 22, Yee was called to a non-criminal hearing where he received a
reprimand on the adultery and pornography charges.

Yee appealed the reprimand. Appeals of disciplinary actions rarely are granted,
but on April 14, Hill did just that. Hill said later, "While I believe that
Chaplain Yee's misconduct was wrong, I do not believe, given the extreme
notoriety of his case ... that further stigmatizing Chaplain Yee would serve a
just and fair purpose."

Yee returned to his chaplain duties at Fort Lewis two weeks ago. His tour of
duty expires next year. Fidell says Yee has made no decisions about his future.

*

THREE OTHERS AWAIT PROCEEDINGS

Three other men stationed at Guantanamo Bay have been charged with mishandling
classified materials:

Ahmad al-Halabi, an Air Force translator, was arrested July 25. The Syrian-born
U.S. citizen initially was charged with 30 counts that ranged from sneaking
baklava to the prisoners to espionage and aiding the enemy. Last fall, 13 of the
charges were dropped; the remaining 17 charges include mishandling classified
materials and espionage. He awaits a court-martial, now set for June.

Ahmed Mehalba, a civilian interpreter at Guantanamo, was arrested Sept. 29 at
Boston's Logan International Airport after returning from Cairo. A Customs
inspector found a CD-ROM in his luggage that appeared to contain hundreds of
sensitive documents. He was indicted on federal charges of mishandling sensitive
information and lying to investigators. Mehalba is being held without bail in a
Massachusetts jail. No trial date has been set.

Army Col. Jack Farr, 58, head of Guantanamo's prisoner interrogation unit, was
arrested Oct. 11 and charged with mishandling intelligence and lying to
investigators. Classified documents were allegedly found in his luggage at the
end of his six-month tour. Farr is now at Fort Gordon, Ga., awaiting a
preliminary hearing May 25 that will determine whether he will face a court-
martial.

* * *


May 17, 2004

SENATORS TO PRESS SCANDAL
* A GOP-controlled panel, feeling slighted by the administration and obliged to
look at abuse of prisoners, has no plan to drop the issue soon.

By Richard Simon and Elizabeth Shogren, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/
la-na-congress17may17,1,4770646.story

WASHINGTON -- As the White House struggles to get beyond the prisoner abuse
scandal, it faces an unsettling fact: The Senate Armed Services Committee --
controlled by Republicans -- plans to keep the issue alive for weeks to come.

That promises more headaches for the White House and once undreamed-of
opportunities for Democrats on the committee, such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of
Massachusetts and other critics of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq.

The Armed Services Committee, led by 77-year-old Senate veteran John W. Warner
of Virginia, has served noticed that it would not pull back, as the House Armed
Services Committee has done. Instead, Warner plans extended hearings to call on
the carpet such high-profile officials as Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of
U.S. troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, head of the U.S.-led Coalition
Provisional Authority.

More disturbing still for the White House, Democrats and Republicans on the
Senate committee say they will shift the focus from the misdeeds of a handful of
guards at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. What they want to dig into instead
is how senior Pentagon officials loosened the rules protecting prisoners during
interrogation.

The rules, changed to speed the flow of intelligence on terrorism, complied with
the Geneva Convention, the officials say. But critics say the changes may have
contributed to a climate in which abuses could occur.

In a report on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the New Yorker magazine
says this week that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld secretly approved a
plan to use harsh interrogation techniques on prisoners in Iraq -- a contention
the CIA and the Pentagon deny.

In addition, the current issue of Newsweek says that a memo from White House
Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, issued shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, may have
established the legal foundation for the abusive treatment of prisoners.

For congressional leaders to get into such questions when a president from their
party faces a tough reelection campaign isn't the way the game is meant to be
played in Washington.

These days, politicians tend to march in lock-step with their party leadership,
always "on message" and quick to deny their opponents even the smallest
opportunity to exploit a weakness. That's partly because the political climate
is highly polarized and partly because elected officials have become dependent
on ideological constituencies that demand total loyalty.

In the prisoner abuse scandal, however, circumstances have conspired to create
an exception to the current rules of political warfare.

One of those circumstances is the sheer magnitude of the scandal, which has
triggered indignation around the world, inflamed public opinion in Iraq and
other Muslim nations, and threatened to undermine U.S. foreign policy on a wide
front.

"The Republican strategists would love for this story to die, but no one knows
how to kill it," University of Wisconsin political scientist Donald F. Kettl
said. "They know they can't take a dump-it-and-run approach, and they know they
can't keep it bottled up. It's an impossible dilemma."

There are other factors at work, too, factors unique to this Senate committee.

For one thing, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is not a
typical modern-day politician. With courtly manners and an excellent tailor,
Warner is a member of Virginia's "hunt country" aristocracy. His military
service began in World War II, when he joined the Navy at 17; during the Korean
War, he served in the Marine Corps.

Warner was Navy secretary under President Nixon and has been in the Senate for
25 years.

That background gives Warner deep roots and a sense of independence that are
increasingly rare in a Congress marked by relatively rapid turnover.

He represents a state that combines conservative rural communities, the
headquarters of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Christian right organization, large
military installations -- including the Pentagon itself -- and moderate-to-
liberal Washington suburbs. To satisfy that political mix, Warner has been a
moderate but loyal Republican most of the time, while shrewdly picking
opportunities to display his independence.

"He is not one who has hewed the party line," said Robert D. Holsworth, an
expert on state politics at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. "He
has on a number of occasions broken with party orthodoxy."

As a senator, Warner is also a child of an earlier era. He grew up when chairmen
and senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, such as former Sen.
Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), were powerful players in military affairs, courted and
consulted by presidents and senior defense officials regardless of party.

"Warner is a man of the Senate. He revels in the institution's traditions, and
he knows that oversight is an essential part of the Senate's work," said a
veteran congressional analyst.

Warner and his committee believe they have been treated cavalierly by Rumsfeld
and his senior aides, which they find personally and institutionally offensive.
For example, committee members are quick to recall that Rumsfeld appeared before
Armed Services the day CBS News reported on the Abu Ghraib scandal -- without
notifying any of them.

"The entire Senate was shocked that they were not given any notice or even a
whiff of this imploding scandal," a Senate GOP aide said.

"The textbooks that members of this administration had when they were young just
had two branches of government -- the executive and the judicial," the aide
said. "The Senate's oversight role has been completely ignored by this
administration."

"Congress does not like to be surprised," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a
member of the committee. And Warner made his feelings clear at the outset of the
panel's first hearing. With Rumsfeld facing him in the witness chair, Warner
said:

"In my 25 years on this committee, I've received hundreds of calls, day and
night, from ... all levels, uniform and civilian, from the Department of Defense
when they, in their judgment, felt it was necessary, and I daresay other members
on this committee have experienced the same courtesy.

"I did not receive such a call in this case, and yet I think the situation was
absolutely clear and required it -- not only to me, but my distinguished ranking
member and other members of this committee."

Warner is not the only Republican who seems determined to keep the feet of the
administration to the fire. At least three other GOP senators on Armed Services
questioned administration witnesses aggressively during the opening round of
hearings last week: John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey
O. Graham of South Carolina.

Collins, representing a swing state, is often independent. Graham spent 6 1/2
years as an Air Force lawyer on active duty and, according to his biography, is
the only U.S. senator currently serving in the National Guard or Reserves. He is
a colonel, assigned as a reserve judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal
Appeals.

Beyond political stakes or resentment at the Pentagon's failure to show
deference to the Armed Services Committee, many committee members consider the
prisoner abuse scandal -- and their role in dealing with it -- unusually
serious.

"The role of the Senate at moments like this is to provide an educational role
for the American people," said Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation. "The
senators can help frame what happened and help explain why."

Both chambers have been inattentive to oversight of the war in Iraq, said Thomas
E. Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution, "reflecting a
strong incentive among congressional Republicans not to damage in any way the
president's political standing."

"But the vividness of the detainee abuses and the failure of the administration
to give senators a heads up has finally broken the logjam in the Senate, where
there is a greater sense of institutional responsibility," he said.

"Every once in a while, members of Congress simply decide to do the right
thing.... Members could not look themselves in the mirror if they didn't get to
the bottom of these horrible acts," said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of
government at Claremont McKenna College.

Joe Garecht, a GOP political strategist, agreed.

"Lawmakers like John Warner, Lindsey Graham, John McCain and others are truly
angry that this situation existed, and believe that it is the Congress' duty to
reestablish America's moral credibility abroad," he said.

Echoing that sentiment, Collins of Maine said in an interview last week, "I
believe that the Armed Services Committee should continue its investigation.
There are still many unanswered questions....

"I don't see this as a partisan issue," she said. "It's far too important."

* * *


Los Angeles Times --

May 17, 2004

WIDER ABUSE INQUIRY SOUGHT
* Lawmakers call for more investigations to find whether blame for prisoner
mistreatment in Iraq goes higher up the chain of command.

By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-prison17may17,1,7601392.story

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress from both political parties called Sunday for
additional investigations into the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal to determine
whether responsibility lies higher up the chain of command than with the seven
Army reservists who are facing criminal charges.

"We need to take this up as far as it goes, and we need to do it quickly," Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

He and other lawmakers were responding to two magazine reports suggesting that
top-level administration officials made recommendations on interrogation policy
that may have contributed to abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The New Yorker is reporting in its May 24 edition that Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld secretly approved a plan to use harsh interrogation methods on
prisoners in Iraq. Members of Congress said they wanted to inquire further into
the report, even though the Pentagon has labeled it "outlandish, conspiratorial
and filled with error and anonymous conjecture."

The May 24 edition of Newsweek says that a memo written by White House Counsel
Alberto R. Gonzales after the Sept. 11 attacks may have established the legal
foundation that allowed for abusive treatment.

Newsweek reported that in January 2002, Gonzales wrote to President Bush that in
his judgment, the post-Sept. 11 security environment "renders obsolete [the
Geneva Convention's] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and
renders quaint some of its provisions."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "hit the roof" when he read the memo,
according to the magazine, and fired off his own note to the president, warning
that the new rules "will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice" and
have "a high cost in terms of negative international reaction."

Powell, interviewed Sunday on "Meet the Press," said he did not recall the
Gonzales memo, but added: "I have always said that the Geneva accord is an
important standard in international law and we have to comply with it."

At the White House, spokesman Allen Abney offered a general response to the
Newsweek report.

"We are a nation at war and we are a nation of laws," he said. "Our most
important responsibility is to protect the American people, and we act in an
appropriate manner to protect that responsibility. It is the policy of the U.S.
to comply with all of our laws and treaty obligations."

Abney said the United States was bound by the Geneva Convention in Iraq.

The New Yorker article, written by Seymour Hersh, suggests that the roots of the
prisoner abuse scandal lie in a decision approved last year by Rumsfeld to
expand a classified operation for aggressive interrogations that was originally
approved for use with suspected Al Qaeda operatives.

National security advisor Condoleezza Rice told the German television network
ARD on Sunday that "as far as we can tell, there's really nothing to the story."

Seven reservists in a military police unit face criminal charges in the abuse of
prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a high-security facility outside Baghdad. Allegations
of abuse were first reported in October but received little attention until late
last month, when CBS' "60 Minutes II" broadcast photographs including grinning
U.S. troops beside nude detainees in humiliating poses.

Some of the reservists are arguing that they were carrying out orders from
superiors. The first court-martial is scheduled to begin Wednesday in Baghdad.

The New Yorker article says the interrogation methods were part of a secret
"special access program" that gave approval to capture, interrogate or kill
"high-value targets."

A former intelligence officer is quoted in the article as saying its rules were
"Grab whom you must. Do what you want."

As the Iraqi insurgency grew, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's undersecretary for
intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, expanded the scope of the program to include
prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the article said. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, knew about that expansion, according to
the article.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita issued a statement late Saturday ridiculing
the report.

"No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that
could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in
the recent photos and videos," he said. "This story seems to reflect the fevered
insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the
Department of Defense."

In addition to the Pentagon denial, an intelligence official in Washington
disputed Hersh's account. "If there's any truth to the article, I haven't found
it," he said Sunday.

Members of Congress interviewed Sunday said the Hersh report needs to be
investigated on Capitol Hill.

"I think there's been a lack of accountability up the chain," Sen. Carl Levin of
Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said on CBS'
"Face the Nation." "All the focus has been on the few at the bottom that we've
seen pictures of. It goes way further up than that, both on the military and the
civilian side."

Levin said the allegations in the magazine articles raise the issue to "a whole
new level" that will be reviewed by the Armed Services Committee in planned
hearings on Iraq prison abuse.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, told "Meet the Press" that the administration appeared to
have used techniques in Iraq that it was using against suspected Al Qaeda
operatives.

"There is a sort of morphing of the rules of treatment," Biden said. "We can
treat Al Qaeda this way, and we can't treat prisoners captured this way, but
where do insurgents fit? This is a dangerous slope."

On his return to Washington on Sunday from the World Economic Forum meeting in
Jordan, Powell declined to comment on the New Yorker article, telling reporters
he hadn't read it.

But he said he was skeptical of suggestions that the resignation of Rumsfeld or
other top Pentagon officials would be valuable in winning back confidence the
United States has lost because of the controversy over the treatment of Iraqi
prisoners.

"We don't need something dramatic or theatrical," he said. "We need to get at
the truth" about how the prisoner mistreatment took place.

Powell praised Rumsfeld, who is considered to be one of the secretary of State's
chief rivals in debates within the administration.

"Don Rumsfeld is doing a terrific job under the most difficult of
circumstances," he said.

[ Times staff writers Greg Miller in Washington and Paul Richter in Shannon,
Ireland, contributed to this report. ]

* * *


Boston Globe:

May 16, 2004

AS THREATS TO US CHANGED, SO DID PRISON TACTICS
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/16/as_threats_to_us_changed_s
o_did_prison_tactics/

WASHINGTON -- The road to the Abu Ghraib prison abuses began with the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the threat of Al Qaeda spurred the Bush
administration to radically overhaul the way it questioned prisoners.

In this "new kind of war," as President Bush called it, information would be
critical to finding hidden operatives and disrupting attacks. Moreover, an
organization of religious zealots would be difficult to penetrate with
informers, so the successful interrogations of captured Al Qaeda members would
be essential.

There was one problem: the Geneva Conventions forbid using physical and
psychological coercion to obtain information from captured prisoners of war.

Inside the Pentagon, where one wall was still burning from the impact of a
hijacked jetliner, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith had
already come up with the solution. He had made his name during the Reagan
administration by arguing that Geneva Convention protections should not be
extended to terrorists who mingled with civilians. The issue was abstract then,
but on Sept. 11 it had immediate consequences.

William Haynes, the general counsel of the Defense Department, and John Yoo,
then the deputy assistant attorney general, signed off on the legality of
withholding Geneva protections from both Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. As the
war on terrorism began, all detainees would be called enemy combatants, not
prisoners of war, and could be questioned aggressively.

But in abandoning the old structure, the administration created a vacuum that
filled up with ad hoc regulations -- with one interrogation process at tropical
Guantanamo, different rules in the mountains of Afghanistan, and a third set of
limits in the deserts of Iraq. Moreover, military interrogators had one set of
rules, while the CIA had another.

Meanwhile, the intelligence community never developed clear standards for who is
qualified to do strategic interrogation. Training in techniques that actually
work versus those that are counterproductive varied widely, according to Air
Force Lieutenant Colonel Steve Kleinman, who conducted interrogations in the
Panama invasion, the 1991 Gulf War, and Iraq.

The Pentagon announced that the Geneva Conventions would not apply for prisoners
in the Afghanistan war, though they would apply for fighters taken prisoner in
Iraq. But having the same small number of interrogators shuttling between both
theaters set up the potential for even greater confusion, Kleinman said.

"What seemed to be abhorrent yesteday is acceptable today, and tomorrow it's
recommended," warned the veteran interrogation instructor. "If they picked up
bad habits -- and that's a big if -- working in a situation where physical
pressure was acceptable, and then moved into a new setting," the dynamic would
spread.

As the Geneva Convention limits eroded, the sense of what was allowable
expanded. And those familiar with the policies told the Globe there were few
clear rules left by October 2003, when the Pentagon extended the tour of duty of
the 372d Military Police company -- reservists trained for general combat
support, not corrections -- and put them in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison.

Inside the prison walls, few knew whether the 205th Military Intelligence
Brigade, which oversaw interrogations, were in charge of the MPs or if they
should answer to their own brigade commander, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski,
who rarely visited Abu Ghraib, according to a report about the abuses by Major
General Antonio Taguba.

Outside, the insurgency was raging.

Enemy combatants

The notion that terrorists should be treated differently from armies did not
originate with the fight against Al Qaeda.

In the early 1980s, Feith was a young lawyer in the Reagan administration who
gained fame in conservative national security circles for arguing against
ratification of a proposed amendment to the Geneva Conventions that would treat
members of national liberation movements, irregulars who wore no uniforms and
sometimes used terrorist tactics, as prisoners of war.

Feith said that this policy would endanger civilians by removing the incentive
for fighters to obey traditional laws of war: staying in the open so the
opposing party will not target noncombatants. It would also grant terrorist
groups the same status as armies, something Feith, a harsh critic of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, rejected. Two decades later, he returned to
the Pentagon in the second Bush administration as its leading defense policy
thinker.

Shortly after the Al Qaeda attacks, the Bush adminstration made a crucial
decision exactly in line with Feith's doctrine: An Al Qaeda or Taliban fighter
who was captured would be called an "enemy combatant" and would not enjoy POW
protections.

That decision was controversial inside the Pentagon, recalls Mark Jacobson, who
worked in the detainee policy group in the Office of the Secretary of Defense
and is now a visiting scholar at Ohio State University.

Uniformed military lawyers agreed that Al Qaeda terrorists were not entitled to
POW status, but objected to saying that Taliban fighters did not qualify as POWs
because they were the armed forces of the Afghan regime, even if they did not
look like a Western army. But they lost the debate to the civilian leadership,
he said.

The White House announced this decision to the world in a Feb. 7, 2002, "fact
sheet" about Guantanamo Bay prisoners. It promised that "to the extent
appropriate and consistent with military necessity . . . the detainees will
receive much of the treatment normally afforded to POWs."

The announcement then gave some examples of POW privileges detainees would not
receive, listing some of the most utopian provisions of the 1949 convention:
monthly pay, scientific equipment, and musical instruments. It made no mention
of the key POW privilege that was being withheld, however:

"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted
on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever," the
Third Geneva Convention says. "Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be
threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment
of any kind."

In the Afghanistan war, detainees suspected of having what is called "tactical"
intelligence -- the location of enemy forces, specific plans for upcoming
attacks -- were kept at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan or were taken to
Navy ships for intensive questioning. Much remains unclear about the techniques
the military and CIA are using in Afghanistan, but there have been reports of
harsh measures and abuses.

In December 2002, two detainees died at Bagram under circumstances the military
called homicide. The New York Times has reported that the CIA is interrogating
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader believed to have planned the 2001
attacks, using a technique called "water-boarding," strapping him down and
holding him under water to simulate drowning.

"Even I, frankly, am concerned that we need to find out exactly what has been
going on at Bagram," Jacobson said.

Meanwhile, detainees who were thought to pose a continuing danger or have
strategic intelligence, information about how the terrorist network operates,
were sent to Guantanamo Bay, the Navy base on the southern coast of Cuba.

Changes at GuantanamoGuantanamo's Camp X-Ray, a crude prison of chain-link
fencing and barbed wire exposed to the tropical weather, opened in January 2002.
By April 2002, the military had finished building the first wing of its new Camp
Delta, a much more sophisticated prison with individual wire mesh cells cut from
shipping containers.

In keeping with military rules that separated the actions of guards and
interrogators, there were two commanders at first, one for the intelligence
operation, and one for detention. Jacobson said the two often conflicted over
how to treat detainees.

"With the detention operation, your goal is to keep everybody calm and compliant
with camp rules, so there's no riots and everyone is quiet," he said
"Interrogators want a broader range of emotions: happiness or uncertainty and
nervousness. They may want to keep people unsettled."

By the summer, the US Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo, decided that
the arrangement wasn't working and unified the command of both operations. They
chose Major General Geoffrey Miller, a Texas-born former paratrooper then
serving in South Korea, to take over in October 2002.

Within a few months of arriving, Miller sent a request up to his superiors for
official guidance in what was and was not an approved interrogation technique,
Jacobson recalled.

For years, the military had based its interrogation rules on the official Army
Field Manual. The manual dealt exclusively with emotional techniques, ranging
from a variant of "good cop, bad cop" to pretending to know everything already
or manipulating a detainee's ego. It insisted that no physical coercion be used.

But many interrogators had been through resistance training in which they
learned about harsher techniques, on the theory that they could be subjected to
them by an enemy. Trainees were put in painful "stress positions" to simulate
torture, said Kleinman, the interrogation specialist.

In late 2002, the interrogators asked Miller if it would ever be acceptable to
use the harsher techniques or stress positions on Guantanamo prisoners, Jacobson
said. After two months of legal review, the Pentagon approved a list that
included disrupting sleep patterns, exposing a detainee to fluctuating
temperatures, or changing his dietary schedule. Harsh methods were to be
approved by the Defense Department on a case-by-case basis.

"Their inability to control and predict what will happen next puts them into a
state we call 'dislocation of expectations,' " Kleinman said of the detainees.
"Then, every time that individual is in the presence of an interrogator, a
certain degree of stability returns."

Jacobson said these techniques were used at Guantanamo only rarely, in fewer
than 5 percent of the 800 or so detainees who were sent to Guantanamo. Miller
has said that sleep deprivation or hooding was never used as a technique in the
22,000 interrogations he oversaw.

Instead, the primary technique used by interrogators under Miller was a
positive-rewards system. In August 2003, Miller told a visiting reporter of his
pride in how the system he had established at Guantanamo was persuading Al Qaeda
and Taliban prisoners to talk.

While all detainees got humane basic living conditions, he said, MPs gave
comfort items to those who cooperated with interrogators: baklava with meals,
permission to keep books and letters from home in cells, or even transfer to a
medium-security wing where, separated from hard-core holdouts, they lived
communally, wore white instead of orange, and played badminton.

Miller also instituted a system of Tiger Teams to do interrogations. The
questioner and one or two translators would be in the interrogation room with
the detainee, while an analyst would watch from behind a partition. The
partition also allowed supervisors to monitor what was happening in
interrogations, and Miller said he frequently stopped by.

But even as interrogation techniques were evolving in Cuba, Iraq war planners
were making no plans for mass interrogations of their own. They thought the war
would end quickly, Jacobson said.

The only prisoners the military was preparing to interrogate were the blacklist
of Baathist officials who might know about weapons of mass destruction, the
group of 55 immortalized on a deck of playing cards.

"This was the 'they're going to greet us as liberators' scenario," Jacobson
said. The thinking was: "We should process them and get them home unless they
were on the blacklist."

A surprise insurgencyThe Bush administration's announcement that the Geneva
Conventions would apply in the conflict in Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, reflected
the expectation that they would be fighting a regular army, not an insurgency.

Instead, the administration found itself in the midst of a guerrilla war with
thousands of suspected insurgents being captured and no plans for how to hold
them.

In the spring of 2003, after Baghdad fell and members of the blacklist were
being captured, the Pentagon asked Miller to go from Cuba to Iraq to evaluate
the situation based on Guantanamo's best practices for interrogating high-value
detainees. But it took several months for him to go, Jacobson said, during which
time the violent insurgency swelled.

Thousands of suspected fighters were crammed into prisons such as Abu Ghraib,
along with ordinary criminals. The prison was taking mortar fire. There were
riots and escape attempts. And the problem would only grow: there were 5,800
prisoners at Abu Ghraib in September 2003, according to published reports, but
as many as 8,000 just five months later.

Miller spent 10 days in early September assessing the military's chaotic
detention and interrogation operation and making recommendations to the top US
commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, about how to improve the
flow of intelligence from detainees using as a model the Guantanamo camp, which
was deliberately developed outside the strictures of the Geneva Conventions.

His full recommendations have not been released, but he provided Sanchez with a
copy of his 200-page standard operating practices for Guantanamo, including the
matrix of harsher techniques that could be used on a case-by-case basis.

The Taguba report said he also cautioned Sanchez to do a legal review of which
techniques would be lawful in Iraq, where the Geneva Conventions applied.

On Friday, a Pentagon briefing disclosed that on Sept. 14, Sanchez put in place
an interim policy for interrogations based on Miller's Guantanamo policy,
spelling out both preapproved approaches and the possible case-by-case use of
harsher tactics. He revised that policy on Oct. 13, dropping the list of harsher
approaches that needed special approval, but the Army intelligence brigade that
conducted the interrogations apparently posted a chart that kept the old
listings as a guide.

A month after Miller left, in mid-October, Red Cross inspectors visited Abu
Ghraib and discovered a new incentive system in place, one based on punishing
uncooperative detainees by subtracting from their basic living conditions rather
than rewarding those who talked with enhancements: Miller's Guantanamo system,
but inverted.

For example, they witnessed a practice of keeping uncooperative detainees naked
in empty, dark cells for days at a time.

"The military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation explained that
this practice was 'part of the process,' " a once-secret Red Cross report says.
"The process appeared to be a give-and-take policy whereby [detainees] were
'drip-fed' with new items (clothing, bedding, hygiene articles, etc.) in
exchange for their 'cooperation.' "

The human rights situation at Abu Ghraib continued to deteriorate until January,
when a whistleblower turned in photographs depictingthe sexual humiliation and
physical abuse of prisoners. Naked men cower before barking military dogs, lie
stacked on top of each other like cordwood, are being forced to masturbate, or
are on a leash held by a female MP.

All administration and military officials, from Bush and Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld on down, have expressed outrage and the treatment depicted in
the photos. Six soldiers have been reprimanded and seven more are facing the
possibility of court-martial. A new inquiry into whether interrogators with the
CIA and military intelligence orchestrated the sexual humiliation as a way to
break down detainees is ongoing.

Harold Koh, a Clinton-era assistant secretary of state for human rights, said
the administration's policy of setting aside the Geneva Conventions early in the
war on terrorism pushed interrogation standards down a slippery slope,
culminating in the Abu Ghraib controversy.

"I think the Defense Department is reaping the whirlwind of its strategy of
condoning wide-scale departures from traditional POW protections," Koh said.
"They're there for a reason. Some of these officials have treated the legal
regimes as a nuisance to be disgarded in the war against terrorism, when it
turns out they're playing a very important role in protecting our troops from
violations and protecting our country against needless humiliation by conduct
that most Americans find abhorrent."

Kleinman, the veteran interrogator, said the breakdown also stemmed from poor
training: Abusing prisoners to get information out of them yields bad
information and stirs up resentments that can outlive the war.

"We need to think strategically about this," he said. "Unless we intend to keep
these people in custody for the rest of their lives and are absolutely certain
the revelations of this abuse will never get out, we'd better not do it. There's
more at stake here."

Bryan Bender of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

* * *


May 17, 2004

US CRITICIZED ON GENEVA ACCORDS
HUMANE RULES EXCLUDE IRAQI 'SECURITY INTERNEES'

By John Riley, Newsday

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/bal-
te.geneva17may17,0,370581.story

NEW YORK -- After the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, members of Congress and
human rights groups are suggesting that the Bush administration's cavalier
attitude toward the Geneva Conventions and other international standards is at
the root of the problem.

"What is the purpose of putting a bag over someone's head for 72 hours?
Shackling him in an excruciating position?" said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights
Watch. "The only purpose is to create a degree of pain and humiliation. That's
not allowed. The Geneva Conventions don't say you can inflict pain up to a
certain degree. They say you can't do it."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his aides, however, insist that the
abuses at Abu Ghraib were the acts of a few poorly commanded soldiers. The U.S.
commander in Iraq has banned practices such as stress positions and food
management, but the Pentagon insists the techniques were legal.

The disagreements, experts say, reflect in part the complexities of the Geneva
Conventions -- and in part the way the Bush administration has decided to apply
them after the Sept. 11 attacks. The conventions, adopted in 1949, set out rules
governing the humane treatment of prisoners of war and civilians by warring
states. The United States, Iraq and Afghanistan signed them, and the United
States has acknowledged that they apply to the conflicts in both countries.

In Afghanistan, however, President Bush took the position that while the accords
applied, no one the United States is fighting is entitled to Geneva protection
as a prisoner of war because al-Qaida members are not connected to a state that
is party to the treaties, and Taliban fighters do not have the military
organizational structure required for protection.

The United States has never spelled out what techniques are permitted, but
acknowledged at least three homicide investigations of detainee deaths in
Afghanistan. To critics, it set a dangerous precedent for Iraq.

"They started down this path of minimizing the [accords] and got into this
unprecedented area where there's no guidance of law," said Miles Fischer, head
of the New York City bar's Military Affairs and Justice Committee.

As an occupying power in Iraq, the accords require the United States to honor
Article 31, which states, "No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised
against protected persons, in particular to obtain information."

Pentagon officials, however, point to Article 5 of Convention IV, which says
that those "definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the
security of the State" will not be able to claim Geneva rights that "would be
prejudicial to the security of such State."

A senior military official, in a background briefing Friday, said most in
custody in Iraq are "security internees," and argued that under Geneva's general
standard, interrogators had flexibility.

"You've got to maintain the minimums of food and water and shelter and safety
and so forth," he said. "But, 'If you don't cooperate with me, I'm not going to
give you as much as this other guy has who did.' Perfectly permissible."

Some experts agree. Scott Silliman, a Duke University expert on the law of war,
says the baseline -- grossly violated in the Abu Ghraib scandal -- is another
Geneva article banning degrading and humiliating treatment, but beyond that,
it's a matter of line-drawing.

Critics, however, point to a Red Cross report that said as many as 80 percent of
the Iraq detainees have been innocent civilians. And some believe that last
fall, when the commander at Guantanamo visited Abu Ghraib to recommend
improvements in intelligence gathering, his visit led to the adoption of rules
created for a prison where Geneva doesn't apply to a place where it does.

"It [Abu Ghraib] got 'Gitmoized,'" Fischer says, referring to Guantanamo Bay. "
... I think they may have forgotten that it's an occupation."

* * *


Newsday:

May 16, 2004

DEBATE OVER APPLICATION OF PRISONER TREATIES
ANGST OVER US GENEVA STANCE
By John Riley, Staff Writer

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-
usgenev163804545may16,0,2149045.story

A little more than a year ago, Scott Horton, chairman of the New York City bar
association's Committee on International Human Rights Law, got a call "out of
the blue" from an intermediary who wanted to arrange an off-the-record meeting
with some high-ranking military lawyers.

Horton, in response, held two sessions with eight "very senior" legal officers
from the Judge Advocate General's corps. They were, he says, "very circumspect"
because most of what they wanted to discuss was highly classified.

But their message was clear. New rules governing interrogation and the
application of the Geneva Conventions in the war on terror were coming down from
the civilian side of the Pentagon. JAG officers had been cut out of the loop.

And they were very concerned. "They were very specific in saying there is a
policy coming from the top creating an atmosphere of legal ambiguity surrounding
the interrogation process that serves no legitimate function and carries grave
risks," Horton recalls. "They made it very clear they wanted the bar to raise
its voice about this."

Now, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq and new
revelations last week about U.S. interrogation methods, a whole lot of voices
are being raised, with a chorus of members of Congress, human rights groups and
newspaper editorials suggesting that the Bush administration's cavalier
attitudes toward the Geneva treaties and other international standards is at the
root of the problem.

Among their concerns: A New York Times story that added near-drowning to the
list of previously reported techniques, such as manipulation of pain medication,
that have been used against top al-Qaida detainees. At the same time, the
Pentagon acknowledged that command-approved rules for questioning prisoners in
Iraq could include stress positions, 72-hour sleep deprivation or sensory
deprivation and the presence of military dogs.

"What is the purpose of putting a bag over someone's head for 72 hours?
Shackling him in an excruciating position?" said Tom Malinowski, the Washington
director of Human Rights Watch. "The only purpose is to create a degree of pain
and humiliation. That's not allowed. The Geneva Conventions don't say you can
inflict pain up to a certain degree. They say you can't do it."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his aides, however, continued to insist
that the sexual humiliation and other abuses at Abu Ghraib were the acts of a
few poorly commanded soldiers. And, although the U.S. commander in Iraq banned
practices such as stress positions and food management just days after questions
were raised in Congress, the Pentagon continued to insist that the techniques
were legal.

"Any instructions that have been issued or anything that's been authorized by
the department was checked by the lawyers .. . and deemed to be consistent with
the Geneva Conventions," Rumsfeld testified before the Senate's Armed Services
Committee.

The disagreements, experts say, reflect in part the complexities of the Geneva
Conventions - and in part the way the Bush administration has decided to apply
them after Sept. 11.

Different rules

The current conventions were adopted in 1949. They set out rules governing the
humane treatment of prisoners of war and civilians by warring states. The United
States, Iraq and Afghanistan signed them, and the United States has acknowledged
that they apply to the conflicts in both countries.

In Afghanistan, however, President George W. Bush took the position that while
the conventions applied, no one the United States is fighting against is
entitled to Geneva protection as a prisoner of war, because al-Qaida members are
not connected to a state that is party to the treaties, and Taliban fighters do
not have the military organizational structure required for protection.

The United States said it would voluntarily treat Afghanistan detainees - many
held at Guantanamo Bay - consistently with Geneva principles "to the extent
appropriate and consistent with military necessity." Legal experts say that
approach created a legal limbo surrounding the rules and tactics of
interrogation in Afghanistan and Cuba.

The United States has never spelled out what techniques are permitted, but
released prisoners have told reporters about harsh "stress and duress"
approaches, and the United States has acknowledged at least three homicide
investigations of detainee deaths in Afghanistan. To critics, it set a dangerous
precedent for Iraq.

'No guidance of law'

"They started down this path of minimizing the conventions, and got into this
unprecedented area where there's no guidance of law," said Miles Fischer, head
of the New York City bar's Military Affairs and Justice Committee, who worked
with Horton's committee on a recent report on interrogation practices.

In Iraq, the United States has never disputed the application of the Geneva
treaties, or the eligibility of Iraqi soldiers captured during active
hostilities last year for prisoner-of-war status. But in the postwar stage, the
situation has become murkier.

As an occupying power, the Conventions require the United States to honor
Article 31, which states, "No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised
against protected persons, in particular to obtain information." That is the
standard cited by human rights groups and critics such as Sen. Richard Durbin
(D-Ill.) who told Rumsfeld last week that tactics such as stress positions and
sleep and diet manipulation "go far beyond the standard."

Pentagon officials, however, point to a different provision - Article 5 of
Convention IV - that says individuals "definitely suspected of or engaged in
activities hostile to the security of the State" will not be able to claim
Geneva rights that "would be prejudicial to the security of such State."

A senior military official, in a background briefing Friday, said most now in
custody in Iraq are "security internees," and argued that under Geneva's general
standard, interrogators had flexibility. "You've got to maintain the minimums of
food and water and shelter and safety and so forth," he said. "But, 'If you
don't cooperate with me, I'm not going to give you as much as this other guy has
who did.' Perfectly permissible."

Drawing the line

Some experts agree. Scott Silliman, a Duke University expert on the law of war,
says the baseline - grossly violated in the Abu Ghraib scandal - is another
Geneva article banning degrading and humiliating treatment, but beyond that,
it's a matter of line-drawing. "If you keep someone up 24 hours, that's not a
violation," he said. "If you keep someone awake 14 days, that's a violation."

Critics, however, point to a Red Cross report that said as many as 80 percent of
the Iraq detainees turn out to be innocent civilians, not security threats at
all. And some believe that last fall, when the commander at Guantanamo visited
Iraq to recommend improvements in intelligence gathering at Abu Ghraib, his
visit led to the adoption of rules created for a prison where Geneva doesn't
apply to a place where it does.

"It got 'Gitmoized,'" Fischer says, referring to Guantanamo Bay. " ... I think
they may have forgotten that it's an occupation."

Horton says that, among the issues raised by the uniformed lawyers who visited
him months ago, were questions about the controls over civilian contractors
hired by the Pentagon as interrogators - an issue that has become one focus in
the Abu Ghraib scandal - and concerns about a diminished involvement of military
lawyers in monitoring interrogations.

"They felt there was really going to be a disaster coming out of this," he says.

Widespread concerns

Military officials at Friday's briefing insisted that all interrogation tactics
are carefully planned, with any unusual tactics subject to both legal review and
command approval that, in fact, had never been granted in Iraq. And in
congressional testimony, Judge Advocate Gen. Thomas Romig said last week he was
not aware of any reduced role for military lawyers.

But the concerns that Horton heard are widespread, according to a number of
experts with contacts in the military law community. John Hutson, a former high-
ranking Naval JAG officer and now dean of Franklin Pierce Law School in New
Hampshire, says that as the issues have become more complex, military lawyers
have become less involved.

"The uniformed lawyers have been marginalized in developing the rules of
engagement and the actual practical application, oversight and those type of
things," he says. "It's a culture that has been created that is extra-legal -
we're outside the world of lawyers because this is the war on terror."

* * *


BBC:

May 15, 2004

IRAQ SCANDAL REVEALS RED CROSS PRESSURES

By Imogen Foulkes, BBC correspondent in Geneva

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3717439.stm

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been in the spotlight
this week, following the revelations about the abuse of Iraqis held in Abu
Ghraib prison by coalition forces.

The ICRC is the body officially mandated by the Geneva Conventions to visit
prisoners of war to ensure they are being humanely treated.

And the Red Cross had visited Abu Ghraib many times, it knew of the abuses, but
only went public with its knowledge when forced to.

Critics now accuse the Red Cross - widely regarded as the guardian of the Geneva
Conventions - of being the last to mention that the conventions are being
violated.

No comment

The ICRC can be a difficult assignment for journalists: Red Cross delegates are
active in some of the most newsworthy parts of the world, but they have a policy
of not talking about their work.


The ICRC was slow to release its report on Iraq prison abuses
When the first, shocking pictures of Iraqi prisoners appeared - naked and
terrified in Abu Ghraib prison - my first reaction as Geneva correspondent was
to call the ICRC.

"We can't comment on those pictures', came the reply.

"But you've visited Abu Ghraib prison haven't you?" I asked.

"We never discuss our prison visits."

It went on like this all week, more pictures were published - and still the Red
Cross would not talk. Getting information out of the sphinx seemed a more likely
possibility.

But the silence ended when the Red Cross' confidential report to the US
government on conditions in Abu Ghraib was leaked to the media.

Something close to panic broke out at Red Cross headquarters.

This normally peaceful, elegant building, overlooking Lake Geneva and surrounded
just now by spring flowers, became a hive of frantic communication.

The determinedly neutral organisation, invented after all in neutral
Switzerland, was going to have to comment on a major political scandal.

At a hastily organised press conference, visibly nervous ICRC officials were
forced to confirm that they had documented a systematic pattern of abuse by US
troops at the prison, abuse, the report said, "which was tantamount to torture".

Registering prisoners

So why keep quiet about it for so long?

"We're not some dial-a-quote organisation," spokesman Florian Westphal said.

"There are human rights groups who can publicly denounce abuses."

Many people do confuse the Red Cross with groups like Amnesty International or
Human Rights Watch.


The Red Cross is recognised around the world
In fact, the organisation's real role is one my grandparents' generation would
recognise.

To them, the Red Cross sent messages saying a loved husband or brother was
alive, but a prisoner of war, somewhere in Germany.

And for prisoners, Red Cross delegates were the ones who brought food, a bar of
soap perhaps, and best of all, a letter from home.

That is what the Red Cross does now too - in 2003, their delegates visited
468,000 prisoners of war and other detainees in more than 70 countries.

So if you are a detainee in some hot, dusty, forgotten corner of the world, and
the white jeep with the Red Cross on the side turns up, do not assume that your
liberation has arrived.

The Red Cross delegates will not spend time on the justice or otherwise of your
imprisonment, but they will do their best to ensure you are not beaten, that you
have food, water, and fresh air, and that your family knows where you are.

Red Cross workers insist that the policy of talking only to prison authorities
about abuses they have witnessed is what opens the prison gates for them.

Access is not easy, when the prison guards are often brutalised young men,
scarcely out of their teens, who see no reason to behave humanely to prisoners
they regard as enemies.

But journalists always want proof for their stories; it is all very well for the
Red Cross to claim confidentiality works - but if they take that policy so far
they will not even give us any examples, it is hard to believe them.

And we do know that silence has led the organisation into some serious moral
quandaries over the years - in World War II delegates knew about the Nazi death
camps, but said nothing for fear of jeopardising their access to prisoners of
war.

Subtle approach

I do wonder how people apparently motivated by their humanitarian convictions
can bear to keep quiet in the face of such horrors.


 We did speak out over Bosnia and Rwanda - and it didn't help at all

Florian Westphal, ICRC
Florian Westphal says: "I've come out of some awful places and I've thought 'God
I just have to get what I've seen off my chest', but who would it have helped?
Me for sure, but not the prisoners.

"We did speak out over Bosnia and Rwanda - and it didn't help at all."

Instead, he says, the Red Cross goes about improving the lives of prisoners in
subtle ways.

"I went to a prison where the inmates weren't being allowed any fresh air," he
said.

"So every time I visited I told the guards I needed the prisoners out in the
yard so I could count them. It worked, they were let out, and I could seem them
stretching, looking up to the sun."

That is the kind of professional satisfaction Red Cross workers can expect - no
media limelight.

They go public about their prison visits only when they think every last avenue
of private persuasion has been exhausted, and they did not think they had
reached that point with the United States and Abu Ghraib.

There had even been some improvements, Florian Westphal said.

Media demands

Red Cross officials have been repeating the confidentiality policy like a mantra
all week - to the intense frustration of journalists hungry for credible details
about Abu Ghraib prison.

But complete confidentiality will be almost impossible to maintain in high
profile conflicts like Iraq.

And if the Red Cross does bow to pressure to talk, how will that affect its work
in all those nasty little conflicts the media is not really interested in?

Rebel militias holding hundreds of prisoners may have just seen the Red Cross on
television, talking about bad prisons in Iraq.

That is what many ordinary ICRC delegates fear - not that they may lose a cosy,
unscrutinised way of working, but that they may lose access to thousands of
prisoners of war who desperately need help.

* * *


AFIS --

May 15, 2004

NAVY IG REPORTS REVIEW OF DETAINEE OPERATIONS

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2004 (AFIS) -- Shortly after photos of prisoner abuse in
Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison complex appeared in the media, shocking the world,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered a review of operations in the U.S.
military detention center at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Naval
Consolidated Brig Charleston, S.C.

After a two-day review, Vice Adm. Albert T. (Tom) Church, the Navy's inspector
general, reported that he found eight "minor infractions involving contact with
detainees" going back to 2002.

He described the infractions as ranging from "an unauthorized haircut" by a
barber at the prison to "mild physical contact."

In contrast, abuse and attacks on guards average 14 incidents per week, ranging
from verbal abuse, to throwing excrement and toilet water, and physical attacks.

"You see the stress the guards work under and the discipline. ... I was very
impressed," the admiral said.

Church briefed Rumsfeld on his findings May 11. Rumsfeld then asked the admiral
to travel to Iraq with him the next day. Church spoke to reporters traveling
with the secretary aboard the airplane en route to Iraq May 12.

He described his findings as "good news," because all incidents were reported
through the chain of command and dealt with quickly through the military justice
system. "In my view that's good news because obviously people felt free to
report, which is what I was looking for," Church said.

"And there was swift disciplinary action taken by a strong chain of command,
which is another thing I was looking for."

Those who were punished included four guards, three interrogators and a barber.
Punishments ranged from admonishments to reduction in rank.

In the most serious incident Church could recall, a military police guard
punched a detainee who had bitten him. The guard was reduced in rank because he
had hit the detainee after other guards had subdued him. The admiral called this
act "a violation of standard operating procedures."

Church said he went to Guantanamo May 5th, two days after receiving his marching
orders from Rumsfeld, with a team of military lawyers, a physician, a former
interrogator and a naval investigator. The team observed interrogations and MP
procedures; reviewed standard operating procedures, incident reports and unit
punishment logs; interviewed under oath 43 staff members of various military and
civilian ranks and specialties; and studied medical records of 100 detainees.

He described Joint Task Force Guantanamo as "a very tight organization, where
everybody reports to and through" Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the task force
commander

* * *


The Oregonian:

May 15, 2004

FEDERAL LAW CLOAKS DETENTION

The secrecy around an Oregon arrest in the Spain attack shows how critical a
tool the witness statute has become

By Noelle Crombie and Les Zaitz

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/108462219758
410.xml

It's been a week since federal agents arrested a 37-year-old lawyer at his West
Slope office, and his detention remains shrouded in secrecy.

Brandon Mayfield's family members said Friday they weren't even sure where he
was being held. His wife and mother last visited him on Sunday.

"It's extreme frustration because you don't know when hearings are going on,
what hearings are going on," said Mayfield's stepmother Ruth Alexander.

Secrecy mandated for grand jury work and a federal judge's gag order have
clamped off any information about Mayfield and the federal investigation.
Because of that, officials at the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S.
attorney's office won't discuss any aspect of what one law enforcement official
acknowledged has become a "radioactive" case because of public attention.

For the second time since April 2003, federal authorities in Oregon are holding
a local man under a federal law that allows officials to jail U.S. citizens
without charging them. Since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the material
witness statute increasingly has been used by federal prosecutors in terror-
related cases as a tool to secure critical grand jury testimony from people seen
as a flight risks.

Mayfield's detention -- like that of former Intel engineer Maher "Mike" Hawash,
who was held for five weeks last year before he was indicted as a member of the
Portland Seven -- has put a spotlight on the 1984 statute that allows court-
ordered detention indefinitely without charges while investigators continue
their work.

Federal judges have the ultimate authority over who is detained as a material
witness and for how long.

"At a certain point, the court says, 'Enough already. Take him before the grand
jury or let him go,' " said Robert Litt, a former Justice Department official
and Washington, D.C.-based criminal defense attorney.

In this case, he speculated it might be a month to six weeks before the judge
demands that Mayfield appear before the grand jury or be released.

Fingerprint connection

Federal law enforcement sources say Mayfield is linked to the March 11 train
bombing in Madrid, the deadliest act of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks in the
United States.

Authorities say his fingerprint was recovered from a plastic bag containing
detonating devices found near the bombing site. The attack left 191 dead and
more than 2,000 wounded.

Mayfield, who was targeted by authorities within two weeks of the attack, had
been under surveillance by federal agents prior to being taken into custody last
week. But information about Mayfield's alleged connection to the terror attack
was leaked last week to multiple news sources. Those leaks prompted U.S.
District Judge Robert Jones to place a gag order on anyone with ties to the case
and have triggered a Justice Department inquiry into the source of the leaks.

Even the written gag order is sealed, one of Jones' assistants said.

One source this week described the investigation as "extraordinarily sensitive"
and said the scope and detail of the leaks were "breathtaking." The source,
speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the leaks have angered those
involved in the case, especially Jones.

Even information about where Mayfield is being held is no longer public. He was
in a Multnomah County jail early Tuesday but was removed from the facility that
day. Officials have since refused to disclose his whereabouts.

To underscore the secrecy now surrounding the Mayfield case, U.S. Marshal Dennis
Merrill on Wednesday declined to even comment on why he couldn't answer
questions about where Mayfield is being held.

The secrecy appears to go beyond that observed in the Hawash case. In that case,
Jones wrote that secrecy of grand jury proceedings doesn't render "secret the
material witness's identity, status as a material witness or detention."

So far in the Mayfield case, the only public court document is a brief record of
his initial May 6 court appearance. The minutes show Jones advised Mayfield of
why he was in custody and explained he had the right to counsel and to remain
silent. Jones ordered Mayfield detained "pending further proceedings," according
to the minutes.

Jones also ordered that "Federal agents executing search warrants related to
Mayfield shall return the searched property and premises to an undisturbed
condition."

A message left with FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele Thursday about whether
agents had complied with the judge's order was not returned.

Secrecy can protect witnesses

Part of the reason for the secrecy is the grand jury proceeding itself.

Federal grand juries operate behind closed doors, and government officials who
disclose anything about the proceedings can be punished by federal judges, said
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson. Robinson would talk about material
witnesses in general but not about the Mayfield case.

The secrecy is meant to cover material witnesses ordered before the grand jury
"so that if the investigation does not lead to a public charge, their name is
not unfairly associated with any kind of suspicion."

The secrecy also is meant to protect witnesses. "If you're investigating an
organized crime mobster, you don't want that person to know the names of the
witnesses you're putting in the grand jury because it could be a risk to the
material witness," Robinson said.

Warrants to arrest a material witness are issued by federal judges, based on
sworn affidavits often produced by government investigators. An arrested witness
is taken before the judge, allowed to retain an attorney and told the reason for
the arrest.

"The normal practice would be to disclose to the arrested individual the
affidavit, which supported the arrest," Robinson said.

Court records show Hawash got a 43-page affidavit explaining his arrest.

But that isn't always the case, said Litt, the former Justice Department
official. In terrorism cases, the government may ask the judge not to permit the
detainee -- or his lawyer -- to see the government's affidavit.

"In this case, I would not be surprised if, for security reasons, they would not
show it," Litt said.

The witness also can request a detention hearing, a closed-door session in which
the government is required to justify the need to keep the witness in custody.
So far, Mayfield has not requested such a hearing, according to federal court
records.

Robinson, speaking generally, said the same judge who issues the warrant retains
control over the witness. Federal law requires prosecutors to report to the
judge at least biweekly on why the witness needs to continue being held. Justice
Department officials said witnesses typically are released once they have
testified -- but not always.

Critics say law is misused

Critics claim detaining people as material witnesses illustrates the Bush
administration's overzealous national security efforts, which they say are
stretching the boundaries of civil rights. Critics say the government is using
the law to hold people indefinitely while it investigates suspected crimes and
builds criminal cases.

But a federal appellate court was clear in a ruling last year that "it would be
improper" for the government to use the law to detain people suspected of crimes
"for which probable cause has not yet been established."

Andrew Patel, an attorney for Jose Padilla, who has been deemed by the
government as an "enemy combatant" and is being held in a military jail in South
Carolina, said the material witness statute can be abused.

"The problem . . . (occurs) when the government really isn't interested in their
testimony and is just interested in detaining them because they don't have
enough evidence to charge them with a crime," he said.

John. S. Ransom, a Portland lawyer who represented Portland Seven defendant
October Lewis, said the fingerprint evidence the government reportedly has
against Mayfield is enough probable cause evidence to file a criminal complaint.

But by applying the material witness law, Ransom said, the government has chosen
"an easier method and a less public method" to hold him while it continues to
investigate.

"I think it's inappropriate," Ransom said. "If he were a person they believed
had committed a crime, he should be charged by a criminal complaint or indicted
by a grand jury."

Mark Larabee of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report.

Noelle Crombie: 503-276-7184; noellecrombie@news.oregonian.com

Les Zaitz: 503-221-8181; leszaitz@news.oregonian.com

* * *


Boston Globe

May 14, 2004

PRISON RULES 'NOT HUMANE'

By Bryan Bender Globe Staff

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=
102931900BA903A2&p_docnum=1

WASHINGTON Interrogation rules issued last year in Iraq are "not humane," a
ranking defense official conceded yesterday, and a top general told senators
that they may violate the Geneva Conventions on proper handling of military
detainees.

The rules designed to encourage cooperation with interrogators were contained in
a one-page memorandum issued by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior
American commander in Iraq, and released by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
On a case-by-case basis, according to the memorandum, prisoners could be forced
to wear hoods for up to three days or squat in physically demanding positions
for 45 minutes and be subjected to other conditions.

The memorandum and the testimony from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz
and Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
indicated that Sanchez approved more stringent interrogation techniques than
considered permissible by government legal specialists. Management of the Abu
Ghraib prison, where Iraqi detainees were mistreated, fell under Sanchez's
command.

In testimony on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld defended
military guidelines for interrogation that he said he personally approved after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Those guidelines, he said, did not authorize the sort of treatment depicted in
the photographs of military personnel at Abu Ghraib that have come to dominate
debate over the US mission in Iraq.

Pace, the second-ranking military official, said yesterday that he had never
seen the Iraq guidelines issued by Sanchez and did not know who had authorized
them.

Asked in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee whether he would
consider it a violation of international law to force a prisoner to squat, naked
and hooded, in a cell for 45 minutes, Pace replied, "I would describe it as a
violation, sir."

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, pressed Wolfowitz to say whether he
considered sensory deprivation techniques, such as placing a hood over a
detainee's head for 72 hours, to be humane treatment.

"It strikes me as not humane, senator," Wolfowitz said.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, read from a
separate military report dated Dec. 13, 2003, that said interrogators should
"submit memoranda for the record requesting harsh approaches for commanding
general's approval prior to employment, sleep management, sensory deprivation,
isolation longer than 30 days, and dogs."

"Is that something that either of you are familiar with, Secretary Wolfowitz?
General Pace?" Levin asked.

Pace replied : "No, sir. I haven't seen that."

Wolfowitz said he did not recall any harsher treatments being officially
approved.

Wolfowitz and Pace appeared before the committee to discuss the Pentagon budget,
but senators wanted to focus on the prisoner abuse controversy and Sanchez's
one-page directive.

It listed a variety of methods soldiers could use in interrogations, including
"dietary manipulation," or depriving inmates of food for certain periods so long
as they were monitored by a medical officer; changing their environment, such as
from hot to cold; keeping inmates awake for as long as three days at a time;
isolating them for up to 30 days; using military dogs to intimidate prisoners;
or forcing them to assume "stressful positions" for as long as 45 minutes.

The memo specifies that the measures were allowed on a case-by-case basis only
with written approval from Sanchez. There is no public evidence so far that
Sanchez approved any requests for permission to use the harsher techniques. The
memo also states that handling of prisoners "must always be humane and lawful."

But the memo clearly suggests that what Sanchez considered permissible in
interrogating captured Iraqis may have gone further than what senior Pentagon
officials in Washington signed off on in 2002 for interrogations at the Marine
Corps base in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects are being
held. The CIA, officials said, has operated under different, at times more
permissive, guidelines than the military,

Wolfowitz agreed that forcing an inmate to squat, naked and hooded, for 45
minutes would not be humane, but insisted that he did not know what the
guidelines in the memo meant. He also said that if such techniques were used,
they may not have been expressly approved by commanders. "I saw this document
for the first time this morning," Wolfowitz said.

Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday that Pentagon
lawyers approved a series of interrogation techniques after 9/11 attacks,
including sleep deprivation, dietary changes, and forcing internees to assume
stressful positions.

He and General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the
Senate Appropriations Commitee that these techniques were not deemed to violate
the Geneva Conventions.

"Any instructions that have been issued or anything that's been authorized by
the department was checked by the lawyers . . . and deemed to be consistent with
the Geneva Conventions," Rumsfeld said.

Myers, appearing at his side to discuss the defense budget, stressed that such
measures for an "excessive amount of time or that would hurt somebody is not
approved."

Nevertheless, that appears to be what was done in Iraq, possibly with the
permission of the military command.

"As I read General Sanchez's guidance, precisely that behavior could have been
employed in Iraq," said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island.

Mark Jacobson, who formerly worked in the detainee policy group in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense and is now a visiting scholar at Ohio State University,
yesterday attributed the apparent discrepancy between Rumsfeld's comments on
interrogation guidelines and the testimony by Wolfowitz and Pace to what appear
to be different guidelines in place in Iraq. "Guantanamo guidelines were
approved at the secretary of defense level, but I don't know about Iraq."

International legal specialists said the apparent abuses at Abu Ghraib raise new
questions about what is permissible under inter national law and what isn't.

"I think this is the beginning of a very public coversation," said Ruth
Wedgwood, professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile,
the Navy's brig, where at least three prisoners from the war on terror are being
held, got high marks in a recent inspection. Navy Secretary Gordon England said
yesterday in Charleston, S.C., where the 400-cell Consolidated Naval Brig is
located, that "preliminary reports are very positive."

Jose Padilla, an American accused of plotting to set off a radioactive bomb, is
being held at the brig along with Yaser Hamdi, a US-born terror suspect captured
in Afghanistan, and Ali Saleh al-Marri of Qatar, accused of being part of an Al
Qaeda cell.

[ Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com ]


May 12, 2004

JUSTICE DEPT. CAN TARGET WAR CRIME
Scholars cite way to punish abuse of Iraqis

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/05/12/justice_dept_can_target_war
_crime/

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has the power to bring war crimes charges
against soldiers and civilian contractors who abused Iraqi prisoners, as well as
against military commanders who knew or should have known about it, legal
scholars say, creating a second path to justice if the military fails to pursue
charges against enough of those responsible.

The administration has pledged to make its handling of the abuse charges a
symbol of the openness with which a free society deals with human rights crimes,
but has portrayed the abuses as the work of a few people.

But senators and many others both inside and outside the United States contend
that commanders must be held accountable for failing to prevent the abuse.

"I don't know if the president and the attorney general realize that the United
States has a responsibility to implement the Convention Against Torture, which
requires prosecutions in cases of torture and violation of the Geneva
Conventions," said University of Houston international law professor Jordan
Paust. "It's simply not sufficient to prosecute a few active-duty military
personnel."

So far, the cases have been handled only by the military. One soldier is facing
a court-martial and six others are under investigation. At least six more have
received administrative reprimands. The military has said it plans to look into
the role of supervisors -- possibly including Brigadier General Janis Karpinski,
who commanded the detention unit -- but has not identified any officers as
targets.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said last week that the Justice Department
would have jurisdiction to prosecute civilian contractors, but appeared to leave
decisions about prosecuting military personnel to the Defense Department. "There
are areas in which the Justice Department has jurisdiction, and those areas are
defined by law," Ashcroft said. "For individuals who are not in the military,
for example, and not under military jurisdiction, the Justice Department can
have jurisdiction."

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said that lawyers in Washington
are "examining the issues" but declined to add to Ashcroft's remarks last week
about what role civilian prosecutors might play.

Legal scholars disagree with Ashcroft that the Justice Department cannot
prosecute military personnel: Under US law, the Justice Department could
prosecute anyone who commits torture and has not already been tried in another
forum.

Gene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said that
the Justice Department is able to prosecute anyone, inside or outside the
military, for war crimes. The Justice Department would not even be barred under
"double jeopardy" protections from prosecuting a soldier who had already
received an administrative reprimand, since such a penalty does not carry
criminal penalties.

Yale Law School dean-designate Harold Koh, an international law scholar who was
assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Clinton administration,
said many criminal prosecutions could emerge from the scandal, under war crimes
principles dating back to the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

"Pre-Nuremberg, there was no command responsibility, so higher-ups could say
they didn't know what was going on, and ground-level troops could say they were
just following orders," he said. "Both understandings were reversed in
Nuremberg. . . . Both the individuals who participated in the photos and the
commanding officers should bear liability, because this is very clearly a
failure of training and supervision."

During Senate hearings last Friday, several lawmakers emphasized the importance
of having higher officers prosecuted.

"I would be very disappointed if the only people prosecuted are sergeants and
privates," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. "That
would be very, very bad and sad."

If the military doesn't bring such charges against its own personnel, there are
statutes that legal scholars said would allow the Justice Department to do so.

Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, detainees of any type -- civilians, soldiers,
criminals, and even unlawful combatants who are not entitled to prisoner of war
status -- must be treated humanely. The convention specifically prohibits
"outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading
treatment."

The War Crimes Act of 1996 provided that a "grave breach" of the Geneva
Conventions anywhere in the world by a member of the US military or any US
citizen is a felony punishable by up to life in prison or, if the victim died,
the death penalty. The conventions define a "grave breach" as a short list of
acts, including "willful killing, torture, or inhuman treatment."

In addition, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 reinforced
the provision that US civilians employed by the armed forces overseas can be
prosecuted in federal court.

The United States has also ratified the 1984 Convention against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which imposes on
governments a duty to prosecute all instances of torture in their jurisdiction.

It holds that torture is never permissible, even in a time of crisis, defining
torture as an act by a public official or with "the consent or acquiescence of a
public official or other person acting in an official capacity" that
intentionally inflicts "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,"
in order to obtain information.

Among the laws Congress has passed to implement the Torture Convention, one
holds that anyone who commits torture outside the United States shall be fined
or imprisoned for up to 20 years, or if the victim died, could receive a life
sentence or the death penalty.

Paust said the victims of the abuse could also try to sue those who abused them
under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 1789 law.

That law was little used until 1978, when the family of a Paraguayan youth who
had been tortured to death by a policeman who later fled to the United States
sued the man.

In a landmark ruling, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the case
could be brought in US court because "deliberate torture perpetrated under the
color of official authority violates universally accepted norms of international
law of human rights, regardless of the nationality of the parties."

The military is investigating 25 deaths of prisoners since December 2002.

Testifying before Congress Friday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
cautioned that he could say little about the military's self-investigation
because he did not want to show improper command influence, but vowed that the
United States would begin to repair its reputation by the way it responded to
the scandal.

"The world is seeing what a democracy does," Rumsfeld said.

But Tom Malinowski, of Human Rights Watch, said it remains to be seen whether
that can happen in the military justice system.

"It's going to be really easy to hand down some stiff sentences to a bunch of
low-ranking MPs from the Reserves," he said.

"It's going to be a lot harder for senior leadership in the Pentagon and the
White House to look in the mirror and realize that the policies they put into
place in the last three years created the environment in which these soldiers
acted."

* * *


May 12, 2004

GENERAL FAULTS PRISON LEADER

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/05/12/generals_fault_
unit_leadership/

WASHINGTON -- Top Pentagon leaders yesterday portrayed the human rights
breakdown at Abu Ghraib prison as the result of poor discipline and a failure of
leadership by the detention unit commander, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski,
amid a chaotic situation in which it was unclear whether Karpinski or
intelligence officials conducting interrogations were in charge of the treatment
of detainees.

Major General Antonio M. Taguba, who investigated the abuses, told the Senate
Armed Services Committee that the prisoner abuse was enabled by "failure in
leadership, sir, from the brigade commander on down; lack of discipline, no
training whatsoever; and no supervision." However, Taguba said, the Geneva
Convention violations were a conspiracy by "a few soldiers and civilians"
undertaken on their own. He said he found no evidence "of a policy or a direct
order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did," although a separate
investigation by the military into whether interrogators encouraged the abuse is
underway.

Nevertheless, several Democrats pounded away on the idea that Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld's controversial policy decision not to give full prisoner of
war protections under the Geneva Conventions to detainees at Guantanamo Bay led
to the current scandal.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, cited a news report that
Rumsfeld signed off on "harsher methods used to squeeze suspected terrorists"
held in Cuba, such as stress positions, stripping detainees naked, and sleep
deprivation. Kennedy asked if Rumsfeld had approved similar tactics in Iraq.

Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told Kennedy
that Rumsfeld had not. Policy decisions about interrogation methods in Iraq were
made by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the Iraq theater operations
commander, Cambone said.

Taguba said he did not interview anyone higher than Karpinski, prompting Senator
Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, to ask rhetorically, "So what may have
happened above General Karpinski is an open book?"

In recent interviews, Karpinski insisted she had no knowledge of the abuses and
said she is being set up to take the fall. She said she was excluded from the
areas where the abuses took place after military intelligence officials took
greater control of the operation last fall. Senator John McCain, Republican of
Arizona and a former Vietnam POW, asked Taguba to respond.

Taguba was skeptical. "She was still in charge of detention operations in
theater, and it's hard for me to believe that she would be excluded from any of
those facilities or any portions of those facilities," he said.

But Taguba and Cambone disagreed over the significance of an order last November
giving more authority to military intelligence officers at the prison. Taguba
said that meant that Karpinski no longer controlled the prison guards, while
Cambone said she did retain that authority.

The question of who was in control is important in assigning responsibility for
the abuses that occurred and determing who authorized them.

The hearing also discussed a report by Major General Geoffrey Miller, the former
commander of the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base detention and interrogation operation,
who replaced Karpinski in March.

In August 2003, Miller visited the military prisons in Iraq and made a series of
recommendations to improve intelligence collection efforts there, including that
guards "set the conditions" for successful interrogations. It remains unclear
exactly what that meant. He left them a copy of procedures from the base known
as Gitmo, where he led a unified command of guards and intelligence officials.

In his report, Taguba criticized this policy as a violation of standard Army
procedures that forbid the involvement of guards in interrogations, implying
that it led to a practice of guards roughing up reticent detainees to break
their will before questioning.

McCain asked: "When someone says that they're going to Gitmo-ize a prison,
wouldn't a subordinate think we're going to change the rules" of the pre-
interrogation treatment of detainees.

Replied Taguba: "Sir, I'd rather not speculate on that, and I don't exactly know
what General Miller meant by Gitmo-izing Abu Ghraib because of a different
situation there."

Said McCain: "I think it's pretty obvious."

The other officials, however, argued that this line has been mis interpreted as
a call for using guards to administer harsh treatment to uncooperative
detainees. Instead, many said, Miller was focusing on improving the flow of
information and wanted guards to help interrogators by, for example, telling
them which prisoners a detainee conferred with between questioning sessions.

"I believe that there was no intent to, as it is taken, to quote `soften up'
prisoners for interrogation," said Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, chief of
Army intelligence. "And I know it says it, you know, and people are quoting
those [words], but I have talked to General Miller, and I will tell you I
honestly believe that he did not say it in that manner."

Midway through the hearing, senators received word that a Jihadist website had
posted a video of the beheading of an American civilian, 26-year-old Nick Berg
of Philadelphia, by an Al Qaeda militant in Iraq. In the video, a masked man
says the killing is in retaliation for the humiliations at Abu Ghraib.

Returning from a floor vote, Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia and
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the news had shaken the entire
institution. He urged the military to speed its investigation, so that the
problem could be dealt with quickly to quell the repercussions.

Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said the killing would have
happened anyway. He pronounced himself "more outraged at the outrage" than by
the abuses because the military was already moving to punish the individuals
involved. He also said Democrats were using the abuses for political advantage.

"You know, they're not there for traffic violations," Inhofe said. "If they're
in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're
terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on
their hands."

But Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said the International
Committee of the Red Cross, which had reported problems at American military
prisons in Iraq in 2003, had reported that 70 to 90 percent of the Iraqis in
detention were wrongfully accused. He demanded an explanation for holding large
numbers of innocent people.

Alexander said he was not sure what the Red Cross was basing its numbers on, but
acknowledged that there were a number of people who have been mistakenly
arrested when attackers mingle with a civilian population .

* * *























May 12, 2004

ABUSES IN IRAQ HIGHLIGHT STANDARDS FOR TREATMENT

By Michael Tackett, Tribune senior correspondent

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0405120270may12,1,2642081.sto
ry?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

WASHINGTON -- The Geneva Conventions were born on a bloody battlefield in
northern Italy in June 1859 after a Swiss businessman witnessed the suffering of
40,000 soldiers sick or wounded in fighting between French and Austrian forces
in the Battle of Solferino.

Henry Dunant's response was to help draft what would become the First Geneva
Convention in 1864, an agreement to protect sick and wounded soldiers on the
battlefield, originally ratified by 10 European nations. Dunant also went on to
form what would become the International Committee of the Red Cross to care for
fallen soldiers.

After two world wars that included chemical weapons and the Nazi Holocaust, the
Geneva Conventions evolved to cover broader areas of humanitarian concern,
culminating with the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949 that extended protection
to civilians.

Abuses raise attention

With allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military personnel
erupting, the Geneva Conventions suddenly are drawing wide attention again from
military investigators, Congress and the public. At a Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers added their voices to those questioning
whether the U.S. has been abiding by the conventions designed to protect those
in custody from stark indignities, injury and other forms of abuse.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that the conventions clearly apply to
U.S. treatment of Iraqi prisoners. In an interview with Fox News, Cheney said
that "in this particular case, given the United States' status as an occupying
power, the Geneva Convention does apply to anybody captured in Iraq, and they're
supposed to be treated accordingly."

Nearly 200 nations have adopted the Geneva Conventions. Though there have been
some prosecutions under the conventions, they more often represent a lofty
aspiration rather than a prosecutorial tool.

"The conventions themselves are binding on the states by definition, but there
is not any provision for prosecution for people not abiding by them," said
Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red
Cross in London. "It is not meant to be a body of penal law."

Jordan Paust, a professor of international law at the University of Houston and
a Vietnam-era member of the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps, added that
"the purpose is to set treaty-based obligations on duties of not just soldiers
but also civilians in basic war contexts."

Nations that abide by the treaty generally prosecute the accused under the
criminal laws of that nation. In the U.S., soldiers are likely to be prosecuted
in the military courts and civilians could be tried in the federal court system.
Lt. William Calley, for instance, was charged with homicide for his role in the
1968 My Lai massacre of innocents by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam.

The conventions function more as a minimum standard for behavior than as a
precise statute.

Agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross or other non-
governmental organizations often bring violations to the attention of officials
of various nations.

Douglas Cassel, a specialist in international law at Northwestern University,
said the conventions serve a key purpose for militaries around the world,
"telling them the rules and setting a floor under the conduct of hostilities."

Influence on tactics

The conventions have helped shape tactical decisions as well, he said. During
the 1991 Persian Gulf war, U.S. commanders consulted military lawyers "on
targeting decisions to make sure those targets complied with Geneva
Conventions."

"That's a tremendous mechanism for enforcement of law," Cassel said. "Even with
Chicago cops, you don't have state's attorneys riding around giving advice on a
proper arrest or shooting. So I think the Geneva Conventions have a real
impact."

The unfolding scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners has brought a sharp
focus to the Geneva Conventions, and in ways not seen in the American military
since Vietnam. Though the U.S. often has used the conventions as a way to
pressure other nations when American soldiers or citizens were held by a hostile
state, the scrutiny now has turned inward.

As part of the broader war on terrorism, President Bush made the unusual
decision in 2002 that suspected Al Qaeda terrorists taken into custody were not
entitled to all the protections under the Geneva Conventions, on the theory that
the suspects were not tied to any state that had ratified the treaty.

In a White House briefing last year, then-spokesman Ari Fleischer explained the
rationale this way: "You have two different situations. You have the war against
terrorism and then you have this conflict, which is much more of a traditional
conflict . . . . In the case of the fight in Iraq, there's no question that it's
being done in accordance with the Geneva Conventions."

U.S. lectured Iraqis

In March 2003, when several U.S. soldiers had been captured, Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in an interview with the New England Cable News
Channel, "We have reminded the Iraqis--and I'll do it if they are watching this
program--that there are very clear obligations under the Geneva Convention to
treat prisoners humanely."

Wolfowitz added: "We treat our own prisoners, and there are hundreds of Iraqi
prisoners, extremely well. We feed them, we take care of them, they're very safe
with us."

Those words are particularly awkward now in light of the photographs depicting
U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

"International law is a two-way street," said Paust, the law professor. "We want
protection for soldiers and wounded picked up in the battlefield. And we want to
apply them to the some 40 million U.S. nationals living and traveling abroad
each year."

Dunant, the force behind the conventions, was a traveler who was near the
battlefield in Italy on a business permit from Emperor Napoleon III of France,
according to a biography on the ICRC Web site.

Though he gained fame for his role in forming the ICRC and the original Geneva
Convention, Dunant's efforts in business failed and he continued to help those
wounded in war.

- - -

Rules of war

The internationally recognized document outlining the rules of war has been
signed by nearly 200 nations.

Here are key articles pertaining to the treatment of prisoners:

Article 13: Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated and
protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against
insults and public curiosity.

Article 17: No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may
be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them

information of any kind.

Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed
to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment.

Article 89: In no case shall disciplinary punishments be inhuman, brutal or
dangerous to the health of prisoners.

Article 129: The country holding prisoners must bring anyone who has violated
these laws before a court of law.

Sources: United Nations, International Committee of the Red Cross

* * *


Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel:

May 11, 2004

US PRACTICES AT ABU GHRAIB BARRED IN '80S
Interrogators now taught psychological methods

By Mark Matthews, Sun National Staff

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/bal-
te.interrogate11may11,0,7132344.story

WASHINGTON - The abuse of prisoners in Iraq shows a pattern of harsh, coercive
U.S. interrogation practices that were supposed to have ended with the Cold War.

From the 1960s into the 1980s, the United States trained its interrogators - or
taught its Cold War allies - to exploit dread, nakedness, solitary confinement,
sensory deprivation and other coercive measures to break a prisoner's will.

None of these practices is now officially sanctioned by the Army, and training
at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., gives prominent
attention to the practices allowed or forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

But the investigation of conditions at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad by Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, reports by human rights groups, and accounts by soldiers
and prisoners reveal striking similarities to the discredited practices of past
decades.

Pictures and published accounts from soldiers and prisoners show naked detainees
in vulnerable or humiliating sexual postures, being kept hooded and threatened
with electrocution or attack by dogs.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that it repeatedly warned
U.S. officials about degrading and inhumane treatment used against detainees
that in some cases was "tantamount to torture."

Amnesty International says that as early as July, it informed U.S. officials
about allegations of ill-treatment by the military that included beatings,
electric shock, sleep deprivation, hooding, and prolonged forced standing and
kneeling.

Not limited to Iraq

Such treatment was not limited to Iraq, Amnesty International said in a
statement last week. The group reported that numerous people held at the U.S.
bases in Bagram and Kandahar, Afghanistan, say they were subjected to torture or
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Forms of torture were taught by the Central Intelligence Agency to U.S. allies
as late as the 1980s, according to documents obtained by The Sun in 1997 under
the Freedom of Information Act.

The CIA's Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983, which intelligence
sources said at the time was an updated version of the Vietnam-era KUBARK
manual, taught such methods as stripping suspects naked, keeping them
blindfolded, in solitary confinement and depriving them of sensory input.

"The more complete the deprivation, the more rapidly and deeply the subject is
affected," the 1983 manual stated. Some of the techniques resembled closely the
methods used by a U.S.-trained military unit in Honduras, Battalion 316.

Between 1984 and 1985, after congressional committees began questioning training
techniques being used by the CIA in Latin America, the manual was substantially
revised, with warnings that certain interrogation methods were forbidden.

The early KUBARK manual mentioned electric shock, noting that approval from
headquarters is required if the interrogation is to include bodily harm or "if
medical, chemical or electrical methods or materials are to be used to induce
acquiescence."

For years, U.S. interrogation experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of
torture as an aid to gaining information, aside from its illegality. They say
tortured prisoners are likely to say anything to end their suffering, and are
thus unreliable.

Despite widespread condemnation of the practice, the State Department reported
last year allegations that some nations allied with the United States in the war
on terror, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, still practice torture.

Current training of U.S. interrogators instead employs a variety of
sophisticated psychological methods to break down a prisoner's resistance.

Properly used, interrogation can produce information that can save American
lives without resorting to illegal techniques, says Kerry Hamm, an Army
interrogator from 1987 to 1998.

"There are things that are permissible that are not pleasant or comfortable," he
said. "Even hard-core guys who are trained to resist can fold or break when
everything is used properly."

He attributed the abuses in Iraq to "a lack of experience and a lack of
accountability."

Alternatives

The training currently used says that the Geneva Conventions, as well as U.S.
policy, "expressly prohibit acts of violence or intimidation, including physical
or mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a
means of or aid to interrogation."

It lays out a series of measures designed to achieve the same result without
such cruelty, starting with the preparation that occurs before questioning of a
prisoner. Instead of physical force, the methods outlined play on emotions, ego,
strain and even boredom.

"Every source has a breaking point," the manual states. "The number of
approaches used is limited only by the interrogator's skill. Almost any ruse or
deception is usable as long as [the Geneva Conventions] are not violated."

After collecting information about the prisoner, the interrogator analyzes it
for "indicators of psychological or physical weakness," in part to "manipulate
the source's emotions and weaknesses to gain his willing cooperation," the
manual says.

In a variation of the "good cop-bad cop" routine, an interrogator can, depending
on the prisoner, either keep him at attention to make him aware of his "helpless
and inferior status," or strike a sympathetic posture, intending to put him at
ease.

To gain cooperation, an interrogator can offer incentives that might range from
cigarettes and coffee to political asylum, or flatter a prisoner or help him
rationalize any guilt.

Fear can be manipulated if "great care" is taken to avoid illegal threats. For
instance, a prisoner might fear prosecution or "unjustifiably" fear that he will
suffer torture or death.

"The interrogator may even feel the need to throw objects across the room to
heighten the source's implanted feelings of fear," the manual says. "In most
cases, a loud voice is not necessary. The actual fear is increased by helping
the source realize the unpleasant consequences the facts may cause."

The Geneva Conventions come into play "consistently throughout the course," said
a Fort Huachuca spokeswoman, Tanja Linton. Soldier-students can be subject to a
mock arrest during a training exercise if they violate the rules.

[ Sun national correspondent Tom Bowman contributed to this article. ]

* * *


May 8, 2004

ABU GHRAIB'S ABUSES REQUIRE A WIDER FOCUS

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed very well yesterday his horror
and regret at the sadistic actions of his country's military in an Iraqi prison.
Nonetheless, there was an air of unreality to the hearings in front of two
congressional committees. Mr. Rumsfeld seemed genuinely baffled at how such "un-
American" behaviour could occur. Yet it should not be that hard to believe.

Nineteen months ago, a man was taken out of his jail cell in Brooklyn, N.Y., and
deported -- at midnight, and with no chance to plead his case before a judge --
to the Middle East. That man was Maher Arar of Ottawa.

Mr. Arar's treatment, like that of the Iraqi prisoners, was not a bolt from the
blue. It appears to have been an extension of the U.S. policy of "extraordinary
rendition," first reported by The Washington Post in December, 2002, in which
scores of low-level terrorist suspects captured abroad have been shipped to
Middle Eastern countries for rough interrogations.

The difference in Mr. Arar's case is that he was apprehended at a New York
airport. As a non-citizen on U.S. soil, he was entitled to the protection of the
U.S. Constitution. Yet the deputy attorney-general of the United States signed
off on his deportation. Rough justice was not a matter of individual whim but of
government policy. (A Canadian inquiry into what led to Mr. Arar's ordeal begins
next month.)

From the "extraordinary rendition" of foreigners in foreign lands to stealing
out at midnight with a prisoner in New York proved not to be a large step.
Similarly, it seems a natural progression to move from the degradations visited
by Syrians on Mr. Arar to the depravities endured by Iraqi prisoners at the
hands of Americans.

The Vince Lombardi approach to the war against terrorism -- winning is the only
thing that matters -- is a legitimate one. But democracies do not win by
allowing the rule of law to become corrupted. That road leads straight to the
Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Perhaps Attorney-General John Ashcroft should have been answering questions
beside Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday. On his watch, the U.S. government has created a
legal black hole at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for "enemy combatants." It has created
a similar legal void on U.S. soil for two of its citizens, Yaser Hamdi and Jose
Padilla; they have been held without charge and virtually without counsel for
two years. For an Iraqi prison to be treated as a pit in which the basest
behaviour became possible seems one more natural progression.

It may be that the wanton cruelty at Abu Ghraib was actively promoted by
military intelligence to extract information, a possibility raised yesterday by
Democratic Senator Carl Levin. Or it may have arisen because of the military
command's failure to maintain discipline in the lower ranks. Either way, Abu
Ghraib was fostered by a climate in which anything goes.

The war on terrorism and the liberation of Iraq are just causes. When just
causes sink to atrocities, and in doing so head down self-destructive paths, the
only answer is to return to first principles: the rule of law, and unflinching
openness. A full, honest and public examination of Abu Ghraib is only just
beginning.

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed very well yesterday his horror
and regret at the sadistic actions of his country's military in an Iraqi prison.
Nonetheless, there was an air of unreality to the hearings in front of two
congressional committees. Mr. Rumsfeld seemed genuinely baffled at how such "un-
American" behaviour could occur. Yet it should not be that hard to believe.

Nineteen months ago, a man was taken out of his jail cell in Brooklyn, N.Y., and
deported -- at midnight, and with no chance to plead his case before a judge --
to the Middle East. That man was Maher Arar of Ottawa.

Mr. Arar's treatment, like that of the Iraqi prisoners, was not a bolt from the
blue. It appears to have been an extension of the U.S. policy of "extraordinary
rendition," first reported by The Washington Post in December, 2002, in which
scores of low-level terrorist suspects captured abroad have been shipped to
Middle Eastern countries for rough interrogations.

The difference in Mr. Arar's case is that he was apprehended at a New York
airport. As a non-citizen on U.S. soil, he was entitled to the protection of the
U.S. Constitution. Yet the deputy attorney-general of the United States signed
off on his deportation. Rough justice was not a matter of individual whim but of
government policy. (A Canadian inquiry into what led to Mr. Arar's ordeal begins
next month.)

From the "extraordinary rendition" of foreigners in foreign lands to stealing
out at midnight with a prisoner in New York proved not to be a large step.
Similarly, it seems a natural progression to move from the degradations visited
by Syrians on Mr. Arar to the depravities endured by Iraqi prisoners at the
hands of Americans.

The Vince Lombardi approach to the war against terrorism -- winning is the only
thing that matters -- is a legitimate one. But democracies do not win by
allowing the rule of law to become corrupted. That road leads straight to the
Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Perhaps Attorney-General John Ashcroft should have been answering questions
beside Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday. On his watch, the U.S. government has created a
legal black hole at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for "enemy combatants." It has created
a similar legal void on U.S. soil for two of its citizens, Yaser Hamdi and Jose
Padilla; they have been held without charge and virtually without counsel for
two years. For an Iraqi prison to be treated as a pit in which the basest
behaviour became possible seems one more natural progression.

It may be that the wanton cruelty at Abu Ghraib was actively promoted by
military intelligence to extract information, a possibility raised yesterday by
Democratic Senator Carl Levin. Or it may have arisen because of the military
command's failure to maintain discipline in the lower ranks. Either way, Abu
Ghraib was fostered by a climate in which anything goes.

The war on terrorism and the liberation of Iraq are just causes. When just
causes sink to atrocities, and in doing so head down self-destructive paths, the
only answer is to return to first principles: the rule of law, and unflinching
openness. A full, honest and public examination of Abu Ghraib is only just
beginning.

* * *


Saturday, May 8, 2004

LAWYER SUING RUMSFELD DEFENDS YEMENI PRISONER HELD IN CUBA

By Paul Shukovsky, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/172539_swift08.html-

On a day when U.S. senators grilled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about
prisoner abuse, lawyers in Seattle suing Rumsfeld came to the defense Friday of
one man being held in solitary confinement.

They contend that their client, who was a driver for terrorist chief Osama bin
Laden, is being subjected to relentless sensory deprivation that could drive him
mad.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni who admits chauffeuring bin Laden at
his Afghan farm, has been confined in a tiny cell at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for
almost six months. He has never been charged with a crime.

Attorneys working with Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, a Navy lawyer assigned to defend
Hamdan, said yesterday that he should be freed from solitary before he becomes
mentally incapable of helping his own defense.

Swift's suit against Rumsfeld and President Bush is the first to directly
challenge Bush's plans to try Hamdan and others he chooses to designate as
"enemy combatants" before military tribunals.

Those tribunals, Swift says, violate the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva
Conventions, treaties that lay out the laws of war. So far, Hamdan and five
others of the 600 detainees at Guantanamo have been designated to go before
tribunals.

Swift is challenging the legitimacy of the tribunals, saying the president
controls the prosecutor, judges and the rules of procedure.

But Gregory Garre, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, told U.S. District
Judge Robert Lasnik in Seattle that "this case raises a number of extraordinary
legal challenges to the president's ability to detain enemy combatants."

The Bush administration says it believes that Hamdan and the other detainees
have no rights in U.S. courts and that Lasnik and the rest of the judiciary have
no jurisdiction over them. Garre also said Hamdan does not have rights accorded
to POWs under the Geneva Conventions because he is not a lawful combatant.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of next month whether U.S.
courts have jurisdiction over the president's detention of the prisoners at
Guantanamo. In the meantime, Garre said, Lasnik should put the Hamdan case on
hold.

But lawyers for Swift say that subjecting Hamdan to six more weeks in solitary
is unacceptable.

"These conditions of solitary confinement violate his rights," said Neal Katyal,
a Georgetown University law professor and one-time national security adviser to
former Attorney General Janet Reno.

Swift's legal team produced an evaluation by psychiatrist Daryl Matthews, who
wrote "that Mr. Hamdan's current conditions of confinement place him at
significant risk for future psychiatric deterioration, possibly including the
development of irreversible psychiatric symptoms."

Katyal suggested that Hamdan be placed back into the general population at
Guantanamo or in some other U.S. prison.

Garre replied that "returning Mr. Hamdan to the general facility would create a
grave harm to the environment the military is creating to gain intelligence to
fight the war against al-Qaida." A government source said Garre was referring to
a concern that Hamdan's fellow prisoners, none of whom have lawyers, might stop
talking to interrogators if they learn that he has an attorney.

Lasnik ended the hearing by expressing hope that the proceedings in his court
would send a message to the Bush administration that even "the most vulnerable
and most powerless can still get into federal court and have their cases heard
to some degree."

The judge underscored the independence and fairness of the judiciary when it
comes to issues of human rights and called an independent judiciary "the best
thing for foreign policy."

A ruling is expected next week.

P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky can be reached at 206-448-8072 or
paulshukovsky@seattlepi.com

* * *


May 7, 2004

'US SOLDIERS ABUSED YOUNG GIRL AT IRAQI PRISON'

http://www.itv.com/news/623337.html

The US military has said it will investigate claims by a former inmate of Abu
Ghraib prison that a girl as young as 12 was stripped and beaten by military
personnel.

Suhaib al-Baz, a journalist for the al-Jazeera television network, claims to
have been tortured at the prison, based west of Baghdad, while held there for 54
days.

Mr al-Baz was arrested when reporting clashes between insurgents and coalition
forces in November.

He said: "They brought a 12-year-old girl into our cellblock late at night. Her
brother was a prisoner in the other cells.

"She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her. Her
brother was helpless and could only hear her cries. This affected all of us
because she was just a child.

The allegations cannot be verified independently but Mr al-Baz maintains
psychological and physical violence were commonplace in the jail.

He also claims that a father and his 15-year-old son were tortured in front of
his cell.

He said: "They made the son carry two jerry cans full of water. An American
soldier had a stick and when he stopped, he would beat him.

"He collapsed so they stripped him and poured cold water over him. They brought
a man who was wearing a hood. They pulled it off. The son was shocked to see it
was his father and collapsed.

"When he recovered, he now saw his father dressed in women's underwear and the
Americans laughing at him.

Mr al-Baz claims the guards at the prison were keen to take photographs of the
abuse and turned it into a competition.

"They were enjoying taking photographs of the torture. There was a daily
competition to see who could take the most gruesome picture.

"The winner's photo would be stuck on a wall and also put on their laptop
computers as a screensaver.

"I had a good opinion of the Americans but since my time in prison, I've changed
my mind. In Iraq we still have no freedom or democracy. They are so cruel to
us."

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said Iraqis held by US forces
have been subjected to systematic degrading treatment, sometimes close to
torture, that may have been officially condoned.

The ICRC said visits to detention centres in Iraq between March and November
2003 had turned up violations of international treaties on prisoners of war.

The ICRC, whose reports on prison visits are confidential, went public with some
of its findings after parts of the 24-page document were carried by the Wall
Street Journal.

The scandal over detainee abuse broke last week with the release of photographs
showing the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib.

US Defecse Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has taken responsibility for the incidents
and apologised to the victims, the Iraqi people and Americans.

* * *


May 7, 2004

JUDGE ASKED TO MOVE AHEAD LAWSUIT INVOLVING GUANTANAMO DETAINEE

By Melanthia Mitchell, Associated Press Writer

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=
WA%20Guantanamo%20Bin%20Laden%20Driver&searchdiff=1&searchpagefrom=1

SEATTLE (AP) -- Military and civilian attorneys challenging the legality of
military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp on Friday urged a federal
judge to quickly resolve the case, filed on behalf of a former driver for Osama
bin Laden.

Responding to a government request to temporarily delay the lawsuit filed on
behalf of Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan, his lawyers told U.S. District Judge Robert
S. Lasnik that the government is violating Hamdan's rights by continuing to hold
him without charges.

"We're asking the judge to treat this like an ordinary case and set a schedule"
on court proceedings "so the case can move forward," said Georgetown University
law professor Neal K. Katyal.

Katyal is part of a legal team assembled by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who
was assigned to represent Hamdan. Swift, who has legal residence in Seattle,
filed the lawsuit here last month.

Hamdan, 34, is one of six detainees the Bush administration has said it plans to
try by tribunal.

The government has asked that the lawsuit be delayed until the U.S. Supreme
Court rules on three other cases involving whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction
over Guantanamo prisoners.

"We're asking the court to temporarily stay things until we have guidance from
the Supreme Court," Gregory Garre, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, said
in court Friday.

Hamdan's attorneys also seek to have him moved from confinement at Camp Echo,
adjacent to the main Guantanamo prison, Camp Delta.

"If they keep him in this solitary confinement ... there is a likelihood of
irreparable (psychological) harm," Katyal said in court.

Garre argued that Hamdan, unlike other detainees, has access to counsel while at
Camp Echo.

Garre also said Hamdan is continuously monitored and that moving him would be
"tantamount to granting him temporary release," posing a security risk.

Lasnik said he expects to rule on the motion to stay the case either Monday or
Tuesday.

Both Garre and Brian Kipnis of the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on
the case after the hearing.

The lawsuit filed by Swift challenges the legitimacy of military tribunals to
try men detained by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. It names as defendants
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others.

The lawsuit is the first such challenge to tribunals since World War II, Katyal
said.

Presidential administrations after World War II were reluctant to use military
tribunals because of the deprivation of prisoners' rights. But "President Bush
resuscitated them on his own without even asking Congress," Katyal said.

"This lawsuit says that the government has gone way too far," he said.

Ultimately, "we hope the district judge will strike down the military tribunals
as unconstitutional," Katyal said. "We say this is the type of severe
deprivation of liberty in which a court should exercise its power."

Hamdan left Yemen in 1996 for Afghanistan. He planned to continue on to
Tajikistan to join Muslims fighting against former Soviet communists but took a
job to support his family.

He began working for bin Laden in 1997 on his farm in the southern Afghan city
of Kandahar, earning about $200 a month driving a truck and moving farm workers
to the fields.

Swift has said Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 by tribesmen
interested in capturing Arabs for a bounty.

* * *


May 7, 2004

LAWYERS WANT OSAMA DRIVER CASE TO PROCEED

By Melanthia Mitchell, Associated Press Writer

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=
Guantanamo%20Bin%20Laden%20Driver&searchdiff=1&searchpagefrom=1

SEATTLE -- Challenging the legality of military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay
prison camp, lawyers on Friday urged a federal judge to move ahead with
proceedings in the case involving Osama bin Laden's former driver.

Responding to a government request to temporarily delay a lawsuit filed on
behalf of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, his lawyers told District Judge Robert S. Lasnik
that the government is violating Hamdan's rights by continuing to hold him
without charges.

"We're asking the judge to treat this like an ordinary case and set a schedule
so the case can move forward," said Neal K. Katyal, who is part of a legal team
assembled by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift.

Swift, who was assigned to represent Hamdan, filed the lawsuit in Seattle last
month.

Hamdan, 34, is the first detainee at Guantanamo publicly identified as having a
link to bin Laden. He is one of six detainees the Bush administration has said
it plans to try by military tribunal.

Hamdan left Yemen in 1996 for Afghanistan, and planned to continue on to
Tajikistan to join Muslims fighting against former Soviet communists but took a
job to support his family. He began working for bin Laden in 1997 on his farm in
the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, earning about $200 a month driving a truck
and moving farm workers to the fields.

The government has asked that the lawsuit be delayed until the Supreme Court
rules on three other cases involving whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction over
those being held at the prison camp in Cuba.

Hamdan's lawyers also asked to have him moved from solitary confinement. But,
Gregory Garre, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, said Hamdan is
continuously monitored and that moving him would be "tantamount to granting him
temporary release," posing a security risk.

* * *

The Village Voice --

May 7th, 2004

IS BUSH THE LAW?
Can the commander in chief 'detain' the
constitution indefinitely all by himself?

by Nat Hentoff

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0419/hentoff.php

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In situations where the government is on a war footing, you have to trust the
executive.

          -- Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement, arguing for the government.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[If the government prevails, the Supreme Court] would allow the president
unlimited power to imprison any American, anywhere, at any time, without trial,
simply by labeling him an "enemy combatant."

          -- Jennifer Martinez, arguing for Jose Padilla.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A closely divided high court -- with Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy
likely to provide the swing votes -- will decide sometime in June whether, for
the first time in history, a president, on his own authority, can imprison
American citizens indefinitely, incommunicado, without charges and without
meaningful access to their lawyers.

The prisoners in this case, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, were not in the
Supreme Court to hear the debate about their fate. They remain in windowless
cells in navy brigs on American soil. They were not able to hear federal public
defender Frank Dunham, representing Yaser Hamdi, tell the justices, his voice
rising:

"I urge the court to find that citizens can only be detained by law. If there is
any law at all [in these detentions], it is the executive's own secret
definition of whatever [an] enemy combatant is."

Sandra Day O'Connor, at some points seeming to favor the government, did ask a
key question of Bush's lawyer about how long these American citizens can be
locked away as "enemy combatants."

"Have we ever," she said, "had a situation like this, where presumably this
warlike status could last for 25 years, 50 years, whatever it is?" Only she and
her colleagues can tell us how long this dangerous-to-liberty situation will now
last.

If the government wins, these imprisoned Americans, and others to come under
future administrations, could eventually die in "detention." In this war on
loosely connected terrorist organizations around the world, there is no way to
predict when hostilities will end.

After Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, he
imprisoned hundreds of dissenting citizens who had been brought before military
tribunals. His actions belatedly came before the Supreme Court in 1866. By then
the war, and Lincoln, were finished. Arguing for the government in that case, Ex
Parte Milligan, was Attorney General James Speed, who insisted -- as the Bush
administration now has -- that in wartime, the president becomes:

"The supreme legislator, supreme judge, and supreme executive."

But a majority of the 1866 Supreme Court was appalled by the transmogrification
of the president of the United States into an absolute monarch. Wrote Chief
Justice David Davis:

"The proposition is this: that in a time of war the commander of an armed force
. . . has the power . . . to suspend all civil rights and their remedies, and
subject citizens . . . to the rule of his will. . . . If true, [our] republican
government is a failure, and there is an end of liberty regulated by law."

A chilling example of how the Bush administration brazenly bypasses the law of
the Bill of Rights was the acknowledgment by Deputy Solicitor General Paul
Clement during oral arguments that Hamdi and Padilla were actually allowed to
see their lawyers only after two years of not knowing what was happening with
their cases.

Indeed, suddenly the administration -- surprised and worried that the Supreme
Court was willing to hear these two cases after the government had kept
insisting the courts had no jurisdiction over the commander in chief's
designation of "enemy combatants" -- did let the lawyers in. The Bush team
thought the high court would thus look more favorably on its arguments.

But as Hamdi's lawyer, Frank Dunham, told the February 13 Los Angeles Daily
Journal, he entered the interview room to find not only Hamdi, but also "a naval
commander who was there to observe their conversation."

The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights requires "Assistance of Counsel" when
you're "detained," and the core of that right is lawyer-client confidentiality.
No eavesdropping by the government.

But not only was a naval commander in the room with Dunham and his client. Also,
Dunham added, "hovering over them was a video camera, its red light brightly
lit."

Said Dunham, "Hamdi had a meeting with counsel, but didn't have access to
counsel." And when Padilla's lawyers -- Donna Newman and Andrew Patel -- were
finally allowed to meet with their client, the government was also in the room
listening in.

In a brief to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, his law-yers introduced a 1951
Supreme Court decision, Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, by
saying, "The Government may not imprison . . . a person except in accordance
with fair procedures." Then they confronted George W. Bush with the accusatory
language of that 1951 ruling: "It is not enough to know that the men applying
the [fairness] standard are honorable and devoted men. This is a government of
laws, not of men." (Emphasis added.)

On April 28, on Fox television, even Bill O'Reilly -- realizing, from what civil
libertarian judge Andrew Napolitano told him, how easily an American citizen can
become an "enemy combatant" -- said with concern, "I [would] disappear!"

* * *


May 7, 2004

RED CROSS SAW "WIDESPREAD ABUSE" IN IRAQ

By Richard Waddington

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=
506877&section=news

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iraqi detainees were subjected to "serious violations", with
abuse so widespread it may have been condoned by U.S.-led coalition forces, the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says.

Breaking with its usual vow of silence, the Geneva-based humanitarian
organisation said on Friday that visits to coalition detention centres in Iraq,
carried out between March and November 2003, had shown infringements of
international treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war.

In some cases, the ill-treatment was "tantamount to torture," particularly when
interrogators were seeking information or confessions, the ICRC said in a
report, parts of which were published in U.S. financial daily the Wall Street
Journal.

Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of ICRC operations, confirmed the contents of the
report at a news conference but said the Red Cross, whose reports are
confidential, would not issue the rest of the document.

He said the report referred mainly to the actions of U.S. forces at Baghdad's
notorious Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere, although the ICRC had also expressed
concerns over the past year to British commanders. He gave no further details.

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

Pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at Abu Ghraib -- the
largest prison in the country and notorious for torture under Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein -- have sparked an international outcry.

The excerpts published by the Wall Street Journal spoke of the use of ill-
treatment that "went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered a practice
tolerated" by coalition forces.

That differs sharply from the view of senior officials in the Bush
administration that military higher-ups had not condoned abuse, the newspaper
said.

In the report, the ICRC said prisoners at Abu Ghraib were held naked in empty
cells and beaten by soldiers. Three former military policemen at the prison told
Reuters on Thursday that abuse was commonplace.

The humanitarian group also said coalition forces fired on unarmed prisoners
from watchtowers and killed some of them, as well as committing "serious
violations" of the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of war prisoners.

The Red Cross said on Thursday it had repeatedly urged the United States to take
"corrective action" at the jail.

*

EXCERPTS FROM ICRC REPORT ON IRAQ

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=
506864&section=news

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross says there have
been widespread abuse and violations of human rights law in U.S.-controlled
Iraqi detention centres.

It has not released the confidential 24-page report it made following visits to
jails between March and November 2003. But U.S. financial daily the Wall Street
Journal on Friday published some excerpts, which the ICRC confirmed as genuine.

The report was handed to U.S. authorities in February 2004.

The ICRC said it drew the attention of the coalition forces "to a number of
serious violations of international humanitarian law. These violations have been
documented and sometimes observed while visiting prisoners of war, civilian
internees and other protected persons by the Geneva Conventions."

Violations listed in the report in the Journal include:

-- Brutality against protected persons upon capture and initial custody,
sometimes causing death or serious injury.

-- Physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure
information.

-- Prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight.

-- Excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their
liberty resulting in death or injury during their period of internment.

Some excerpts from the Wall Street Journal report:

"According to allegations collected by ICRC delegates during private interviews
with persons deprived of their liberty, ill-treatment during capture was
frequent.

"While certain circumstances might require defensive precautions and the use of
force...the ICRC collected allegations of ill-treatment following capture which
took place in Baghdad, Basrah, Ramadi and Tikrit, indicating a consistent
pattern with respect to times and places of brutal behaviour during arrest.

"The repetition of such behaviour...appeared to go beyond the reasonable,
legitimate and proportional use of force required to apprehend suspects or
restrain persons resisting arrest or capture, and seemed to reflect a usual
modus operandi by certain coalition forces' battle groups.

"According to allegations collected by the ICRC, ill-treatment during
interrogation was not systematic, except with regard to persons arrested in
connection with suspected security offences or deemed to have an 'intelligence'
value.

"In these cases, persons deprived of their liberty under supervision of military
intelligence were at high risk of being subjected to a variety of harsh
treatments ranging from insults, threats and humiliations to both physical and
psychological coercion, which in some cases was tantamount to torture, in order
to force cooperation with their interrogators."

The ICRC said it had also "started to document what appeared to be widespread
abuse of power and ill-treatment by the Iraqi police, which is under the
supervision of the occupying power, including threats to hand over persons in
their custody to the CF so as to extort money from them.

"In the case of 'High Value Detainees' held in Baghdad International Airport,
the continued internment, several months after their arrest, in strict solitary
confinement in cells devoid of sunlight for nearly 23 hours a day constituted a
serious violation of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.

"Since the beginning of the conflict, the ICRC has regularly brought its
concerns to the attention of the coalition forces. The observations in the
present report are consistent with those made earlier on several occasions
orally and in writing to the coalition forces throughout 2003.

"In spite of some improvements in the material conditions of internment,
allegations of ill-treatment perpetuated...against persons deprived of their
liberty continued to be collected by the ICRC and thus suggested that the use of
ill-treatment against persons deprived of their liberty went beyond exceptional
causes and might be considered as a practice tolerated by the coalition forces."

Methods of ill-treatment during interrogation included: "hooding a detainee with
a bag, sometimes in conjunction with beatings thus increasing anxiety as to when
blows would come"; handcuffing so tight that they caused skin lesions and nerve
damage; beating with pistols and rifles; threats of reprisals against family
members; and stripping detainees naked for several days in solitary confinement
in a completely dark cell."

* * *


May 7, 2004

THE BUCK STOPS WHERE?

From The Economist Global Agenda

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2663793

Calls are growing for the resignation or sacking of Donald Rumsfeld, America's
defence secretary, over coalition troops' abuse of prisoners in Iraq

GEORGE BUSH is famously loyal to those closest to him. But that loyalty came
under perhaps its greatest ever strain this week, as calls mounted for the
resignation or dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence, over the
torture and humiliation of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The
president has so far resisted these calls. He scolded Mr Rumsfeld on Wednesday
May 5th, saying he should have known more, sooner, about the abuses. But on
Thursday he called Mr Rumsfeld "a really good secretary of defence" and said he
would remain in the cabinet.

Mr Rumsfeld has many enemies. He won grudging admiration from the press and many
Americans for his straight-talking briefings during the Iraq war, even though he
was never exactly shy about refusing to answer questions. He looked smart when
American-led forces routed the Iraqi army even faster than expected. Since the
war's end, however, he has come under increasing fire for his perceived failure
to plan sufficiently for peacekeeping and rebuilding. He had expected to reduce
the number of American troops in Iraq to mere tens of thousands by late 2003,
anticipating that grateful Iraqis would shoulder the burden of security. This
turns out to have been wildly optimistic. Some 135,000 Americans are still
stationed in the country.

The White House and the US Defence Department post statements by Mr Bush and Mr
Rumsfeld on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. The State Department gives information
on the rebuilding of Iraq. Human Rights Watch calls on America to allow
independent monitoring of detention facilities in Iraq and Guantànamo Bay.

Within the administration, too, he is a divisive figure. He is one of the
closest advisers to Mr Bush (alongside Condoleezza Rice, the national security
adviser, and Dick Cheney, the vice-president). But his differences with Colin
Powell, the secretary of state, are well known. Mr Powell urged Mr Bush to seek
United Nations backing for the Iraq war, while Mr Rumsfeld disdained such a
move. When "senior administration officials" criticise the Pentagon anonymously
in newspapers, they are believed often to be from the State Department, and
occasionally Mr Powell himself.

Rivalries between the diplomats at the State Department and the warriors of the
Pentagon are nothing new. And despite setbacks in Iraq, most Americans approved
of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war until recently. But during
the disasters of April, in which more American soldiers were killed than during
the main fighting of the war in 2003, poll numbers slipped. And after pictures
of the Abu Ghraib abuses came to light, they slipped further -- according to a
new Gallup poll, 55% of Americans now disapprove of Mr Bush's handling of the
situation in Iraq, with only 42% approving. What had long seemed the president's
biggest political strength -- his role as a war leader -- may be becoming a
liability. (Meanwhile, strong jobs numbers for April released on Friday, coming
on top of good figures for March, may make what had been the president's biggest
liability -- the economy -- his biggest hope. It will be scant comfort to Mr
Rumsfeld, but if he is fired, he will be rejoining a relatively buoyant labour
market.)

The decision not to sack Mr Rumsfeld is a gamble. Ditching one of the
president's closest advisers would be a sign of weakness and defeat just six
months before an election, something Mr Bush is understandably keen to avoid.
But keeping the tainted Mr Rumsfeld could be just as dangerous, both at home and
abroad. The media smell blood: the influential New York Times has called for Mr
Rumsfeld's head (as has The Economist -- see article).

Moreover, by offering words but not deeds, Mr Bush may appear to the Muslim
world to be showing only false contrition. In two interviews with Arabic
television stations on Wednesday, he called the goings-on at Abu Ghraib
"abhorrent" but did not apologise, a fact not lost on media commentators. The
next day, Mr Bush changed tack, telling reporters he had said the magic word,
"sorry", in a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan.

But in the electrified political atmosphere of an election year, "sorry" alone
may not be enough. Predictably, John Kerry, Mr Bush's Democratic rival in
November's election, has called for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation, as has the leader
of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Republican
congressmen, naturally, have been more circumspect. But many are said to be
furious that they did not learn about Abu Ghraib before the press, given that
the first accusations of abuse had been made in January.

When Mr Rumsfeld appears before House and Senate panels on Friday, the
legislators' own wounded pride at being kept in the dark may lead them to take
it out on him. If even the Republicans give him a hard time and the public is
left unimpressed by his performance, Mr Bush may be forced to cut him adrift.

For opponents of the war and of the United States around the world, the
treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib fits into a pattern. Just before the
revelations of abuse in Iraq, the Bush administration found itself before the
Supreme Court defending its stance in other cases involving prisoners. Several
hundred men captured in Afghanistan remain in prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba,
and the administration claims they have no right to a trial. More
controversially for Americans, two American citizens, Jose Padilla (the alleged
"dirty bomber") and Yaser Hamdi, captured in Afghanistan, have been declared
enemy combatants and held incommunicado without trial for over a year. The
Supreme Court will rule on all of these cases this summer.

Mr Bush insists that the abuses of Abu Ghraib do not represent America's soul,
but for many, both at home and abroad, they are not as isolated as he would like
to believe. If the outcry is sustained, or if new lurid details emerge, offering
up Mr Rumsfeld may be the president's only choice.

* * *



May 7, 2004

RUMSFELD WILL STAY, PRESIDENT INSISTS

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/07/
rumsfeld_will_stay_president_insists_boston_globe/

WASHINGTON President Bush stood behind embattled Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld yesterday, saying he would remain in the Cabinet despite mounting
pressure from Democrats that he step down because of the prisoner abuse in Iraq.

"Secretary Rumsfeld is a really good secretary of defense," Bush said in the
Rose Garden after meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan. "Secretary Rumsfeld
has served our nation well. Secretary Rumsfeld has been the secretary during two
wars. He is an important part of my Cabinet, and he'll stay in my Cabinet." But
calls for Rumsfeld to resign and take responsibility for the abuses at Abu
Ghraib prison came from congressional Democrats, led by Representative Nancy
Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, and Senator John F. Kerry of
Massachusetts, the party's presumptive presidential nominee. [Related story,
A3.]

"Secretary Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon has unnecessarily jeopardized
the safety of American troops, and it has seriously undermined our ability to
prosecute the war on terrorism," Pelosi said. "The Pentagon Secretary Rumsfeld
oversees has become an island of unaccountability, ignoring the Geneva
Conventions, our allies, and common sense."

Asked while campaigning in California whether Rumsfeld, 71, should resign, Kerry
replied that he should have quit "long ago" and faulted him for not providing
Congress with information about pre-interrogation practices at the prison near
Baghdad.

Congressional Republicans, who have also been critical of Rumsfeld in recent
days, refrained from blaming him directly for the abuse, waiting to hear his
defense today before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Armed Services
committees. But they have also criticized him for failing to tell them about
graphic photos that became public last week of Iraqis being tied up, beaten, and
forced to parade naked before cameras, sometimes in sexually explicit positions.

Rumsfeld canceled an appearance in Philadelphia yesterday so he could huddle
with advisers and prepare to testify before the committees, which called the
hearing to examine the prisoner abuses. At least three networks, ABC, CBS, and
NBC, plan to broadcast the session between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Bush administration officials said privately they were concerned that if senior
Republican lawmakers begin calling for Rumsfeld's dismissal, the political
pressure would be too much to withstand.

"There are a lot of senators that would like to have been aware of the situation
prior to hearing about it on television," Senator John Sununu, Republican of New
Hampshire, said in an interview.

A growing number of critics also blamed the Pentagon chief indirectly for the
abuses by creating a military culture in occupied Iraq that did not sufficiently
define limits on the methods used to pressure detainees to be forthcoming in
interrogations.

Rumsfeld, the two-time Pentagon chief who a year ago was hailed by some as a
visionary for the speedy removal of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the
toppling of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, declared in 2002 that the Geneva
Conventions were outdated and inapplicable to many suspected terrorists, because
they were not part of an organized army. He said that the United States would
honor some standards in the conventions concerning humane treatment of wartime
prisoners. Under his watch, prison guards have been permitted to prepare
detainees for interrogation by subjecting them to "stress and duress," according
to Pentagon reports recently made public.

Such preparations apparently got out of hand at Abu Ghraib, where six soldiers,
private contractors, and intelligence agents have been accused of sexual and
physical abuse of prisoners. The six soldiers are facing criminal charges, and
some of their commanders have been relieved of duty.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that some of the civilian
contractors involved could face criminal charges.

Former federal officials cited Rumsfeld's policy of not declaring most detainees
from Afghanistan and Iraq as prisoners of war for breeding a culture of
permissiveness that may have led to the abuse. The Geneva Conventions, at a
minimum, require that detainees be given a formal hearing to determine whether
or not they are eligible for POW status something the Pentagon has refused to
do.

The Yale Law School dean-designate, Harold Koh, a former assistant secretary of
state for human rights during the Clinton administration, said the abuse of
prisoners was the indirect result of Rumsfeld's policy of setting aside the
Geneva Conventions for captured belligerents at the start of the war on
terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I think the Defense Department is reaping the whirlwind of its strategy of
condoning wide-scale departures from traditional POW protections," Koh said.
"They're there for a reason. Some of these officials have treated the legal
regimes as a nuisance to be disgarded in the war against terrorism, when it
turns out they're playing a very important role in protecting our troops from
violations and protecting our country against needless humiliation by conduct
that most Americans find abhorrent."

A Pentagon report in March, made public last week, said that no copies of the
Geneva Conventions were found posted in Abu Ghraib prison, a step considered a
basic necessity to maintain discipline among prison guards.

The United States has also deviated from traditional practices at the military
detention facility at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by not following
the Geneva Conventions' precedure for holding a formal review for each detainee
to determine whether they are eligible for POW status.

According to military and intelligence officials, the Guantanamo guards help
"set the conditions" for interrogations of detainees, a process that officials
say included efforts to break them down psychologically.

The report by Army Major General Antonio Taguba found that the same practices
were going on at the Abu Ghraib prison, with guards being asked to subject
prisoners to stressful treatment to prepare them for questioning.

"Interrogators actively requested that [military police] guards set physical and
mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses," Taguba wrote.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday it had repeatedly
warned the United States about abuses in Iraq since last year. "We were aware of
what was going on, and based on our findings, we have repeatedly requested the
US authorities to take corrective action," said Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for
the organization in Geneva."

Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense during the Vietnam War and has
advised Rumsfeld on Iraq, said in an interview that Rumsfeld must go.

"I think he should resign," McNamara said. "There are times when that has to
happen."

McNamara, who said he had not done enough to curb abuses committed by American
troops in Vietnam, said Rumsfeld should conclude, "It happened on my watch and,
by God, I feel responsible and I am resigning."

Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, said on the floor of the
House of Representatives which yesterday passed a resolution, 365 to 50,
condemning the abuses that "if the president doesn't fire the secretary, if he
doesn't resign, I think it is the duty of this Congress to file articles of
impeachment."

* * *


May 7, 2004

RESERVISTS NOT READY FOR PRISON DUTY, SOME SAY

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/07/reservists_not_ready_for_p
rison_duty_some_say/

CUMBERLAND, Md. -- Not long ago, they were ordinary people with ordinary dreams.
One hoped to become a police officer like her father. Another wanted to go to
college after a divorce. Now these reservists from the 372d Military Police are
facing criminal charges for abusing Iraqi prisoners in their care. The photos of
naked Iraqis and smiling soldiers taken during the abuse sparked a widening
international scandal that has embarrassed President Bush and outraged the Arab
world.

The way that these reservists -- who had worked ordinary jobs at prisons,
chicken factories, a hometown Papa John's pizzeria -- came to be accused of
extraordinary crimes has anguished many in the hills of western Maryland where
the 372d is based.

In Cumberland and its surrounding hamlets, towns of freight trains, farmhouses,
and mobile homes, some suspect that intelligence agents at the prison pressured
the soldiers into the abuse, a conclusion supported at least in part by an
internal Army investigation. Others cite lack of training or immaturity among
ill-prepared reservists as possible explanations.
 More about the Reserves

"I would like to know the reason why," said Sharon Alleva, a 49-year-old Army
veteran who served six years in the 372d. She said at least one explanation
might be that many of the accused soldiers were "kids," with little training in
prison management, who had only committed to minimal military service. "When you
are in the regular service, you are used to being uprooted . . . But when you're
in the reserves, you think you're playing army."

But two soldiers from the 372d who worked at Abu Ghraib prison and knew the
accused said they felt the problem was not a matter of training, but of morals.

"It doesn't matter how much training you had," said one soldier who worked in
the section where the abuse occurred after it had happened. He asked not to be
identified for fear of offending others in the company. "It's common sense.
Yeah, we didn't have much training, but you do what you are told. And if you are
told to do that, you should know better."

Interviews with soldiers and family members, news reports, and snippets from the
372d's newsletter, which was published in the local newspaper, paint a picture
of a group of soldiers who were only partially prepared for the duty of guarding
the most notorious prison in Iraq.

Among the most experienced members of the group of approximately 180 who left
for Iraq last May was Sergeant Charles A. Graner Jr., a 35-year-old divorced
father of two and former Marine. Graner had worked for years at a county prison
and then at the State Correctional Institution, which houses many of
Pennsylvania's death row inmates.

In Iraq, Graner was known to keep a camera with him, snapping pictures at all
times of mortar attacks, other soldiers, and fuel tanks burning.

Graner is now one of six reservists facing criminal charges, accused of acting
in a supervisory role over other reservists during the prison abuse. Like nearly
all the soldiers accused of abuse, he worked the night shift in Tier 1, a part
of the prison that housed former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and people
accused of attacking coalition forces. Photographs of him, smiling in front of a
pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners, have been broadcast around the world. Guy
Womack, his lawyer, did not return several calls seeking comment.

Also in the group was Army Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, 37, who
has worked at Buckingham Correctional Center, a medium-security facility, since
1996. The two men knew each other well, and had just been posted together as
reservists at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, home to the US Army War
College, according to another soldier who had also been posted there.

Frederick is also facing criminal charges, and the report from an internal Army
investigation conducted by Major General Antonio M. Taguba gives a graphic
glimpse of the allegations, including that prisoners were forced to simulate sex
acts.

But the 372d also included young reservists with almost no experience, such as
Specialist Sabrina Harman, 26, of Lorton, Va., who is facing charges and has
told her parents she took some of the photos so that she would not have to be in
them, according to her stepmother, Patricia Harman Since graduating from high
school she had wanted to be a police officer like her father and brother, but
she "didn't make the cutoff," said Patricia Harman.

After a time working for Papa John's, she joined the reserves to get the
training she needed.

"She went away for three months" to boot camp, Harman said. "Then they shipped
her out right after she came back."

Specialist Jeremy Sivits, 24 of Hyndman, Pa., also charged, trained as a
mechanic before he left for Iraq, according to the Baltimore Sun. "Why was a
mechanic allowed to handle prisoners?" the Sun quoted Sivits' father, Daniel, as
saying.

Two others, Sergeant Javal Davis and Specialist Megan Ambuhl, also face criminal
charges.

And 21-year-old Lynndie England, who is not currently facing charges but appears
in one of the most provocative photos pointing at a naked Iraqi man's genitals,
had been trained as a clerical worker. England, who married and divorced her
high school sweetheart and hoped to go to college, apparently was in that
section of the prison to visit Graner, her boyfriend.

One soldier who was not accused painted a grim picture of life at Abu Ghraib. He
said he only received one day of orientation and that there were only a few
interpreters for approximately 4,000 inmates. Soldiers used two-way radios when
they needed emergency language help, he said.

The unit shipped out last May, after 2 months of training at Fort Lee, Va.,
where they they took classes on the "cultural awareness rules of engagement,"
according to Gayle Johnson, an officer at the First Army Public Affairs office.
The classes included "general information on the handling and treatment of
prisoners," she said.

"They did learn about the culture of Iraqis," said Rebecca McClarran, mother of
a soldier in the 372d who was not accused of abuse. Among the lessons the male
soldiers were taught, she said, was that "men might kiss you" and "no looking at
women." Although new military police recruits have nine weeks of basic training
and eight weeks of specialized training at US Army Military Police School at
Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., a few current and past members of the 372d said that was
not sufficient.

But a school official said it should have been. "Every soldier that comes for
military police training here receives training dealing with prisoners of war,
civilian internees, and detainees," he said by phone on condition that his name
be withheld. "Every soldier . . . will be trained in the laws of war and how to
treat people in their custody in a humane way."

* * *


May 7, 2004

RUMSFELD SURPRISED THAT ABUSE PHOTOS SURPRISED US?: ANN WOOLNER

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_woolner
&sid=ac6igdGoBeys

(Bloomberg) -- It shouldn't have surprised Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld that U.S. servicemen and women were abusing, even killing, detainees in
the war on terror.

The evidence had been mounting for more than a year, if only the military had
taken it more seriously. Rumsfeld's passive reaction to photos of sexual
humiliation of detainees indicates he was more surprised at the furor over them
than he was about their content.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only outside group allowed to
visit U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, repeatedly complained to the military about the
mistreatment of detainees. So had Amnesty International, a human rights group.

In December 2002, the Washington Post quoted unnamed military and intelligence
officers describing interrogation techniques used at the U.S.-occupied air base
at Bagram, Afghanistan, as so aggressive as to be illegal under international
law.

Two detainee deaths were ruled to be homicides, the New York Times reported that
same month.

One year ago four American military police officers were charged with kicking
and beating detainees at Camp Bucca, Iraq.

That presented an opportunity to stop that sort of thing from ever happening
again. But the Camp Bucca beatings didn't inspire anyone in the military to
instruct U.S. guards in other Iraqi prisons about how to humanely handle
detainees, according to a report completed in March investigating events at Abu
Ghraib prison near Baghdad and written by Major General Antonio Taguba.

In fact, the report says the same lieutenant colonel who had overseen Camp Bucca
and other U.S. prisons in Iraq at the time of the beatings, Jerry Phillabaum,
was allowed to stay on to oversee the prison at Abu Ghraib.

'Proven Deficiencies'

This was due to the generosity of Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, an Army
reservist in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade, which staffed the
military prisons in Iraq.

"Despite his proven deficiencies," the Taguba report says, she allowed
"Phillabaum to remain in command of her most troubled battalion guarding, by
far, the largest number of detainees" in her brigade.

From the report's description, Karpinski seems to have exercised the same sort
of hands-off leadership as did the fishing-hat wearing Lieutenant Colonel Henry
Blake in the television sitcom, MASH. (At least Blake's subordinates knew how to
do their jobs and did them well.)

The guards at Abu Ghraib had no training, no experience in detention, no copies
of the Geneva Convention rules the White House and Pentagon were telling
reporters they were following.

Understaffed and Overcrowded

The prison was grossly understaffed and overcrowded, and the line between the
guards' duties and interrogators' jobs was ill- defined, the Taguba report said.
Nor did it help morale that many of the guards had been told their tours were
being extended.

These are the sorts of problems that occur in a postwar effort that was poorly
planned (if at all) and is being carried out by too few soldiers, many of whom
were only part-time soldiers to begin with.

"The horrific abuses suffered by the detainees at Abu Ghraib," says the report,
"were wanton acts of select soldiers in an unsupervised and dangerous setting."

Given the predictability of abuse, given the warnings, given the mounting
evidence it was happening, no wonder Rumsfeld's reaction to the photographs has
been so subdued.

Congressional Testimony

He is explaining his conduct today to two congressional committees, with an
apology due for failing to keep the lawmakers informed.

What seems to have caught him off guard was not what the prison photos depict,
but that so many people are so very angry about it.

How else to explain the fact that reports of photographed sexual humiliation of
detainees didn't prompt him to demand the pictures when they surfaced within the
military months ago? Or when the Pentagon learned they were about to be
broadcast nationally?

How else to explain an attitude so nonchalant that as recently as Tuesday he
hadn't read the full report about Abu Ghraib, now two months old?

Nor was he concerned enough to inform the White House, Congress or the public
about what had happened at the prison before we all learned about it through CBS
News and the New Yorker.

Full Disclosure

Asked by reporters why he hadn't fully disclosed the Abu Ghraib abuse back when
military investigators uncovered it, Rumsfeld said, "We didn't know the scale."

But they did, at least by March when the Taguba report was completed.

"Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were
inflicted on several detainees," the report said. "Systemic and illegal abuse of
detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military
police guard force."

The report described the photographs in detail, along with other abuses, and
said the photos were available through the military's criminal investigators. In
fact, investigators got those photos as long ago as January, according to the
Taguba report.

Rumsfeld had to have known the scale of the abuse. What he didn't know was the
scale of the reaction.

A Firestorm

Why the secretary of defense didn't foresee that the sexual humiliation of men
and women in U.S. custody would ignite a firestorm at home and abroad is a
troubling question, indeed.

Nor is the inattention to complaints limited to Abu Ghraib. At Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, the U.S. military runs a camp where more than 600 suspected Taliban and
al-Qaeda associates have been detained incommunicado for more than two years,
despite Red Cross complaints about their deteriorating mental states due to
their indefinite detentions.

Administration officials put the camp at the military base "so they could be in
a place where no court could review their actions," says Thomas Wilner, a
Washington lawyer representing Guantanamo detainees. "When an administration
does that, you create an atmosphere of illegality."

And last month, the man who has been running the camp at Guantanamo, Major
General Geoffrey Miller, took command of Abu Ghraib.

"I would imagine Geoffrey Miller is radioactive in the Muslim world," says
Eugene Fidell, a Washington lawyer with a military practice. He recently
represented Captain James Yee, a Muslim Army chaplain based at Guantanamo who
was jailed on suspicion of espionage only to be cleared of all charges.

An Apology

Miller got off to a promising start by apologizing to the Iraqi people and by
opening up Abu Ghraib to journalists.

But his assignment signals a lack of comprehension at the Pentagon about the
depth of the crisis at Abu Ghraib and its causes.

Last fall, Miller was brought in to assess the situation at Abu Ghraib and
concluded that what was needed was for the military police to help interrogators
get information from the detainees more efficiently, according to Taguba.

It was at that time that the worst of the abuses occurred, his report said. The
evidence showed that much of the mistreatment was aimed at breaking the will of
inmates to make them cooperate with interrogators.

"Military Police should not be involved in setting 'favorable conditions' for
subsequent interviews," the Taguba report says. Those practices "clearly run
counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility."

Too bad Rumsfeld hasn't read that part of the report.

Or has he?

[ To contact Ann Woolner in Atlanta: awoolner@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this column: Bill Ahearn in New York
bahearn@bloomberg.net ]

* * *


May 7, 2004

ABUSE WAS THOUGHT OUT, EXPERTS SAY

By M.S. Enkoji, Bee Staff Writer

http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/special_reports/iraq/bee/story/
9207743p-10133045c.html

Graphic images depicting abuse and humiliation of Iraqi captives at the hands of
American forces will likely focus attention on the role of psychologists
advising the military on interrogation techniques, experts following the
controversy said.

While aimed at breaking the prisoners, the techniques developed by the
psychologists are designed to skirt the Geneva Conventions and U.N. prohibitions
of torture, they said.

Typical examples are sleep deprivation, allegedly used at the U.S. detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and forcing captives to stand still for
extended periods, said Gerald Gray, founder of the Center for Survivors of
Torture in San Jose.

"It all points up," Gray said of the Iraqi abuse techniques. "It's evidence that
this is something that was instructed."

In the Muslim world, nudity is taboo, as are the homosexual acts some of the
prisoners were forced to portray in the photos taken at Abu Ghraib, the
American-held prison near Baghdad.

"Using a known cultural value to humiliate would indicate study," Gray said. "It
could be accidental, but probably not."

For decades, some psychiatrists and psychologists have helped train military
interrogators in techniques that attempt to circumvent Geneva Conventions and
U.N. policies, said Gray, who is part of a contingent of therapists who denounce
others in their field for teaching what they say amounts to psychological
torture.

Revelations of abuse in Iraq will widen that controversy, Gray said.

Physician Daniel Kusnir, who practiced as a psychiatrist in Argentina and now
treats torture survivors in his Hayward office, said he isn't convinced that the
abuse at Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident involving rogue soldiers.

"It's not an accident they were taking pictures," Kusnir said. "They had a
purpose."

Kusnir said he is chilled to see the work of others in his profession, who are
supposed to heal and relieve pain instead of helping inflict injury.

"It can't be more perverse," he said.

Targeting cultural vulnerabilities is nothing new, said physician Harvey
Weinstein, associate director of the Human Rights Center at the University of
California, Berkeley.

Weinstein, a clinical professor in the university's School of Public Health,
detailed U.S. experiments with coercion techniques in his 1990 book, "Psychiatry
and the CIA, Victims of Mind Control." His father, a patient in a Canadian
mental hospital, was involuntarily used in CIA experiments conducted over 20
years beginning in 1953.

"These techniques were taken to a high gloss by the U.S. military with the
assistance of physicians and doctors," Weinstein said.

The best hope for stopping such abuse is more scrutiny from human rights
watchdogs, Weinstein said.

"It's very clear that the nongovernmental organizations are very important in
monitoring these conditions," he said.

Survivors International, a San Francisco-based organization that psychologically
evaluates refugees seeking asylum, would likely testify that a refugee was
tortured if he or she had endured some of the treatment depicted in the Iraq
prison photos, said David Hinkley, executive director.

"Many in the military won't say that's torture. But they've been definitely
tortured," he said.

Disclosure of the prisoner abuse has caused an explosion of outrage in the Arab
world as new revelations tumble out, the Army's investigation widens and the
U.S. government scrambles to contain the damage to America's image.

For the captives, posed in photos like human trophies with grinning Americans,
there may never be an end to the experience.

"What we've learned over the years is that there can be very lasting permanent,
psychological damages," said Hinkley, whose organization works with 200 torture
survivors a year from at least 50 countries.

Depression, debilitating phobias and suicidal tendencies are common in
survivors, he said, even those who suffer no physical abuse.

In one of the photos of the Iraqi abuse, a hooded prisoner is hooked up to wires
and was threatened with electrical shocks, according to published reports. The
combination of the props and the threats is torture, even if the prisoner
receives no shocks, Hinkley said.

"I've had torture survivors tell me the worst they've survived are mock
executions," he said.

After several false trips before a firing squad or other staged executions, the
stress broke them, Hinkley said.

Flashbacks still haunt Vietnamese torture survivor Nhuong Nguyen, who spent
seven years in a Communist prison camp.

It's not the beatings he remembers most, but the deprivation, the dehumanizing
conditions that forced him to catch frogs, mice and snakes to eat: "Any animal,"
said Nguyen, now 60 and living in Sacramento.

At times, he still dreams he is back there, forced to don wet clothes in the
winter and sent to work in the forest, or getting called into a room as others
leave with broken bones.

"I get very scared," he said.

Other military practices will likely come under scrutiny in reaction to the Abu
Ghraib photographs and revelations about conduct at the prison, human rights
experts said. One likely will be the practice of using civilian contractors who
take responsibility - and legal liability - for their actions on behalf of the
military.

"Who has a right to investigate their behavior? It's unclear," said Diane Marie
Amann, a professor of international criminal law at UC Davis. "It's going to
have to be addressed."

The Geneva Conventions - four treaties signed in 1949 that govern war conduct -
have forced the U.S. military to train extensively so that combatants are clear
on what is and isn't allowed, Amann said.

"Is the U.S. training those other kinds of people?" Amann said.

The photographs are unambiguous, she said. It's torture, even under the broadest
interpretation of standard humanitarian policies, including a recent U.S.
military policy that forbids inflicting severe mental or physical pain on
captives, she said.

Trained or not, anyone should realize the conduct depicted in the photos is
wrong, Amann said: "My 6-year-old knows that."

Baghdad native Ayad Al-Qazzaz, now a U.S. citizen and teaching sociology at
California State University, Sacramento, said the photographs and revelations
only confirm the greatest fears of many Iraqis and will fuel anti-American
hostilities.

"We've heard it many times before, but now we have evidence. And it came from
American sources," Al-Qazzaz said.

The reaction in Iraq, where he still has siblings, was one of disgust, he said.
"Here was a country claiming to be liberators, and they're practicing the same
techniques as what was before, perhaps worse because they claim to be
liberators."

[ The Bee's M.S. Enkoji can be reached at (916) 321-1106 or menkoji@sacbee.com ]

* * *


The Independent (UK) / Robert-Fisk.com:

May 7, 2004

AN ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL WAR, BETRAYED BY IMAGES THAT REVEAL OUR RACISM

by Robert Fisk

http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles400.htm
http://www.k1m.com/antiwarblog/archives/000105.html

Related Photo Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5623-2004May5.html

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/stripped-iraqis.htm

http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2003/04/25/367175.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/prisoners-name_page.html

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6155.htm

First, our enemies created the suicide bomber. Now, we have our own digital
suicide bomber, the camera. Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie
England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the
leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo
the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the
buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one
tug on the leash.

The Muslim suicide bomber cries Allahu Akbar, God is great. And what does
Lynndie England's partner-in-crime do? Why, his home garden is plastered with a
legend from the Book of Hosea, about sowing and righteousness and ploughing.

Could ever Islam have come so intimately into contact with the sexuality of the
Old Testament? Could neo-conservative Christianity - Lynndie is also a
churchgoer - have collided so violently, so revoltingly, so obscenely with
Islam?

And who were the innocent in these vile photographs? The American torturers and
humiliators? Or the Iraqi victims?

President Bush is fearful of Arab reaction to these pictures. Why? For a year
now, Iraqis have been trying to tell journalists of the brutal treatment they
are receiving at the hands of their occupiers. They don't need these
incriminating photographs to prove to them what they already know to be true.

But, in the history of the Middle East, these pictures already have the status
of those most damaging snapshots of the Vietnam war: the police chief in Saigon
executing his Vietcong prisoner, the naked girl burned by napalm, the pile of
bodies at My Lai. For Arabs, read Deir Yassin and the corpses piled in the
Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Chatila in 1982.

Not long after the occupation of Baghdad by US troops in April of last year, we
got our hands on videotape of the brutal whipping of Iraqi prisoners by Saddam's
security police.

I'm not sure which circle of hell the victims were enduring in the 45 minutes of
sadism which I still have on one tape. They are whipped, sticks are broken on
their throats, they are kicked into sewers and they cower like dogs. And why
were these war crimes filmed?

I thought at first that it was intended for the enjoyment of Saddam or his
disgusting son Uday. But now I realise the videos were taken so that the
prisoners could be humiliated. Their suffering, their pathetic pleas for mercy,
their animal-like behaviour was to be recorded - to add the final layer of
degradation to their fate.

And now I realise, too, that the pictures of the Iraqis so cruelly treated - so
tortured -- by the Americans, were taken for precisely the same reason.

Someone decided that the photos would be the final straw, the breaking point,
the moment of capitulation for these young men. Make them simulate oral sex.
Make them look at the penis of their best friend. Get a girl to admire their
attempted erection. This was truly Saddamite in its perversity.

So let's, as the Americans say, get real. Who taught Lynndie and her boyfriend
and the other American sadists of Abu Ghraib prison to do this?

I used to ask who taught the Syrian and Iraqi secret police to do this. The
answer to the latter question was simple: the East German secret police. But the
answer to the first question? Well, we have been told that there were
"contracted" interrogators at Abu Ghraib.

I have reason to believe General Janis Karpinski, the luckless prison commander
who is going to be dumped out of the army for interrogations over which she had
no control, knew "outsiders" were questioning her inmates. She was never allowed
into the interrogation room. And I can see why. So, no doubt, can she.

So who were these mysterious "interrogators"? If they were not CIA or FBI staff,
who were they? Several names are already doing the rounds - so far, journalists
claim they have no final proof of them - and a number, I understand, hold more
than one passport. Why were they brought in to Abu Ghraib? Who brought them in?
How much are they paid? And who trained them?

Who taught them it was a good idea to get a girl to point at an Arab who was
being forced to masturbate, to humiliate an Iraqi by hooding him with a girl's
lingerie?

We are not just talking "sick" here. We're talking professionals. President Bush
at last apologised yesterday to the Arab world for this filth - only, no doubt,
because of the latest picture on the front of the Washington Post - but the
constant, insistent refrain from US officers that these were a tiny group of
unrepresentative Americans makes me very suspicious.

Lynndie and her boyfriend were not part of a "rogue" unit. They were told to do
these despicable things. They were encouraged. This was an order from someone.
Who? When can we see their pictures, their identity, their passports, their
orders?

Yes, it's part of a culture, a long tradition that goes back to the Crusades;
that the Muslim is dirty, lascivious, un-Christian, unworthy of humanity - which
is pretty much what Osama bin Laden (now forgotten by Mr Bush, I notice)
believes about us Westerners.

And our illegal, immoral, meretricious war has now brought forth the images that
betray our racism.

The hooded man with the wires attached to his hands has now become an iconic
portrait, every bit as memorable as the picture of the second aircraft flying
into the World Trade Centre. No, of course, we haven't killed 3,000 Iraqis.
We've killed many more. And the same goes for Afghanistan.

* * *


The Independent (UK) / Robert-Fisk.com:

May 6, 2004

PICTURES OF WOUNDED MEN BEING SHOT CENSORED BY TV

By Robert Fisk

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=518612
http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles399.htm#FullStory
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5472

Related Video Links:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/284086.html

The pictures are appalling, the words devastating. As a wounded Iraqi crawls
from beneath a burning truck, an American helicopter pilot tells his commander
that one of three men has survived his night air attack. "Someone wounded,' the
pilot cries. Then he received the reply: "Hit him, hit the truck and him.' As
the helicopter's gun camera captures the scene on video, the pilot fires a 30mm
gun at the wounded man, vaporising him in a second.

British and most European television stations censored the tape off the air last
night on the grounds that the pictures were too terrible to show. But
deliberately shooting a wounded man is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions
and this extraordinary film of US air crews in action over Iraq is likely to
create yet another international outcry.

American and British personnel have been trying for weeks to persuade Western
television stations to show the video of the attack. Despite the efforts of
reports in Baghdad and New York, most television controllers preferred to hide
the evidence from viewers. Only Canal Plus in France, ABC television in the
United States and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have so far had the
courage to show the shocking footage. UK military personnel in the Gulf region
have confirmed that the tape is genuine.

The camera, mounted beside the 30mm cannon of a US Apache helicopter on patrol
over central Iraq on 1 December, first picks up movement on a country road,
apparently several hundred metres from an American military checkpoint. A lorry
and a smaller vehicle, probably a pick-up, come into view and a man--apparently
unaware of the hovering helicopter-- is seen moving to a field on the left of
the screen.

He is carrying what seems to be a tube with a covering; it may be a rocket-
propelled grenade. One of two helicopter pilots is heard to say: "Big truck over
here. He's having a little pow-wow.' The driver of the pick-up looks around,
reaches into the vehicle, takes out the tube-shaped object and runs from the
road into the field. He drops the object and returns to the truck. The pilot
then radios:

"I got a guy running, throwing a weapon.' Another pilot, or a ground controller,
instructs him: "Engage...smoke him.'

At this point, a tractor arrives close to where the man from the lorry dropped
the object in the field. One of the Iraqis approaches the tractor driver. The
Apache pilot opens fire with his 30mm cannon, killing first the Iraqi in the
field and then the tractor driver. The camera registers the bullets hitting the
first man. All that is left is a smudge on the ground.

The pilot then turns his attention to the large truck, opens fire and waits to
see if he has hit the last of the three men. The third man is then seen
crawling, obviously badly wounded, from his cover beneath the blazing truck.

The pilot reports: "Wait. Someone wounded by the truck.' An officer replies:
"Hit him. Hit the truck and him.'

The video tape shows that the incident took four minutes, during which the two
helicopter pilots--whose names are listed as Nager and Alioto--expended 300
high-velocity cannon rounds at their targets. The tape shows that the first 15
rounds missed the men. One of the pilots says: "Fuck, switching to range auto."
The tape then documents the firing of four bursts of 20 rounds each at the three
men.

The pictures, apparently taken through thermal-imaging cameras, leave no doubt
that the pilot knew his third victim was wounded and crawling along the ground--
and that whoever gave him the order to hit him also knew this.

Coming only days after the appalling photographs of Iraqis being tortured and
humiliated by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the new pictures can
only further inflame Arab opinion throughout the Middle East.

It is common Israeli practice to kill wounded enemies from the air; a
devastating helicopter assault by Israel on a Hizbollah training camp in Lebanon
10 years ago was accompanied by a series of attacks in which pilots sought out
wounded guerrillas as they hid behind rocks in the Bekaa Valley and then fired
at them.

The film, while it shows men acting in an apparently suspicious manner, does not
prove they were handling weapons. The occupation authorities in Baghdad chose to
keep the incident secret when it occurred in December. Watching the video
images, it is easy to understand why.

* * *


USA Today:

May 6, 2004

ICRC: ACTION DEMADED ON IRAQI PRISONER ABUSE

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-05-06-red-cross-abuse_x.htm

GENEVA (AP) -- The international Red Cross said Thursday it repeatedly demanded
that U.S. officials correct problems in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison before recent
revelations about the abuse of Iraqi inmates by American soldiers.

Spokeswoman Nada Doumani said she could not say the problems included
"specifically" the abuse allegations made in the media in recent days. The U.S.
authorities did fix some problems quickly and took longer to address other
complaints, said Doumani, speaking from Amman, Jordan.

"We were aware of what was going on, and based on our findings we have
repeatedly requested the U.S. authorities to take corrective action," Doumani
said. "The American authorities took very seriously all our recommendations."

Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned International Committee of the Red
Cross President Jakob Kellenberger on Thursday to assure him that the U.S.
government was dealing with the reported abuse of Iraqi detainees.

"We will answer in a comprehensive way," Powell told reporters in Washington.

The scandal over treatment of prisoners began when CBS television broadcast
pictures of smiling American guards with Iraqi prisoners in humiliating
positions. That unleashed a huge international outcry.

"We did ask them to take some corrective measures -- now maybe not directly this
issue about having naked people like this or like that, or homosexual
practices," Doumani told The Associated Press. "But we are not naive.

"We are keeping it vague because the contents of our reports have to remain
confidential."

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
joined Thursday in condemning the alleged mistreatment. In Hong Kong, a small
group of demonstrators marched to the consular offices of Britain and the United
States in protest of the alleged abuse.

The neutral, Swiss-run agency, the only independent body visiting prisoners held
by coalition authorities in Iraq, previously refused to say whether it found
problems at the prison or say whether it discussed allegations of prisoner abuse
with U.S. officials.

Doumani said ICRC delegates have been visiting the prison, the largest in Iraq,
every five or six weeks since October. The most recent visit was March 20, she
said.

"We are of course aware of the situation since we talk with the detainees
privately," Doumani said. "We get testimony from them. We visit all the premises
in this place. We crosscheck information we receive from different detainees.
Definitely we were aware of what was going on in Abu Ghraib."

She declined to say whether the ICRC reports were the basis for the U.S.
investigation begun in January after an American soldier reported prisoner
abuses, but she noted that the reported abuses occurred last year -- at a time
when the ICRC was visiting and reporting on shortcomings at the prison.

Doumani said the ICRC made an initial visit to Abu Ghraib prison last summer and
made a thorough report to U.S. officials in November after its first full-scale
check in October.

In addition to violations like prisoner abuse or torture, the reports might
cover prisoners being kept in isolation, given too little food or water or
needing better hygiene or medical care, she said.

The ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare t