# Ban on torture overruled in Pentagon



## Spr.Earl (8 Jun 2004)

From the Telegraph.


        

Ban on torture overruled in Pentagon
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 08/06/2004) 


A leaked Pentagon memo cast serious doubt yesterday on the Bush administration's insistence that its treatment of prisoners was bound by laws and treaties banning torture.

A secret document discloses that, on the eve of the Iraq war, political appointees overruled military lawyers to assert that President George W Bush was not bound by US and international law on torture. 

     
The US armies 'Rules of interrogation' Click for detail 

The memo, prepared for Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, went on to claim that, if national security was at stake, government agents who tortured or even killed prisoners on the president's authority were immune from prosecution.

A draft of the 100-page memo, leaked to the Wall Street Journal, conceded that several US and international laws banned torture.

But lawyers at the Pentagon and the justice department argued that all such treaties and laws were trumped by the president's "inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign" and protect the American people. 

The leak appears to be part of an extraordinary civil war in the Pentagon between civilian officials and uniformed officers appalled by what they have described as moves by political appointees to shroud the war on terrorism in an "environment of legal ambiguity".

The trail of the memo begins at Guantanamo Bay and leads to Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, where pictures of abused and humiliated prisoners shocked the world. 

A military official who helped to prepare the report told the Journal that the memo was requested by senior commanders at Guantanamo. They had complained in late 2002 that conventional interrogation methods were not extracting valuable information from terrorist suspects.

The official said: "People were trying like hell to ratchet up the pressure." Techniques then used at Guantanamo included drawing on a prisoner's body and placing women's underwear on prisoners' heads. 

Those practices appeared in abuse photographs from Abu Ghraib, casting doubt on the Bush administration's insistence that Abu Ghraib misconduct was the work of a few low-level "bad apples".

An intelligence officer told the Journal that methods now used at Guantanamo included limiting prisoners' food, subjecting them to body searches, depriving them of sleep for up to 96 hours and shackling them in stress positions.

In public, William Haynes, the Pentagon's senior civilian lawyer, insists that all interrogations are conducted in a manner "consistent with" the international convention on torture. 

Mr Haynes was in charge of the working group that drew up the memo, officials told the Journal, and political appointees claimed almost unlimited powers for the president to approve torture.

"¢ America and Britain issued a fourth draft last night of a United Nations resolution granting Iraq sovereignty as they pressed for a vote at the Security Council as early as tonight. It ignores French demands for an explicit Iraqi veto over military operations but pledges "close co-ordination" between coalition forces and the new interim administration.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=LLUCRCSH4PQDLQFIQMGCM54AVCBQUJVC?xml=/news/2004/06/08/wtort08.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/08/ixnewstop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=56211


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## Jarnhamar (10 Jun 2004)

thats pretty scarry.


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## Smoothbore (10 Jun 2004)

Treating a detainees genitals with electricity in order to extract vital information that will save lives is understandable, but treating a detainees genitals with electricity and making photo souvenirs, and than letting them leak into the mainstream scandal-hungry media, thats wrong - political suicide.


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## K. Ash (11 Jun 2004)

I think it was more than a few 'bad apples'. I think they  were following orders. One thing I don't understand is why they hell they would take pictures. I wonder if they were ordered to do that?


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## Slim (12 Jun 2004)

Humiliation, stress positions, lack of sleep, Taking clothing away and other demeaning acts are part of the methodology of interrogation. There are no long-term lasting effects from any of those methods and it wasn't so long ago that the majority of western intelligence agencies were doing the exact same thing.

Intelligence has a time value placed on it and when a AQ (or whomever) is detained the time value begins to erode. The questions must take place quickly or the value of the int gained goes way down. 

I wonder what interrogations were like in Iraq when Saddam was still in power? Remember to keep a sense of proportion about this issue.


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## Goober (12 Jun 2004)

Slim said:
			
		

> Humiliation, stress positions, lack of sleep, Taking clothing away and other demeaning acts are part of the methodology of interrogation. There are no long-term lasting effects from any of those methods and it wasn't so long ago that the majority of western intelligence agencies were doing the exact same thing.
> 
> Intelligence has a time value placed on it and when a AQ (or whomever) is detained the time value begins to erode. The questions must take place quickly or the value of the int gained goes way down.
> 
> I wonder what interrogations were like in Iraq when Saddam was still in power? Remember to keep a sense of proportion about this issue.



The problem is the acts of interrogation you described were not even near the worst of them that were committed. Prisoners were beaten to death there.


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## Jarnhamar (12 Jun 2004)

i don't like how easy something can be justified in the name of national security. 
Canadian citizen detained and tortured? All in the name of national security. 

It's a good point about the value of fresh intelligence, i just think the possibility of things getting out of hand are increasing pretty fast.

I'm for strong arm tactics. Do what you have to do, i'm just for being open and honest about it and not trying to hide it because int he end the shit always comes out and it's 10 times worse.


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## Spr.Earl (12 Jun 2004)

Ghost778 said:
			
		

> i don't like how easy something can be justified in the name of national security.
> Canadian citizen detained and tortured? All in the name of national security.
> 
> It's a good point about the value of fresh intelligence, i just think the possibility of things getting out of hand are increasing pretty fast.
> ...



All true Ghost but what I thought after rereading it was that their are some in this present U.S. Administration who are at the stage of belief that:
"We are holier than thou and can do anything we want to any one or any Nation"
When that happens not only are the enemy in trouble so is that Nation and any one else associated with it.
I,my self believe that Bush knew what was going on,Iraq is his baby.


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## Goober (13 Jun 2004)

Ghost778 said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> I'm for strong arm tactics. Do what you have to do, i'm just for being open and honest about it and not trying to hide it because int he end the shit always comes out and it's 10 times worse.



I agree, do what you gotta do, but you better be prepared to justify it, and don't try and hide it.


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## vonGarvin (9 Nov 2010)

NECROTHREAD, RESURRECTION!
Found this  today



> Former U.S. President George W. Bush said in an interview published Tuesday that he personally authorized waterboarding the alleged 9/11 mastermind, who broke down and gave information that prevented terrorist attacks on London's Heathrow airport and its Canary Wharf financial district.
> 
> Bush told The Times of London that he has no regrets about using the technique that many consider torture and that President Barack Obama has banned. When asked whether he had authorized the simulated drowning of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Bush said "Damn right."
> 
> ...


I realise that it's been six years since this thread has received a post; however, I feel that this is the proper place for this.


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