Damning news for Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration...

This news is not only damning of Rumsfeld, but an indictment of the entire Bush administration and the "war on terror".

THE GRAY ZONE (by SEYMOUR M. HERSH)

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of �lite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

UPDATE [2004-05-16 10:26:22]: Two thoughts have come to mind (which I haven't seen anywhere else... although I haven't looked) after reading this article:

1. The guy behind the "interrogation techniques" (read: torture), Miller, was transferred from Guantanamo Bay (a/k/a Gitmo) to Baghdad to supervise interrogation. This means that we've been using these techniques at Gitmo ever since we've been engaged in Afghanistan (2001). This means that thousands of Muslims have undergone these techniques over a period of more than two years. That means there are many many more "abuse" cases waiting to see the light of day (like possibly this one).

2. Apparently, we've been able to use these techniques because these captives are considered "illegal combatants" instead of enemy soldiers and as such don't fall under the provisions of the Geneva conventions. This means we've opened up a veritable pandora's box of interpretive war interrogation and we can be assured that other countries might classify our soldiers (especially the black ops folks) as "illegal combatants" and do what ever the hell they want with them. This is precisely why the Geneva conventions exist; soldiers will be treated decently as long as this understanding exists, and no longer.

Posted by joebeone at Mayo 15, 2004 05:18 PM | TrackBack