Army report on al-Qaida accuses Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld, already under pressure from ex-US Generals to resign, has been found to be "personally involved" in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay that are said to have been "abusive and degrading".
Human Rights Watch last night called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate whether the defence secretary could be criminally liable for the treatment of Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi al-Qaida suspect forced to wear women's underwear, stand naked in front of a woman interrogator, and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash, in late 2002 and early 2003. The US rights group said it had obtained a copy of the interrogation log, which showed he was also subjected to sleep deprivation and forced to maintain "stress" positions; it concluded that the treatment "amounted to torture".Rumsfeld was "talking weekly" with Gen Miller about the interrogation. In December 2002, the defence secretary approved 16 harsh interrogation techniques for use on Mr al-Qahtani, including forced nudity, and "stress positions".
According to a December report by the army inspector general, obtained by Salon.com online magazine, the investigators did not accuse the defence secretary of specifically prescribing "creative" techniques, but they said he regularly monitored the progress of the al-Kahtani interrogation by telephone, and they argued he had helped create the conditions that allowed abuse to take place.
This is the first time that Rumsfeld, who offered his resignation after the scandal at Abu Ghraib surfaced, has been accused of being personally involved in the torture scandals which have so damaged the US reputation abroad.
The Pentagon also issued a statement in response to publication of the report. A spokeswoman said: "We've gone over this countless times, and yet some still choose to print fiction versus fact. Twelve reviews, to include one done by an independent panel, all confirm the department of defence did not have a policy that encouraged or condoned abuse. To suggest otherwise is simply false."This is not convincing. The truth is that the US position regarding torture has come to seem as if it is officially approved.
Why would the US have any need to fly suspected persons in special rendition flights to country's that are known to implement the torture of prisoners, if the US does not condone torture?
Why does Vice President Dick Cheney refuse to outlaw US interrogators engaging in "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners if he does not intend that they engage in those very acts?
Why would White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales remove the protection of the Geneva Conventions from prisoners and write a memo stating that "acts inflicting, and specifically intended to inflict, severe pain or suffering, mental or physical, must be of an extreme nature to rise to the level of torture": if not to justify acts that the rest of the sane world would most certainly conclude were acts of torture?
When the US reports to the UN that acts of torture have taken place in US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, one has to ask how such an aberation could take place simultaneously in so many US detention centres, in so many different parts of the world, without this being officially sanctioned policy.
It's coming to seem to most of us as if, after 9-11, there was a decision at the top to take off the gloves. Up until now, this administration has relied on the "few bad apples" defence.
However, the fact that a pattern of abuse is taking place across so many different US detention centres is rendering that defence useless.
It is time for a special prosecutor to be appointed, if the US is to have any chance of restoring it's battered reputation.
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