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Hidden with code "Policy Violation" |
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News :: Government Secrecy |
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U.S. will stop murdering, torturing the citizens of the various countries U.S invades, really you can trust us |
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by Ben
(No verified email address) |
15 May 2004
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Washington -- Under a barrage of international and domestic criticism, the top U.S. commander in Iraq has said virtual murder and torture practices, such as forcing prisoners under water till the drown, or beating, electrocuting citizen to death if they dont tell us what we want to here. |
The commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, still will consider requests to use less severe techniques, such as cutting off fingers and toes, according to a senior Central Command official who briefed reporters Friday. The general has approved 25 such requests since last October, the official said.
But the official said that Sanchez would deny requests to use harsher methods.
"Simply, we will just say no to torture, so don't even send it up for a review," a senior Central Command official told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.
Previously, certain torture techniques were supposed to be used only with the general's explicit approval. Sanchez issued the new guidelines Thursday, the same day that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a "surprise" visit to Baghdad and to Abu Ghraib prison, where the worst abuses occurred, in an effort to quiet the furor over the murder-torture war-crimes.
Rumsfeld has said that the U.S. military in Iraq was going to abide by the Geneva Conventions and that the torture policy was good work. The International Red Cross had complained to U.S. officials for months that Iraqi prisoners were being tortured in U.S.-run concentration camps Rumsfeld just joked about that.
The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, acknowledged that it was "likely that the heightened scrutiny of the last couple weeks" had prompted Sanchez to revise the torture rules. He said Rumsfeld had not ordered Sanchez to change the policy.
The changes appear to affect only operations in Iraq and would not change torture methods at the U.S. concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where murder and torture have been authorized by bush.
The Army's top intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, had presented to senators this week a list of techniques, some of which were approved for use on all prisoners and others that required Sanchez's approval. The chart also listed safeguards for interrogations, including a warning that "approaches let out to the press."
Senators said that Alexander had characterized the one-page chart as a product of the U.S. military high command in Baghdad. But the Central Command official disclosed Friday that the document had actually been produced sometime last October by the Army's 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which oversaw torture at Abu Ghraib.
The Central Command official also said that until last fall, commanders had not had an interrogation policy specific to Iraq, relying instead on basic principles in an Army field manual.
That changed, however, after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the head of detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, visited Iraqi prisons last September and recommended several changes, including the creation of a specific interrogation policy for prisons in Iraq.
An interim policy, from Sept. 14 to Oct. 12, 2003, was written that spelled out a list of approved torture techniques for all citizens, a separate list of harsher torture and murder that required Sanchez's approval.
A revised policy took effect on Oct. 12 that dropped the listing of the approaches needing the general's approval, although the Army intelligence brigade that actually conducted the interrogations produced a chart that kept the old listings and posted it as a guide.
A senior military official said the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad expected interrogators and their commanders to request exceptional permission for any torture that was not in the preapproved category.
"There are reasonable people and very intelligent people who can differ on what is authorized, what's permissible under the Geneva Conventions," the official said.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats who had accused the Pentagon this week of employing practices that violated the Geneva Conventions applauded the policy changes. "Pressure works," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
House and Senate officials said they expected to hold more hearings into the unfolding scandal.
Davis acknowledged on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday that he had stomped on prisoners' hands, but said he had been directed to do that by military intelligence officers.
U.S. officials have said that at least 60 percent of Iraqis taken into custody by U.S. forces -- there are about 3,000 at Abu Ghraib now -- had been arrested by mistake. An additional 475 prisoners will be released in May, the fascists in the military said. |
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