Warning this report contains graphic descriptions of torture and rape. .pdf Format

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6527.htm

Freedom of Information Act requests that were sent to the Pentagon for additional documentation and imagery concerning the abuse of Iraqi prisoners held in U.S. custody in Iraq (SN, 05/12/04) were forwarded by the Pentagon to U.S. Central Command for processing.

But now U.S. Central Command is sending them back to the Pentagon.

"We have been instructed to refer all requests for information referring to detainee abuse to the Department of Defense [Pentagon FOIA office]," a CENTCOM FOIA officer wrote.

"In order to provide you with as much information as possible, all detainee requests are now being consolidated and will be answered by [the Pentagon]." See:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2004/07/centcom071304.pdf

Meanwhile, Congressional efforts to gain access to documents on the Abu Ghraib case and related issues have been frustrated.

"Time and again attempts by this House to acquire documents related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal have been defeated, largely on party line votes," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) on July 19, citing several initiatives that had been blocked by the Republican majority.


Informant: Steven Aftergood

The routine hooding of Iraqi prisoners was sanctioned by British army commanders despite repeated warnings that the practice broke human rights laws...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=542142


From Information Clearing House

http://danielpwelch.com/0407bmhh.htm


Informant: Wpdanny

by Dan Smith

Global Beat Syndicate, June 28, 2004

Col. Dan Smith deconstructs the Administration's convoluted and
contradictory policies on treatment of detainees and use of torture.

Excerpt: "The Justice Department memorandum published early this month in the Washington Post implies that there is a threshold of pain that must be crossed for torture to exist, pain 'equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.'

Similarly, psychological assaults that do not result in 'significant' long-term damage (which could not be known until the 'long-term' is reached) are not torture.

These opinions, together with the claim that the president in his role as commander-in-chief is not bound by either U.S. or international rules prohibiting torture, run directly counter to what the Army teaches its interrogators, counter to what U.S. practice has been for more than three decades, and counter to what the nations of the world, including the United States, have agreed to in the Geneva Conventions. If the United States claims exemption or immunity for 'national security,' what is to prevent other commanders-in-chief from doing the same?"

To read the full article, click here:
http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/smith062804.html


Informant: fcnl-prevent-war

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jessica Smith or Bess Bezirgan
Friday July 16, 2004
Fenton Communications, (202) 822-5200

NEW CLAIMS OF SERIOUS ABUSES AT ABU GHRAIB SURFACE

Leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that videotapes were made of young boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison. The Bush administration is holding videotapes of these acts, said Hersh, a regular contributor to the New Yorker and other publications and who spoke this week at the ACLU’s annual membership conference.

"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," Hersh told the group, adding that there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

President Bush has claimed that the prison abuse scandal in Iraq was just "conduct by a few American troops." But new reports of abuse provide evidence that the controversial intimidation tactics and inhuman treatment may have been approved at the highest levels of government. Congress is continuing to investigate the scandal.

Hersh’s latest information comes on the heels of a newly released 2002 Pentagon memo detailing that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld personally authorized the use of controversial prisoner interrogation tactics, including the use of dogs for intimidation, stripping prisoners of clothes and hooding them. Rumsfeld also ordered military officials to hold prisoners but not list them on prisoner rolls requested by the International Red Cross. And according to Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was the head of detention operations at Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld "approved tactics at the prison" directly. As Newsweek reports, these memos and orders were signed off on by Rumsfeld, President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft and were part of a "secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods" of abuse as seen in Iraq.

To see video of Hersh's speech before the ACLU, go to
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df07152004.html

After 9/11, the word of the president was supposedly the only protection that the rights and liberties of the American people needed. After 9/11, President Bush granted himself unlimited, unchecked power over anyone in the world suspected of being a terrorist...

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0407c.asp


From Information Clearing House