2003 State of the Union Address Contained Implicit Admission

New York, June 18, 2004--The National Lawyers Guild calls for the prosecution of President George W. Bush with a "command responsibility" theory of liability under the War Crimes Act. Bush can be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Statute, if he knew or should have known about the U.S. military's use of torture and failed to stop or prevent it.

A comment in the President's January 2003 State of the Union Address contained an implicit admission by Bush that he had sanctioned the summary execution of many when he said: "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries, and many others have met a different fate." "Let's put it this way," he continued, "they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies."

The Defense Department and the Justice Department each commissioned documents attempting to justify the use of torture under the President's war-making power, notwithstanding the Constitution's clear mandate that only Congress can make the laws.

The Defense Department memo said that as commander-in-chief, the President has a "constitutionally superior position" to Congress. This blatant disregard for the tripartite Separation of Powers doctrine is also contrary to the landmark ruling in the Korean War case, Youngstown Sheet & Tire Co. v. Sawyers, in which the Supreme Court held, "In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker."

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was ratified by the United States and is thus part of the supreme law of the land. Congress implemented U.S. obligations under this treaty by enacting the Torture Statute, which provides 20 years, life in prison, or even the death penalty if death results from torture committed by a U.S. citizen abroad. The USA PATRIOT Act added the crime of conspiracy to commit torture to the Torture Statute. The Convention Against Torture prohibits the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering on a person to (a) obtain a confession, (b) punish him or (c) intimidate or coerce him based on discrimination of any kind. To violate this treaty, the pain or suffering must be inflicted "by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

The Istanbul Protocol of 9 August 1999 is the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It sets forth international guidelines for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. Included in the Protocol's list of torture methods are rape, blunt trauma, forced positioning, asphyxiation, crush injuries, humiliations, death threats, forced engagement in practices violative of religion, and threat of attacks by dogs. The photographs and reports from prisoners in Abu Ghraib include all of these techniques. Moreover, the Defense Department analysis maintained that a torturer could get off it he acted in "good faith," not thinking his actions would result in severe mental harm. If the torturer based his conduct on the advice of these memos, he could according to this argument, have acted in good faith.

Referring to the 9/11 Commission's preliminary reports issued this week, National Lawyers Guild President Michael Avery said: "The Justice Department memorandum reads like a pre-trial brief on behalf of the Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg trial. It's rife with justification after justification for the use of torture."

Bush implicitly admitted sanctioning willful killing, torture and/or inhuman treatment in his 2003 State of the Union Address. The Constitution mandates the impeachment of a President for high crimes and misdemeanors. There is no higher crime than a war crime. Willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, which are considered war crimes under The War Crimes Act of 1996.

The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, comprises over 6,000 members and activists in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. Guild members provide legal support to progressive demonstrations throughout the country, and well understand the nationwide trend toward increasingly repressive measures deployed against political protesters.

Contact: Michael Avery, President, 617-573-8551
Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11


Informant: aaron

Rights group

http://www.rnw.nl/news/news.html#4049195
US accused of worldwide network of secret prisons
Radio Netherlands
Hilversum, Friday 18 June 2004 03:45 UTC

Human Rights Watch says the United States has a worldwide network of at least 30 prisons in which it detains suspects of terrorism. Nearly all 30 prisons are said to be located abroad, and the existence of around half of them is kept secret by the US government. The human rights organization says Washington does not have to account for these secret centres, and that this inevitably leads to the ill-treatment of detainees.

In addition to the officially recognized prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, for instance, there are secret detention centres in Afghanistan, Jordan, Pakistan and on board two US ships.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200406/s1134549.htm


US has secret prisons: rights group
Last Update: Friday, June 18, 2004. 7:16am (AEST)

Human Rights First says alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib prison must not be seen in isolation.
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200404/r19544_48199.jpg

(AFP)

The United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centres worldwide, about half of which operate in total secrecy, according to a new human rights report.

Human Rights First said in a report that secrecy surrounding the facilities made "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable".

The director of the group's US law and security program, Deborah Pearlstein, potential abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad and the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba "cannot be addressed in isolation".

"This is all about secrecy, accountability and the law," Ms Pearlstein told a news conference.

The report coincided with news that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered military officials to hold a suspect in a prison near Baghdad without telling the Red Cross.

Mr Pearlstein says that would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions and Defence Department directives.

She says the United States is holding thousands of security detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as locations elsewhere which the military refused to disclose.

"The US Government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability of law," the report said.

Pakistan, Diego Garcia, Jordan

Ms Pearlstein says multiple sources report US detention centres in, among other places, Kohat in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and at Al Jafr prison in Jordan, where the group said the CIA had an interrogation facility.

Prisoners are also being held at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and others were suspected of being held on US warships.

A Defence Department spokesman told Reuters he would comment when he had more information about the report.

Ms Pearlstein called for US authorities to end "secret detentions", provide a list of prisoners, investigate abuses and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross unfettered access to detainees.

US treatment of detainees came under the spotlight after disturbing photos were leaked to the media showing US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The United States is conducting several investigations into the abuses but Ms Pearlstein says they are not enough and a full court of inquiry should be ordered.

Families of suspects detained by US authorities have complained strongly about the lack of information about detainees.

Pakistani Farhat Paracha said via a telephone link-up at the news conference that she tried for weeks to find her husband, Saifullah Paracha, who disappeared last June when he took a business trip from Pakistan to Thailand.

Ms Paracha said she asked the US and Pakistani governments to track him down and only learned about his whereabouts when the Red Cross contacted her six weeks later to say her husband was being held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

"I feel disgusted. It makes my heart sink. I feel so powerless and so helpless," Ms Paracha said.

Human Rights First was formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

-- Reuters


Informant: Michael Johnson

New York - Humans Rights Watch hat die Ankündigung der US-Regierung kritisiert, nach dem Machtwechsel in Irak weiter irakische Gefangene ohne Anklage festhalten zu wollen. Die USA riskierten eine Fortsetzung der anarchischen Zustände in Irak, falls dort Gefangene gegen die Genfer Konventionen inhaftiert blieben, sagte der Leiter der in New York ansässigen Menschenrechtsorganisation, Kenneth Roth, am Freitag. (AFP)

19.06.04, 10:16 Uhr

http://www.netscape.de/index.jsp?sg=News_Newsticker&cid=1979244827

http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=6015726&type=CO


Informant: Martin Greenhut

By Mike Ferner
mikefromtoledo
Smirking Chimp.com
6-17-4

ABU SIFFA, IRAQ - "How could this happen?" nearly everyone asks these days. But as the U.S. now releases hundreds of men from Abu Ghraib prison, another question, "why were so many Iraqis locked up there in the first place?" is likely to become part of the debate. The story of this farming hamlet 30 miles north of Baghdad sheds a lot of light on that question.

"On December 16, 2003, at 2:00 am, on a rainy night, all the houses in Abu Siffa, about two dozen, were surrounded by U.S. troops in tanks and humvees. They surrounded the fields of the farmers by tanks and they destroyed the fences of the fields," citrus farmer, Mohammed Al-Tai explained to a delegation from Christian Peacemaker Teams visiting the village to document detainees' stories.

Soldiers from the Army's 4th Infantry Division rounded up two attorneys, 15 schoolteachers, men in their 80's, a blind man, police officers, young teens, and an elderly man so frail he had to be carried by the soldiers, Al-Tai said. In all, 83 men disappeared that night, virtually every male in the village.

His description of that night continued. "They destroyed the doors of the houses and of the rooms. At night usually the doors of the bedrooms are locked, so they kicked the doors in and destroyed them by their weapons. After that they gathered the men, beating them severely. One was an old man and they smashed his glasses, and for that old man they had to guide him."

Before the soldiers finished the Abu Siffa raid, Al-Tai added that they also "stole from Imad, the attorney, about 14 million dinars ($10,370). From his father, Kamel, they stole 4.5 million dinars ($3,300). They stole 4 million dinars ($3000) from Ziad, an Iraqi police officer, and from all the other houses together, about 100,000 to 150,000 dinars ($75 to $110). They also took five cars. Later they returned two of them that belonged to police officers who died in the line of duty."

The reason for the raid was to apprehend Kais Hattam, Al-Tai said, adding that Hattam claimed he planned to surrender to the Americans the following morning. In a later interview, Lt. Colonel Nathan Sassaman, commander of the division's 1st Battalion, the unit responsible for the district including Abu Siffa, confirmed that Hattam was their man, but doubted he would have surrendered voluntarily.

Sassaman said that Hattam was on a "wanted" list because his name appeared in Ba'ath Party documents found with Saddam Hussein, captured less than three days before the Abu Siffa raid. He described Hattam as a "key figure, one of five regional directors of the Ba'ath Party."

The Lt. Colonel's version of the raid was that 73 people, not 83 were rounded up, all adults. He said his men found a several-acre compound with a large quantity of material for making IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), weapons, and "just a ton of explosives." He added that three of the detainees were later released for health reasons.

Asked why so many villagers were rounded up after the Army got the man they were looking for, he replied that the amount of weapons and explosives implicated Abu Siffa was a center of resistance, further proven by the fact that his base had been mortared from that area.

The CPT delegation in Abu Siffa listened to Mohammed Al-Tai and several of his neighbors explain that six weeks after the December pre-dawn raid on their village, 79 adult men were still held in Abu Ghraib, still without visiting privileges. They said that one ill detainee had been released. Contrary to Sassaman's claim that no children were apprehended, Al-Tai said three children had been transferred to Al-Karkh, a special youth prison in Baghdad. The farmer and another villager said they'd been able to visit, albeit under difficult conditions. "It is not easy to get there, the lines ar very long, and even family members are kept behind a line 20 feet away from their children."

Hania, wife of attorney-detainee, Kamel Khoumais, added in sad tones, "For 47 days I did not see him. I tried. I went to Abu Ghraib prison twice. I was turned back with tears." On the night of the raid, soldiers took their family car, she related, and her little finger, still swollen and red, was broken when the keys were ripped out of her hand. The raid that swept up all of Abu Siffa's men is only part of that village's story.

After describing the December 16 roundup, Al-Tai took the delegation on a door-to-door tour of his village, starting with a vacant house where Abbas Abdwahid had lived with 15 members of his extended family. The 41 year-old primary school teacher and several other former residents of the home were now living in Abu Ghraib. Large holes in the brick walls, daylight through the roof, and an orange and white VW Passat taxi smashed up against a rear corner of the house by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle were silent reminders of the Army's second raid on Abu Siffa, on New Year's Eve.

No men were apprehended this time, Al-Tai said; "there were none left." The purpose of the return visit was made clear when the Bradley gunners opened fire with the 25mm Bushmaster chain gun and the 7.62mm machine gun, blasting holes large and small into the brick and cement-block home.

On January 2 the military came back. Al-Tai showed us the rear of another vacant house where he said four brothers, now all in Abu Ghraib, once lived. Still visible were the tracks the Bradley made as it approached the home of Hamis, Abd Kadir, Mohammed and Jasim. As with the previous raid, there was no resistance, Al-Tai said. After another display of firepower the soldiers left. The uninhabitable home, a flattened brick outhouse, a pile of 25mm shell casings and a steel door shot off its hinges, bleeding rust stains from dozens of bullet holes, spoke of that night's violence. As the CPT delegation listened, one of the villagers added, "The soldiers warned the people that they will make this area 'just like the land of the moonit will not be good to plant...it will be like the desert.'" When asked why the Army returned twice to destroy homes, the 1st Battalion's Executive Officer, Major Rob Gwinner, countered the homes were "still habitable. People are living in them." His boss, Lt. Col. Sassaman, said the subsequent raids were a reaction to mortar attacks against his base from the Abu Siffa area. Pentagon casualty reports state that on January 2, 28 year-old Captain Eric Paliwoda was killed in a mortar attack at the 1st Battalion's base.

The prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib is providing the public with a painful education on the Geneva Conventions. To that lesson we can add the story of how people are rounded up and homes destroyed in places like Abu Siffa-both violate the Conventions' prohibition against "collective penalties."


Ferner returned to Iraq this year for two months to write on developments since his trip with Voices in the Wilderness, just prior to the war in February, 2003. He served as a Navy Hospital Corpsman during Viet Nam, is a member of Veterans for Peace and a former member of Toledo City Council.
© 2004 by Mike Ferner

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=16628&mode=nested&order=0


Informant: Vince Bradley

In response to the Justice Department’s stonewalling of an ACLU Freedom of Information request filed eight months ago, the ACLU and our allies filed another FOIA lawsuit June 2, demanding the release of information about detainees held at military bases and other facilities overseas.

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners may have been system-wide and not limited to a single prison or American military unit. Even more disturbing, it appears senior officials either approved of the abuse or ignored it. In shocking testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 9, Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to provide Justice Department memos written in 2002 that may have established the legal groundwork for abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere.

Visit the ACLU’s timeline which dramatically demonstrates events relevant to the mistreatment of detainees held in United States custody abroad...

http://www.aclu.org/International/International.cfm?orgid=n&ID=13962&c=36&MX=1331&H=1

U.S. Navy Admiral John Hutson (Ret.)

The ACLU believes the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib are a “predictable result” of American detention policies that have deliberately skirted the rule of law and flaunted American values. Americans of all political stripes and varying backgrounds have joined us in our call for the government to disclose those policies, explain why these abuses were allowed to take place, and determine who was ultimately responsible. One of them is U.S. Navy Admiral John Hutson (Ret.), who has added his voice to the ACLU’s nationwide advertising campaign. See this powerful new ad here:
http://www.aclu.org/images/client/hutson.jpg

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5450783


Informant: kevcross5

Report Human Rights Watch June 2004

A new report by Human Rights Watch examines how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques – and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops. “The horrors of Abu Ghraib were not simply the acts of individual soldiers,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Abu Ghraib resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to cast the rules aside.”

Read the full report

http://hrw.org/reports/2004/usa0604/


Informant: EPIC