Rumsfeld approved tough line: Pentagon

[CShine]

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, personally approved aggressive interrogation techniques for suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners to extract more information about the September 11 attacks and help to prevent future ones, Pentagon officials said.

Mr Rumsfeld was presented with a request in December 2002 by Army Major-General Geoffrey Miller, a general with the Pentagon's Judge Advocate General's office said. The JAG official, who declined to be identified, said that General Miller had arrived a month earlier to oversee prisoners at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to use a broad range of extraordinary "non-doctrinal" questioning techniques on a specific al-Qaeda detainee.

The military officials did not detail the procedures General Miller sought to use or name the detainee, but said he was thought to have valuable information about future attacks by al-Qaeda. Pentagon lawyers and interrogators clashed over the proposed procedures, which some of the lawyers said would violate international law.

The account confirmed some elements of media reports on the development of interrogation practices after the September 11 terrorist attacks. But it was the first official acknowledgment that Mr Rumsfeld was personally involved.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/21/1085120120943.html

[Tellurian]

1. Well, it seems more than that to me....

Why as part of the interrogation routine were these prisoners asked to renounce Allah and accept Jesus as their Saviour?

If this doesn't smack of religious fundamentalism (religious racism), I don't know what does.

[shanti]

12. whaaa?

do you have a link for this? i find this very disturbing as well. you can bet the fundies are loving it tho.

[FreakinDJ]

2. This isn't News ... We already knew it was Rummy all along

News is when the international war crimes tribunal meets to hang these Purps.

BTW That should also include the lawyers that approved their excuse, they are enemy combatants

[Tellurian]

3. yeah, it's news.. good news- and should be kept in everyones face! nt

[FreakinDJ]

5. We will get these Neocons for destroying the name of every American

I am sick and tired of these Fascist doing this crap in the name of America. It is time it stopped

[wtmusic]

4. What's the Army Manual Technical Term for 'smearing with feces'?

?

[TahitiNut]

7. Coprocosmetology, of course.

:shrug:

[wtmusic]

9. LOL thank you

but I think you need a license for that

[cliss]

6. The Pentagon is saying this?

My, how facts can change within just a few days. 7 days, to be exact. Last week, Rumsfeld's spokesman Larry Di Rita, vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

What a joke.

[Tellurian]

8. As long as Bush maintains power in the White House, it should be called

The Nut House!

[teryang]

10. What about the hundreds of dead prisoners at Kunduz?

Was he responsible for that too?

http://www.counterpunch.org/jones05082004.html

What About the Hundreds Who Were Suffocated at Kunduz?
America's Srebrenica
By ADAM JONES

<Doran went further still. He claimed that U.S. soldiers were present when the containers were opened, and ordered the destruction of the ghastly evidence inside. "When the containers were finally opened, a mess of urine, blood, faeces, vomit and rotting flesh was all that remained ... As the containers were lined up outside the prison, a soldier accompanying the convoy was present when the prison commanders received orders to dispose of the evidence quickly." He cites witness testimony to the effect that "In each container maybe 150-160 had been killed. ... The Americans told the Shebarghan people to get them outside the city before they were filmed by satellite.">

<Witnesses to the grim events also alleged that "600 Taliban PoWs who survived the containers' shipment to the Shebarghan prison ... were taken to a spot in the desert and executed in the presence of about 30 to 40 U.S. special forces soldiers" (The Globe and Mail, 19 December 2002).>

[FreakinDJ]

11. any links for the video

[teryang]

13. No, I don't have it

Sorry. I'm on dial up, so I haven't looked for it.

[Kool Kitty]

14. You might try the website for the "Democracy Now!"

radio show, that is hosted by Amy Goodman. I think it is www.democracynow.org. She played most of the audio for the video on Thursday. There might be information on that site for the actual video. What she was playing was extremely disturbing.