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Home Front: Politix
Congress Investigates Harsh Interrogation
2008-06-17
A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to nameless congressional sources briefed on the findings.

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The reported evidence -- some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today -- also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. The findings contradict previous accounts by unspecified top Bush administration appointees, setting the stage for new clashes between the White House and Congress over the origins of interrogation methods that many lawmakers regard as torture and possibly illegal.
Cover for the issues of gas prices and the sucess of the Iraq war.
"Some have suggested that detainee abuses committed by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo were the result of a 'few bad apples' acting on their own. It would be a lot easier to accept if that were true," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a statement for delivery at a committee hearing this morning. "Senior officials in the United States government sought out information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."
Bad apples used panties, Carl, Senior Officals didn't authorize the use of women's undergarments. But you're probably too old to remember that.
Posted by:Bobby

#12  Yawn.
Posted by: Pancho Threter3607   2008-06-17 18:28  

#11  You give these guys a razor thin majority and look at the trouble they cause. Can you imagine what this country would look like if they held any real power to ram this stuff through.

My guess is it'd look like the 1960's when LBJ was in the White House, escalating Vietnam and running up a HUGE national debt. These creeps are not against war and they are certainly not opposed to deficit spending. They are against George Bush.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2008-06-17 15:24  

#10  Sorry about that multi-posted comment but my screen acts like its NOT posting but stalling.
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2008-06-17 12:55  

#9  Another reason for not taking prisoners but interrogating then executing on the battlefield of capture. "If they bring a gun then we will bring our surfboards waterboards" (BHO 6/13/08).
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2008-06-17 12:54  

#8  Another reason for not taking prisoners but interrogating then executing on the battlefield of capture. "If they bring a gun then we will bring our surfboards waterboards" (BHO 6/13/08).
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2008-06-17 12:54  

#7  Another reason for not taking prisoners but interrogating then executing on the battlefield of capture. "If they bring a gun then we will bring our surfboards waterboards" (BHO 6/13/08).
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2008-06-17 12:53  

#6  I think harsh interrogation of congress is in order.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2008-06-17 12:50  

#5  Richard, and those were carried out against LEGAL POWs. Of course, when German soldiers were discovered using American uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge, they were summarily executed, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. The people we have captured and sent to Gitmo are NOT LEGAL combatants. They are alive only through our forbearance. The Geneva Convention of requiring only name, rank, serial number and date of birth as the only thin POWs can be forced to reveal does not apply.
I really have to wonder whose side these Congrescritters are on. I know they are not on George Bush's side - but I think they have gone too far in taking the side of the enemy.
Posted by: Rambler in California   2008-06-17 12:42  

#4  "....research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002"

My Dad tells me that his unit kept WWII captured German infantry silent and standing at attention for days on end as a part of Army policy. The German upper eschalon officers were taken away by Army intel to points unknown.

What would THAT be considered?
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2008-06-17 09:12  

#3  Can you imagine what this country would look like if they held any real power to ram this stuff through?

Stagflation, loss of freedoms and possibly civil war.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-06-17 08:36  

#2  What about Dick "If I didn't tell you differently you'd say our troops were Nazis" Durbin

and:

Teddy "Torture chambers open under new US management" Kennedy?

Same BS song, new verse.
Posted by: Thrinetch Speaking for Boskone6142   2008-06-17 08:19  

#1  You give these guys a razor thin majority and look at the trouble they cause. Can you imagine what this country would look like if they held any real power to ram this stuff through.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-06-17 07:32  

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