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No end, and no apparent limit, to the bashing of Cheney and Rumsfeld. Still, no word from Mark Benjamin, supporting his allegation...
that there had been "orders" regarding torture/abuse.
Elephantman, I see that you're still adding to your extensive track record on denial and apologism on these matters.
It's like this, Elephantman. 1 + 2 = 3.
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"...What has been documented?
There is plenty of documentation on what US interrogators have done. The FBI released a report last year in which FBI officials reported 26 cases of possible mistreatment by law enforcement or military personnel at Guantánamo Bay.
The report revealed captives were chained hand and foot in a foetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, where they urinated and defecated on themselves. Besides being shackled to the floor, they were subjected to extreme temperatures, with the air conditioning either turned close to freezing or turned off so that room temperatures topped 38C (100F).
In 2006, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told a radio interviewer that waterboarding - the near-drowning of a captive - was used on the alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantánamo. Cheney said the use of waterboarding on Mohammed was "a no-brainer for me. But for a while there, I was criticised as being the vice-president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."
The mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has also been well documented.
How does the US justify it legally?
Between 2002 and 2003, the US justice department issued several memos from its office of legal counsel seeking to justify interrogation tactics that are deemed by critics to be torture.
The notorious March 2003 memo, written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel, said Bush's wartime authority had priority over any international ban on torture.
"Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion," Yoo wrote.
The 81-page memo was rescinded nine months after it was sent to the Pentagon's top lawyer, William Haynes. The memo had to be withdrawn as it was so shaky legally, critics contend.
Who approved the interrogation techniques?
The decisions went right up to the White House.
Bush recently told ABC News in the US that he knew his top national security advisers in 2003 discussed and approved specific details of the CIA's methods.
"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people," Bush said. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."
According to ABC News, the national security team discussed in detail what methods should be used, down to the number of times CIA agents could employ a specific tactic. The senior officials signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al-Qaida suspects - whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to waterboarding.
Who were these officials?
They included Cheney; the former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice; the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld; the former secretary of state Colin Powell; the former CIA director George Tenet; and the former attorney general John Ashcroft.
Members of the national security council's principals committee, they met frequently to advise Bush on national security. Rice, who is now secretary of state, chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House situation room..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/18/usa.terrorism
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