Our blogs about
America's Wars
War on Iraq
War on Drugs
War on Afghanistan
War on Columbia
War on Philippines
War on Venezuela

MORE
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
Katrina's Aftermath
US News
Bush Crime Family News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Support Bloggers' Rights!

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Rumsfeld Personally Approved Abu Ghraib Torture, says general in charge
(Julian Coman, Telegraph.co.uk, 04/07/2004)
The former head of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad has for the first time accused the American Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, of directly authorising Guantanamo Bay-style interrogation tactics. . . . Brig-Gen Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade, which is at the centre of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, said that documents yet to be released by the Pentagon would show that Mr Rumsfeld personally approved the introduction of harsher conditions of detention in Iraq. . . . During inquiries into the scandal, she has repeatedly maintained that the treatment of Iraqi detainees was taken out of her hands by higher-ranking officials, acting on orders from Washington. . . . "Since all this came out," she replied, "I've not only seen, but I've been asked about some of those documents, that he [Mr Rumsfeld] signed and agreed to." . . . Asked whether the documents have been made public, Gen Karpinski replied "No" and went on to describe the methods approved in them as involving "dogs, food deprivation and sleep deprivation". . . . Last month, the White House took the unusual step of releasing hundreds of internal documents and debates concerning interrogation procedures at Guantanamo. Extreme interrogation techniques at the camp, it was revealed, now require the explicit approval of Mr Rumsfeld. . . . Gen Karpinski has been suspended from duty pending ongoing investigations into abuse of prisoners at the Baghdad prison. In a recent interview with the BBC, she complained of being turned into a scapegoat for the scandal, arguing that the running of the prison was taken out of her hands. . . . In a separate embarrassment for the Department of Defence last week, six recent studies, leaked to the Los Angeles Times, heavily criticised the military for failing to screen adequately potential recruits with violent and even criminal backgrounds. . . . According to a 1998 report by Mr Flyer, one third of military recruits had arrest records. A 1995 report found that a quarter of serving army personnel had committed one or more criminal offences while on active duty. In his 2003 study, Mr Flyer said that military personnel officers had been reluctant to toughen up screening procedures, fearing that the result would be a failure to meet recruitment goals.

posted by LoZo 9:54 AM