George W. Bush’s Top Aides Pushed for Guantanamo Torture!!
Jim Pence April 19th, 2008
(Cross posted at Hillbilly Report)
Senator Mitch McConnell it’s time for you to speak up on this issue or approve of it with your silence!!!!!
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Torture and the Law
By Spencer Ackerman
The Washington Independent
With nine months remaining in President George W. Bush’s term, virtually no legal analyst expects that anyone in his administration will face indictment and prosecution in connection with the torture of terrorism detainees. However, a new admission from Bush last week has some legal analysts contending that the case for such prosecution has gotten significantly stronger.
ABC News reported on Apr. 9 that then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired an informal panel of top administration officials that approved specific brutal interrogation tactics for use on three suspected Al Qaeda detainees. The panel consisted of Vice President Dick Cheney, and former administration officials - Donald H. Rumsfeld, then defense secretary, Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, George Tenet, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and John Ashcroft, then attorney general. This group debated for use on detainees - and eventually approved - methods of abuse like being “slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding,” ABC reported.
On Apr. 11, Bush told ABC that he was personally aware of the panel’s discussions. “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.”
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Top Bush Aides Pushed for Guantanamo Torture
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian UK
Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods.
America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.
The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today’s Guardian.
In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.
Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld’s defense department.
The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s field manual.
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