From: "Eric Stewart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: November 17, 2006 12:05:50 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says
http://justanotherblowback.blogspot.com/2006/11/president-
authorized-abu-ghraib.html
President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says
Among a new batch of documents rights groups have forced the gov't to
release, a Bureau communication refers to a presidential Executive
Order
endorsing some forms of torture witnessed at Iraq prison.
President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says
by NewStandard Staff
Dec. 21, 2004 – Repeated references in an internal FBI email suggest
that the president issued a special order to permit some of the more
objectionable torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib and other US-run
prison facilities around Iraq. The email was among a new batch of FBI
documents revealed by civil rights advocates on Monday. Other
documents
describe the initiation of investigations into alleged incidents of
torture and rape at detention facilities in Iraq.
The email, which was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union,
represents the first hard evidence directly connecting the Abu Ghraib
prison abuse scandal and the White House. The author of the email,
whose
name is blanked out but whose title is described as "On Scene
Commander
-- Baghdad," contains ten explicit mentions of an "Executive Order"
that
the author said mandated US military personnel to engage in
extraordinary interrogation tactics.
An Executive Order is a presidential edict -- sometimes public,
sometimes secretive -- instituting special laws or instructions that
override or complement existing legislation. The White House has
officially neither admitted nor denied that the president has
issued an
Executive Order pertaining to interrogation techniques.
The specific methods mentioned in the email as having been approved by
the unnamed Executive Order and witnessed by FBI agents include sleep
deprivation, placing hoods over prisoners’ heads, the use of loud
music
for sensory overload, stripping detainees naked, forcing captives to
stand in so-called "stress positions," and the employment of work
dogs.
One of the more horrifying tools of intimidation, Army canines were
used
at the prison to terrorize inmates, as depicted in photos taken inside
Abu Ghraib.
The correspondence is dated May 22, 2004 -- a couple of weeks after
images of torture and humiliation at the prison broke in the world
media
-- and was sent between FBI officials attempting to clarify the
Bureau’s
position on the terminology to use when categorizing and reporting
such
techniques. The author repeatedly states those techniques were, at
least
temporarily, permitted under the mysterious presidential directive.
The
author also wrote that Pentagon policy had since restricted most of
the
techniques to require specific authorization from the chain of
command.
"As stated, there was a revision last week in the military’s standard
operating procedures based on the Executive Order," the letter
reads. "I
have been told that all interrogation techniques previously authorized
by the Executive Order are still on the table but that certain
techniques can only be used if very high-level authority is granted."
The author goes on to recount having seen a military email that said
certain techniques -- including "stress positions," the use of dogs,
"sleep management," hoods, "stripping (except for health inspection),"
and blaring music -- cannot be used without special authorization.
The author wonders if techniques that fall within the scope of the
Executive Order should be referred to as "abuse," since they are
technically legal. Unless otherwise advised by the Bureau, the email
continues, agents "will still not report the use of these
techniques as
‘abuse’ since we will not be in a position to know whether or not the
authorization for these tactics was received from the aforementioned
officials."
The author does believe that interrogation methods that involve
"physical beatings, sexual humiliation or touching" clearly constitute
"abuse," suggesting they are not within the scope of the repeatedly
referenced Executive Order.
The email says that FBI personnel operating at Abu Ghraib witnessed
but
did not participate in prisoner interrogations that involved actions
approved by the Executive Order. That statement upholds separate
documentation also obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests
backed by a lawsuit on the part of the American Civil Liberties Union
and other groups.
As reported by The NewStandard, documents revealed in October showed
that FBI agents had witnessed abuses like those mentioned in the
email,
in addition to many more severe actions.
The email that was revealed on Monday is the first official
document to
state that the Oval Office was the source of directives permitting
abuse
and torture.
After the ACLU released the documents, White House, Pentagon and FBI
officials told reporters that the author of the email was mistaken,
and
that the order was not an Executive Order, but a Defense Department
directive. All sources refused to be identified in news reports.
The White House does not appear to have ever officially denied that
President Bush issued an Executive Order specifying interrogation
techniques, though none has been made public. The ACLU and other
organizations involved in forcing the release of documents regarding
prisoner treatment at Abu Ghraib as well as prison camps in
Afghanistan
and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba have demanded the White House "confirm or
deny
the existence of such an order," according to an ACLU press release
issued on Monday.
Last June the president insisted that the only authorization he has
issued with regard to interrogation procedures was that American
personnel "would conform to US law and would be consistent with
international treaty obligations."
But as the unidentified FBI official noted in his email, techniques
are
made legal under US law if and when the president issues an Executive
Order rendering them so.
Asked more directly less than two weeks later if President Bush had
ever
approved particular prisoner handling methods, White House
spokesperson
Scott McClellan responded, "In terms of interrogation techniques
related
to what the military may carry out in Guantánamo Bay or Iraq, those
are
determinations that are made by the military, and we expect that those
techniques fit within the policies that this President has
instituted."
The president and his legal advisors have repeatedly said that the US
government neither condones nor commits torture. The Bush
administration’s conservative definition of torture, as expressed at a
June 22 press briefing by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales,
incorporates only acts bearing "a specific intent to inflict severe
physical or mental harm or suffering."
If White House statements are to be taken at face value, then, they
still leave considerable room for the possibility that President Bush
has authorized specific acts that civil libertarians and international
law consider torturous, including the methods listed in the FBI email.
The United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the United States
Congress has ratified, defines "torture" far more broadly as including
"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or
mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining
from him or a third person information or a confession."
Also included among the newly released documents were notices
regarding
the initiation of criminal investigations pertaining to abuse of Iraqi
detainees.
One of the documents is a memo stating that the US Army’s Criminal
Investigation Division had commenced an inquiry "regarding the alleged
rape of [a] juvenile male detainee at Abu Ghraib Prison." The name of
the investigating officer or unit has been blanked out, and no
identifying information is offered pertaining to the case.
Another document notifies Valene Caproni of the FBI’s Office of the
General Counsel, that two FBI agents who were stationed in Iraq
were to
be interviewed by Army investigators looking into the alleged
torture of
an Iraqi detainee. Gary Bald of the Bureau’s Counterterrorism Division
wrote the email message, in which he notes suspicious military
paperwork
on a detainee whose name is redacted. He also writes that the two FBI
special agents were with the military police unit that held the Iraqi
and signed receipts claiming to have seen him before he was
transferred
to Abu Ghraib for further interrogation.
While the email states that the prisoner does not mention the FBI
in his
complaint, he described his treatment in troubling detail. "They
tortured me and cuffed me in an act called the scorpion and pouring
cold
water on me," the email quotes the detainee’s complaint as saying.
"They
tortured me from morning until the morning of the next day, and when I
fell down from the severe torture I fell on the barbed wires, and then
they dragged me from my feet and I was wounded and, and they
punched me
on my stomach."
SOURCE: The New Standard
Also see:
Micromanaging Shock & Awe to create "Deep Psychological Injury"
http://destabilize.blogspot.com/2006/09/micromanaging-shock-awe-to-
create-deep.html
Gitmo Captives Say Medics Approved, Participated in Abuses
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=2177&x=x
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