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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says
by NewStandard Staff
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.
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 Bureaus 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 militarys 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 administrations
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 Armys 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 FBIs 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 Bureaus 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 detainees 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:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1348&x=x
===
-muslim voice-
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