What will the US do about torture?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
What will the US do about torture?
59
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 1:28pm
Torture: Another blow for Rumsfeld?

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - A classified Pentagon report, providing a series of legal arguments apparently intended to justify abuses and torture against detainees, appears to undermine public assurances by senior US officials, including President George W Bush, that the military would never resort to such practices in the "war on terrorism".

Short excerpts of the report, which was drafted by Defense Department lawyers, were published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The text asserts, among other things, that the president, in his position as commander-in-chief, has virtually unlimited power to wage war, even in violation of US law and international treaties.

"The breadth of authority in the report is wholly unprecedented," says Avi Cover, a senior attorney with the US Law and Security program of Human Rights First, formerly known as Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. "Until now, we've used the rhetoric of a president who is 'above the law', but this document makes that explicit; it's not a metaphor anymore," he added.

While it is unknown whether Bush himself ever saw or approved the report, it was classified "secret" by Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on March 6, 2003, the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, according to the Journal.

A full copy of the report is expected to be published on the Internet soon, according to sources who declined to say on which website it would appear.

The report's partial publication comes amid growing charges that the Pentagon is engaged in a cover-up of the full extent of abuses committed by US forces in their anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan, Iraq, at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.

{snip, snip}

In its report, the working group took the position that neither the US Congress, the courts, nor international law could interfere with the president's powers to wage war. That means, according to the report, that the president himself is not bound by US law, such as the federal Torture Statute or the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment.

"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority," the document stated, adding later that "without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority" to wage war.

"What's most terrifying about this is the argument that the administration has been making since September 11 - that the president has unlimited power to do whatever he deems necessary," said Cover. "It doesn't matter what Congress says, what the constitution says, or what international law says."

But the report also bolsters the growing belief that easing the rules governing interrogations was a top-level policy decision that better explains why reports of abuses are so widespread.

"If anyone still thinks that the only people who dreamt up the idea about torturing prisoners were just some privates and corporals at Abu Ghraib, this document should put that myth to rest," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch. "It's not hard to see how these abstract arguments made in Washington led to appalling and systematic abuses that ended up doing huge damage to US interests," he said.

"Effectively, what you've got here is a group of government attorneys trying to justify war crimes," Horton told Inter Press Service. "It makes a mockery of Haynes' statement about adhering to the CAT and Bush's assurances that the US would not torture or subject detainees to cruel or inhumane treatment.

"If we apply the same rules to ourselves as we have advocated in the international tribunals on Yugoslavia and Rumsfeld , then Donald Rumsfeld is in very serious trouble."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF09Ak01.html

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 2:32pm

"What's most terrifying about this is the argument that the administration has been making since September 11 - that the president has unlimited power to do whatever he deems necessary," said Cover. "It doesn't matter what Congress says, what the constitution says, or what international law says."


Hmmm...something about absolute power corrupting???


iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 2:41pm

I saw another article about this on the Politics Today board.


<<"The April document was about interrogation techniques and procedures," said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman. "It was not a legal analysis."<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />


Mr. Di Rita said the 24 interrogation procedures permitted at Guantánamo, four of which required Mr. Rumsfeld's explicit approval, did not constitute torture and were consistent with international treaties.>>


Does the fact that the administration denies that our interrogation techniques

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 2:48pm

<<"The April document was about interrogation techniques and procedures," said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman. "It was not a legal analysis."<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />


Mr. Di Rita said the 24 interrogation procedures permitted at Guantánamo, four of which required Mr. Rumsfeld's explicit approval, did not constitute torture and were consistent with international treaties.>>


Does the fact that the administration denies that our interrogation techniques


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 4:06pm
<>

I didn't either. What I wonder now is, "Will Rumsfield be able to keep a lid, or will we have a real investigation? Not just an investigation by those involved.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 4:22pm
<>

I think what you believe depends on which side your on: the administration or those that are conducting the inquiry.

From your source:

"A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.

"The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons."

This tells me that the administrated want put themselves above the law. What I want to know is will we allow them to get away with the farce of "just a few bad people" or will we look into the legality of the policy.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 4:48pm
It's more than a coincidence that similar torture technics have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan & Guantanamo, IMO.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 9:12am

Does the fact that the administration denies that our interrogation techniques

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 9:59am

<<...

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 10:57am
<>

Sure they went after the "little guy" and ordered an investigation BY not OF the people higher up the chain of command. I personally would like to see an outside investigation. If the investigation stops in the Defense department I smell a cover up. Give them the little guy but protect the big whigs.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 06-09-2004 - 11:00am

Sure they went after the "little guy" and ordered an investigation BY not OF the people higher up the chain of command. I personally would like to see an outside investigation. If the investigation stops in the Defense department I smell a cover up. Give them the little guy but protect the big whigs.


Exactly!


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