Seymour Hersch: women and children tortured at Abu Gharib?

[gldstwmn]

Here is the only link I have so far on Mr. Hersch's speech yesterday at the University Of chicago. I will post more as soon as I find out.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/mov...es/000987.html

Torture and Rumors of Torture
Torture and rumors of torture. In my email inbox this morning...

If what it reports is true, then once again it looks like the Bush administration is worse than I had imagined--even though I thought I had taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is always worse than one imagines. Either Seymour Hersh is insane, or we have an administration that needs to be removed from office not later than the close of business today. The scariest part: "[Hersh] said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened.

Seymour Hersh spoke... at the University of Chicago.... I took some scattered notes. The remaks will be disjoined--as will be the notes--but chilling. He asserted several things that he says he didn't have nailed down enough to write, but that he was confident of....

He then turned to the 40th president, referring obliquely to 138 names, then began to list them, saying those with long memories will catch on: they were the Reagan administration figures accused, indicted, or convicted of wrongdoing....

He talked about Carl Levin (though he didn't use his name) telling him about high officials lying to him in closed hearings, and how frustrating it was to be lied to, in classified settings, when the liars know the senators know they are lying. Levin said he'd never seen such brazenness in Washington....

He waits after the My Lai story broke mid November 1969, one week, two weeks--then, by Thanksgiving 1969, other correspondents finally write about the atrocities THEY had seen in Vietnam: an outpouring that made him feel strange that it took little old him, the police reporter who had flunked out of law school, 11 years after winning his B.A. in English, to unleash this outpouring of truth....

From My Lai, the transition to the current scandals was seemless. He connected the dots, and spoke of the CIA secret prisons we haven't heard about yet: "We're basically in the disappearing business." He made the first of several criticisms of our humble profession: "there's no learning curve in America. There's no learning curve in the press corps."...

Unsurprisingly, he flagged the extraordinary importance of the WSJ memo revealing the government's plans to torture, including its assertion that it's not against the law if the president approves it, and mocked the New York Times headline "9 Militias Are Said to Approve a Deal to Disband," suggesting in its stead, "Bush Administration Offers Hoax in Hopes of Convincing U.S. There's Some Peace." His assessment of the postwar settlement: "It's going to come down to who has the biggest militia will win."...

Then a story from one of his intelligence sources, whom Hersh says didn't find it an unflattering story: some time in 1986 or 1987, Reagan was given a long chart presentation of what actually happened with Iran/Contra and began sleeping five minutes in to it, then snoring on Nancy's shoulder. After twenty minutes it was over, the helicopter was fired up for the Friday trip to Camp David, Nancy aroused him, he awoke with a start, glanced at the charts, and asked, "What's that." Sy said something like "That's MY Ronald Reagan."...

"NATO's falling apart in Afghanistan now."

And this was one of the most stunning parts. He had just returned from Europe, and he said high officials, even foreign ministers, who used to only talk to him off the record or give him backchannel messages, were speaking on the record that the next time the U.S. comes to them with intelligence, they'll simply have no reason to believe it.... He lamented of his journalistic colleagues, "I don't know whey they don't just tell it like it is."...

He said the people most horrified by the way the war was planned were the military commanders responsible for protecting their troops.... He talked about the horror of the 1000 civilian deaths in Fallujah (but was careful to note the Marines were doing their job, placing the blame with their superiors)....

He talked about how hard it is to get the truth out in Republican Washington: "If you agree with the neocons you're a genius. If you disagree you're a traitor." Bush, he said, was closing ranks, purging anyone who wasn't 100% with him. Said Tenet has a child in bad health, has heart problems, and seemed to find him generally a decent guy under unimaginable pressure, and that people told him that Tenet feared a heart attack if he had to take one more grilling from Cheney. "When these guys memoirs come out, it will shock all of us."...

He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."

He looked frightened.

[DeeGeMe]

I don't think we've heard the end of this story. Apparently there are pictures and videos of women and children being brutually attacked out there and my guess is that it's only a matter of time before they surface. No wonder Smirk has "lawyered up".

[dissention]

Read all 40 pages of the torture memo, it will shock the hell out of you. I couldn't believe my eyes. It actually said that the president will allow some torturers to go free. What it makes no mention of is that Bush can't set aside international treaty.

There are pictures out there of women being raped, little boys being raped, elderly being ridden on as if they were cattle, this is not the end.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by dissention

Read all 40 pages of the torture memo, it will shock the hell out of you. I couldn't believe my eyes. It actually said that the president will allow some torturers to go free. What it makes no mention of is that Bush can't set aside international treaty.

There are pictures out there of women being raped, little boys being raped, elderly being ridden on as if they were cattle, this is not the end.

Apparently, that story is about to be broken.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Apparently, that story is about to be broken.

As it should be.

The thing that I was worried about was that the media covered the story so much and saturated the market so thoroughly wiht the first group of photos, there wouldn'tbe much coverage given to the other atrocities committed there at Abu Ghairib. Oops, I mean, Camp Redmption. Or is it the Nazi Gulag? Help me out here!

[dissention]

You'll never guess whose marriage is over. Clue: he embodies the term "douche bag."

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by dissention

As it should be.

The thing that I was worried about was that the media covered the story so much and saturated the market so thoroughly wiht the first group of photos, there wouldn'tbe much coverage given to the other atrocities committed there at Abu Ghairib. Oops, I mean, Camp Redmption. Or is it the Nazi Gulag? Help me out here!

Once the word children is inserted into the equation the **** is going to hit the fan all over again. I also have to wonder if Ashcroft was set up the other day.

[darklinensuit]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Apparently, that story is about to be broken.

I'm surprised it's taking this long, but what do I know.

- Jake

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by darklinensuit

I'm surprised it's taking this long, but what do I know.

- Jake

CBS sat on the initial part of the story for quite a while, I understand. All things in due time.

[darklinensuit]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

CBS sat on the initial part of the story for quite a while, I understand. All things in due time.

But that's the kind of thing that bothers me here. Who gets to decide when due time is for the public?

- Jake

[Hawkeye]

I the only one who wishes this stuff never ever got out. I mean it could really hurt the danmed country.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...655389,00.html

New Abuse Charges
Allegations of mistreatment of female detainees
By VIVECA NOVAK AND DOUGLAS WALLER



Sunday, Jun. 20, 2004
Could the abuse of prisoners in Iraq have gone beyond the beatings and sexual humiliation already alleged? Unreleased, classified parts of the report on prison abuse from Major General Anthony Taguba, which were read to TIME, contain indications of mistreatment of female prisoners. In a Feb. 21 statement to Taguba, Lieut. Colonel Steven L. Jordan, former head of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center, said he had received reports "that there were members of the MI [Military Intelligence] community that had come over and done a late-night interrogation of two female detainees" last October. According to a statement by Jordan's boss, Colonel Thomas Pappas, three interrogators were later cited for violations of military law in their handling of the two females, ages 17 and 18. Senate Armed Services Committee investigators are probing whether the two women were sexually abused. The Pentagon declined to comment.

Meanwhile, a class action filed in California on behalf of former detainees raises the specter of brutal physical abuse.

One plaintiff, identified only as Neisef, claims that after he was taken from his home on the outskirts of Baghdad last November and sent to Abu Ghraib, Americans made him disrobe and attached electrical wires to his genitals. He claims he was shocked three times. Although a vein in his penis ruptured and he had blood in his urine, he says, he was refused medical attention. In another session, Neisef claims, he was held down by two men while a uniformed woman forced him to have sex with her. "I was crying," said Neisef, 28. "I felt like my whole manhood was gone." The class action also claims that detainees were raped in prison. On June 6, Neisef was released, after a U.S. civilian told him, he says, that he had been wrongly accused by informants. A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad confirms that a prisoner with Neisef's ID number was released on that date, and TIME has obtained a copy of his release order. But the Pentagon would not comment on the specifics of Neisef's account.


— With reporting by Mark Thompson

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by darklinensuit

But that's the kind of thing that bothers me here. Who gets to decide when due time is for the public?

- Jake

Maybe they had to make sure of their sources?

Also "All things in due time" = "What comes around goes around." I wasn't clear enough on that.

[strandinthewind]

from www.nytimes.com

June 22, 2004
White House Plans to Release Interrogation Documents Today
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ASHINGTON -- The White House plans to release a thick file of papers documenting its internal deliberations on rules for interrogating prisoners in facilities from Abu Ghraib in Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The two-inch stack of papers was to be released late Tuesday. It is intended to counter what White House aides fear is a growing perception that the administration authorized torture as an interrogation technique, a senior administration official said.

White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales intended to brief reporters on the documents, said four administration officials, asking to speak on grounds of anonymity because Gonzales was to talk on the record later Tuesday.

The documents are meant to show "the White House's deliberative process" in arriving at rules for complying with the Geneva Convention and rules on interrogation techniques, one senior official said. The administration decided to release the papers to fight the "constant drip on this issue" -- a continuous stream of leaks and accusations that the administration had stepped outside the bounds of international law, the official said. "Everyone reached the conclusion that the administration had authorized torture," he said.

The official, saying the United States is facing a new kind of war with an enemy that does not respect or operate under the rules of the Geneva Convention, pointed to the kidnapping and beheading of American civilian engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia last week. The papers being released Tuesday show that the White House and other agencies are wrestling with "how best to address that foe," one official said.

The documents cover a period of several months and were generated by several agencies, including the Department of Justice. One set of papers alone spans 50 pages.

Among the papers are some that have already been seen by the public, including previously confidential memos in which Justice Department lawyers concluded that Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are not protected by the Geneva Conventions because they do not satisfy four main conditions of the treaty itself.

Democrats criticized those memos as laying the legal foundation for Iraqi prisoner abuses, but administration officials said they were aimed mainly at showing that international treaties banning torture do not apply to al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners.

At a June 10 news conference, President Bush sidestepped questions about whether he had seen or authorized the Justice Department papers.

"The authorization I issued was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That's the message I gave our people," Bush said in Savannah, Ga. "I can't remember if I've seen the memo or not, but I gave those instructions."

That memo, which surfaced earlier this month, intensified criticism from congressional Democrats and human rights activists about what they consider a concerted effort to circumvent U.S. and international laws against torture during the fight against terrorism.

Human rights lawyers took the unusual step of filing a racketeering lawsuit this month against U.S. civilian contractors who worked at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The suit alleges contractors conspired to execute, rape and torture prisoners during interrogations to boost profits from military payments.

A series of government lawyers' memos, many of them still secret but leaked to the media this month, said the president had the legal authority to allow torture of detainees during interrogations. Administration officials, however, said such a policy never was adopted.

But some of the papers to be released Tuesday have never been disclosed, a senior official said.

[gldstwmn]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...=542&ncid=1480

LONDON - The American general formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib prison says there are signs Israelis were involved in interrogating Iraqi detainees at another facility.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, suspended in May over allegations of prisoner abuse, said she met a man who told her he was Israeli during a visit to a Baghdad intelligence center with a senior coalition general.

"I saw an individual there that I hadn't had the opportunity to meet before, and I asked him what did he do there, was he an interpreter — he was clearly from the Middle East," Karpinski told British Broadcasting Corp. radio in an interview broadcast Saturday. "He said, 'Well I do some of the interrogation here. I speak Arabic but I'm not an Arab; I'm from Israel.'

"I was really kind of surprised by that ... He didn't elaborate any more than to say he was working with them and there were people from lots of different places that were involved in the operation," Karpinski added.

Israel's Foreign Ministry told the BBC that reports of Israeli troops or interrogators in Iraq were "completely untrue." The allegations were also denied in a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office.

"The prime minister's office declares this evening that there is no basis and no foundation to the reports regarding supposed involvement of Israeli interrogators in investigating Iraqi hostages or prisoners," it said in a statement. "These reports are vehemently denied."

The U.S. military has used private contract workers in the interrogations along with military personnel. The presence of Israeli forces in Iraq would inflame opinion in the Muslim world, where many compare the abuse of prisoners by U.S. forces to Israel's treatment of Palestinian detainees.

Until a 1999 ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court, Israeli secret service interrogators were allowed to use "moderate physical pressure" — a euphemism, critics said, for torture.

Among the practices allowed prior to 1999 were sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners in uncomfortable positions for long periods and covering their heads with filthy sacks. Former prisoners say some of those techniques also were used by U.S. forces in Iraq.

Karpinski was suspended from command of the 800th Military Police Brigade after the publication in April of photos showing soldiers abusing and humiliating naked Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. She has said she did not know about the abuse and is being made a scapegoat in the scandal.