Monday, February 13, 2006

Tortures Link to Rumsfeld

The New York Times reported yesterday on the prosecutions going on for the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in US custody in Afghanistan in Dec 2002. "Of 27 soldiers and officers against whom Army investigators had recommended criminal charges, 15 have been prosecuted. Five of those have pleaded guilty to assault and other crimes; the stiffest punishment any of them have received has been five months in a military prison. Only one soldier has been convicted at trial; he was not imprisoned at all." As Andrew Sullivan points out, "You can judge how seriously this administration takes the abuse of detainees by what they do about it."

The article also points a direct line to Rumsfeld. On Dec 2, 2002 he approved the use of extreme interrogration methods at Guantanamo Bay. Apparently these were bad enough that Alberto Mora, the Navy general counsel, and other officials complained and Rumsfeld rescinded the order "barely a month later". So what does Rumsfeld think of torture? Apparently Bagram had adopted the methods approved by Rumseld at about the same time. The article suggests a number of things that were not brought up at trial, probably because they are embarrassing to the administration. Great.

No comments: