Friday, May 14, 2004

"They need Rumsfeld's personal approval"

Also this week, the CIA's interrogation techniques came under scrutiny, including methods such as strapping a terrorist to a board and forcibly dunking him in water until he feared he would drown.

The New York Times reported that the CIA has been using such "water-boarding" techniques on al-Qa'ida prisoners such as alleged September 11 planner Khalid Sheik Mohamed.

In Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - where Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are held indefinitely without charge - the techniques approved are not so harsh, but many experts argue they still amount to torture and are illegal.

Until The Washington Post reported on them this week, they were also secret. The paper said they need Rumsfeld's personal approval, but can include depriving a prisoner of sleep, forcing him to strip naked for interrogations and exposing him to heat and cold, or loud noise.

Wolfowitz agreed yesterday that Rumsfeld had approved some of these practices, but only in cases to get information on suspected terrorist attacks against the US.
  The Australian article

US forces released 315 prisoners from Abu Ghraib jail yesterday.

Some complained of being hung by their hands from walls for hours and humiliated by grinning guards.

One said two US soldiers had sex in front of him in the hospital wing; another said he saw wires attached to a cousin's tongue and genitals.
  Herald Sun article

Just an example. Of the people that are suddenly being released. What? They don't have any "information on suspected terrorist attacks against the US"? Were they ever actually interrogated? Because I've been reading that people being released are saying they don't have any idea why they were subjected to torture, and they were never interrogated. Just tortured, and now freed. Go figger, huh?

Jesus, this is sick. And Rumsfeld gives his "personal approval".

Rumsfeld.