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Justice Department faulty torture justification exposed

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

By Stephen Soldz | Brian Tamanaha at Blakinization dissects the letters from the Justice Department to Senator Wyden that were reported in the New York Times last Saturday and that I wrote about here, and demonstrates the completely faulty and dishonest nature of the reasoning involved. According to Tamanaha , the trick used by DoJ is to find an obscure court decision and use a distorted representation of what it says to make a claim completely incompatible with that source. Fortunately, Tamanaha went and read the obscure decision.

DoJ attempted to demonstrate in their letter that whether interrogation behavior violates the Geneva Conventions ban on “outrage upon personal dignity” depends partly upon why the interrogator is engaging in the behavior. Thus, actions intended to prevent terrorism are subject to a higher threshold before becoming violations than are those for lesser reasons.

Accordingly, it might not be an “outrage upon the personal dignity” of a prisoner—for example, subjected to extreme cold, extreme periods of standing, or water boarding—when we have an urgent need for the information, while those same actions might well be a violation if we don’t have an urgent need for the information.

The problem is, as Tamanaha demonstrates, the decision does not even remotely make the argument attributed to it. Here is the key section:

Benczkowski is right that a judgment about the “degrading” nature of the treatment must take into consideration “all the circumstances of the case.” This is the key point in his argument. He asserts that the “reasonable observer…would take into account the circumstances surrounding the conduct, including what justifications might exist.” That final clause–what justifications might exist–is what makes the (claimed) urgent need for the information a relevant factor in evaluating the conduct.

Benczkowski cites Section 53 of the Court’s opinion for this proposition. Here is the entire paragraph 53, so judge for yourself:

“It is also instructive to recount the general definition of the term ‘inhuman treatment’ propounded by the ECHR, which to date is the only human rights monitoring body that defined the term: “ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3 (ECHR). The assessment of this minimum is, in the nature of things, relative: it depends upon all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its physical or mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age, and state of the heath of the victim, etc. The test offered by this definition is the level of suffering endured by the victim.”

The court makes it absolutely clear that the phrase “all the circumstances” relates entirely to (and is bounded by) the “level of suffering endured by the victim.”

For Benczkowski to claim that this language in any way includes consideration of “what justifications might exist” for the ill-treatment is an outrageous distortion.

Tamanaha concludes:

It is disgraceful that Justice Department lawyers would supply such deceptive legal analysis to a Senator.

The bottom line: whether an act is “torture” or an “outrage on personal dignity” has nothing to do with (is not in the least diminished by) how urgently we feel we need the information.

We non-lawyers are left to wonder if the legal profession has any sanctions for such egregious malpractice in a matter of such great importance.

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Anti-War T-Shirter Sued for $40B

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

AP - PHOENIX | A Tennessee couple who lost their son in Iraq want an Arizona merchant to pay more than $40 billion in damages to survivors of soldiers whose names are on the anti-war shirts he is selling online.

A complaint seeking class-action status for the lawsuit by Robin and Michael Read says Dan Frazier of Flagstaff has no right to profit from commercial sale of products that use the dead soldiers’ names without permission.

The change, requested Tuesday in federal court in Tennessee, would cover the heirs of all U.S. service members killed in the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, and seek $4 billion in compensatory damages and $36.5 billion of punitive damages.

The Reads’ original lawsuit named only themselves as plaintiffs and sought $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Frazier’s “Bush lied — They died” T-shirts, sold at his site CarryaBigSticker.com, list Iraq war casualties’ names, and Frazier contends he is covered by First Amendment free-speech protections.

“We think it will be clear that this is political expression and not done for profit,” said Lee Phillips, Frazier’s attorney.

The Reads’ amended complaint says Frazier has no right to make a profit from the commercial sale of products using the casualties’ names without permission.

Frazier will ask that the lawsuit be transferred to the federal court in Arizona, which has already begun considering his challenge to an Arizona law barring use of slain service members’ names for commercial purposes without permission, Phillips said.

A federal judge in Arizona said in a preliminary ruling that a portion of that state’s law making violations a misdemeanor crime violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech and the press Arizona is among several states that have enacted similar laws.

The Reads’ attorney, Frank Santore, said in an e-mail that court rules barred him from comment.

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Olympic Torch Back in China After Protest-Filled Trip

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

CNS | Back on Chinese soil after a troubled trip around the world, the Olympic torch relay’s journey through Hong Kong Friday will be a test of Beijing’s willingness to allow free expression in the semi-autonomous territory.

The torch’s Hong Kong visit kicks off a three-month trip through China, including a controversial planned stop in Tibet in June, before the Olympic Games open in Beijing in August.

China has responded with outrage to public protests — many relating to repression in Tibet — that have dogged the six-week-long international leg of the relay, and officials want to keep the Hong Kong visit incident-free.

The former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” agreement that promised the enclave a measure of autonomy. Although political rights have been limited over the years since, Hong Kong authorities have allowed public demonstrations against government policies on a scale that would never be permitted elsewhere in China.

But with the sensitivities over the Olympics and Tibet, the government appears to be taking no chances.

This week, at least three high-profile Tibet activists were detained on entry into Hong Kong and deported.

Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) said two of its members, both Canadian citizens, had been questioned for three hours at Hong Kong International Airport before being deported. A press officer for the Free Tibet Campaign was also stopped and deported.

SFT said the campaigners had planned a press conference to coincide with the torch relay on Friday, focusing on calls for the International Olympic Committee to cancel the Tibet leg of the torch relay.

The group says it fears that the torch visit will spark “further protests and another violent crackdown by Chinese authorities in Tibet.”

At the weekend, the Hong Kong government’s Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong was quoted by local media as saying the authorities would not allow “Tibetan separatists” into Hong Kong.

Tibet isn’t the only focus of protestors taking advantage of China’s hosting of the Olympics. A Chinese writer living in Sweden and three Danes were also denied entry to Hong Kong in recent days, after being invited to take part in a two-day seminar on freedom of expression seminar, timed to coincide with the torch visit and World Press Freedom Day on Saturday.

“We have come to Hong Kong to call upon China to fulfill its guarantee to open media access on the mainland, and now we must be certain to include freedom of expression in Hong Kong,” said Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, vice-president of International PEN, an association of writers involved in organizing the seminar.

Hollywood actress and human rights activist Mia Farrow was scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong on Thursday to deliver a speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Friday entitled “Darfur and the Olympics.”

A pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong, Emily Lau, expressed concern in a radio interview earlier that Farrow may also be deported, a move she said would turn Hong Kong into “an international laughing stock.”

Farrow and others campaigning for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur want China, a key economic partner and arms supplier to the Sudanese government, to exert more pressure on Khartoum to help bring about a resolution.

The U.N. estimates that as many 300,000 people have died in Darfur since fighting erupted there in 2003 between rebel groups and government-backed militias.

Chinese officials have said repeatedly in recent months that there is no link between Darfur and its hosting of the Olympics.

Beijing Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Tuesday that “Farrow should deepen her knowledge and understanding of China’s active and constructive role in handling the Darfur issue.”

China had provided aid, sent peacekeepers and appointed a special envoy who was in contact with the various parties concerned in the conflict, she said.

“The Darfur issue was not brought about by China, but China has played a great active role in promoting the proper resolution of the issue.”

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BAE Systems To Build Mini Spy Robots

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

EFY | The company has partnered with the US Army Research Laboratory to build miniature robots for military use.

BAE Systems has signed a $38 million agreement with the US Army Research Laboratory to build miniature robots for military use. The Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Collaborative Technology Alliance consists of four primary research areas: BAE Systems will lead microsystems integration, the University of Michigan will lead microelectronics, the University of Maryland will lead microsystem mechanics, and the University of Pennsylvania will lead processing for autonomous operation.

The alliance will research and develop advanced robotic equipment for use in urban environments and terrain such as mountains and caves. The alliance aims to create an autonomous, multi-functional collection of miniature intelligence-gathering robots that can operate in places inaccessible or dangerous for humans.

The contract is for five years with an option to extend for an additional five years. MAST will focus on some of the key areas that include small-scale aeromechanics and ambulation, propulsion, sensing, processing and communications, and navigation and control, microdevices and integration, platform packaging and systems architectures.

“The technologies that will be developed under MAST represent capabilities and techniques that will influence nearly all of the products that BAE Systems will develop and produce in the future,” said Steve Scalera, MAST programme manager, BAE Systems in Merrimack, New Hampshire. “We and our alliance partners have committed our brightest minds to make the MAST programme a success.”

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Aviation companies point fingers over 9/11

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

NEW YORK — Aviation companies sued by the families of Sept. 11 victims for failing to safeguard air travel are in turn blaming federal investigators — arguing the Federal Aviation Administration was not alerted that al-Qaida was poised to launch attacks.In court documents filed this week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, aviation companies are seeking to force five FBI employees to provide testimony that may help defend against claims the companies share blame in the attacks.

“The aviation parties anticipate that the FBI witnesses’ testimony will demonstrate that the FBI had information before Sept. 11 indicating that al-Qaida may have been about to launch terrorist attacks on civil aviation, which it did not timely pass along to the Federal Aviation Administration,” lawyers wrote.

The airlines and aviation companies are defending themselves against lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for injuries, fatalities, property damage and business losses related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

The companies in turn filed separate lawsuits against the CIA and the FBI last August to force terrorism investigators to tell whether the aviation industry was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The latest documents filed by the airlines, airport authorities, security companies and an aircraft manufacturer argue that if the FAA had known about an FBI investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, it could have amended security measures to guard against the type of terrorist attack Moussaoui was planning.

The companies in the lawsuit against the CIA including American Airlines Inc., United Airlines Inc., US Airways Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Continental Airlines Inc. and The Boeing Co.

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10 US diplomats ordered to leave Belarus

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

Reuters | Ten US diplomats were ordered to leave Belarus within 72 hours on Wednesday, intensifying a row over sanctions and human rights. US charge d’affaires Jonathan Moore, talking to reporters after being summoned to the foreign ministry, said the embassy would abide by orders from the ex-Soviet state’s authorities.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has long been accused of suppressing freedom of speech and assembly. He has been barred from both the United States and European Union on allegations he rigged his 2006 re-election.

Moore said he believed new sanctions would be introduced if Belarus did not release all detainees deemed to be political prisoners. “Yes. I believe it will be soon,” he said. Belarussian authorities said Washington had failed to comply with a demand to reduce its embassy’s staff, the second this year.

“The foreign ministry provided a list of 10 diplomats which must leave the country in the course of 72 hours,” Moore said.

He said 15 diplomats were now in Minsk.

“We will do everything possible so that the US diplomats leave the country within the required time limit.”

Belarus’ foreign ministry earlier said it had issued a list of US diplomats it said had to leave over Washington’s failure to cut staff at its embassy.

The United States ambassador left the country last month at the urging of authorities and another diplomat had also gone.

US officials have said a resumption of dialogue is possible only if Belarus releases its most prominent detainee, academic Alexander Kozulin, jailed for five and a half years for helping stage mass protests against the president’s re-election.

Lukashenko ruled out any release of Kozulin on Tuesday in his annual state-of-the-nation address to parliament.

Kozulin turned down an offer last year to go to Germany for treatment of his ailing wife on the grounds it amounted to going into exile. His wife has since died.

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Scholar Says There’s No Freedom of Speech in the U.S.

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO - Sing Tao Daily | More than 3,000 Chinese Americans gathered Saturday in front of CNN’s San Francisco bureau to protest Jack Cafferty’s April 9 comments calling Chinese “basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years,” reports the Sing Tao Daily.

The protest garnered heavy coverage from the Chinese-language media but “hasn’t been covered in the mainstream media,” according to Ling-chi Wang, associate professor of Asian American Studies at UC Berkeley. Wang asserted that there is no freedom of speech in the United States and that the mainstream media is racist. “From the Tibet issue to the Olympics, the English-language media is filled with criticisms of China.

I believe the media looks down on China.” Wang compared this to the 1960s, when the mainstream media hadn’t covered African Americans’ peaceful protests until they became violent, Sing Tao Daily reports.

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Cheney accused of war crimes

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

BBC | A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has launched a stinging attack on US Vice-President Dick Cheney over abuse of prisoners by US troops. Col Lawrence Wilkerson accused Mr Cheney of ignoring a decision by President Bush on the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror.

Asked by the BBC’s Today if Mr Cheney could be accused of war crimes, he said: “It’s an interesting question.”

“Certainly it is a domestic crime to advocate terror,” he added.

“And I would suspect, for whatever it’s worth, it’s an international crime as well.”

This is an extraordinary attack by a man who until earlier in the year was Mr Cheney’s colleague in the senior reaches of the Bush team, the BBC’s Justin Webb in Washington says.

Col Wilkerson has in the past accused the vice-president of responsibility for the conditions which led to the abuse of prisoners.

But this time he has gone much further, appearing to suggest Mr Cheney should face war crimes charges, our correspondent adds.

Intelligence questions

He said that there were two sides of the debate within the Bush administration over the treatment of prisoners.

Mr Powell and more dovish members had argued for sticking to the Geneva conventions, which prohibit the torture of detainees.

Dick Cheney has been accused of advocating the use of terror

Meanwhile, the other side “essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions”.

Mr Bush agreed a compromise, that “Geneva would in fact govern all but al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda look-alike detainees”.

“What I’m saying is that, under the vice-president’s protection, the secretary of defence [Donald Rumsfeld] moved out to do what they wanted in the first place, even though the president had made a decision that was clearly a compromise,” Col Wilkerson said.

He said that he laid the blame on the issue of prisoner abuse and post-war planning for Iraq “pretty fairly and squarely” at Mr Cheney’s feet.

“I look at the relationship between Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld as being one that produced these two failures in particular, and I see that the president is not holding either of them accountable… so I have to lay some blame at his feet too,” he went on.

In the BBC interview, Col Wilkerson also developed his views on whether or not pre-war intelligence was deliberately misused by the White House.

He said that he had previously thought only honest mistakes were made.

But recent revelations about doubts in the intelligence community that appear to have been suppressed in the run-up to the war have made him question this view.

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A barrage of US threats against Iran

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

By Peter Symonds | During a press conference on Tuesday, US President George Bush spelled out the threat to Iran contained in last week’s release of CIA intelligence on an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor. As well as warning Syria and North Korea, which purportedly helped construct the building, he declared that the US was “sending a message to Iran, and the world for that matter, about just how destabilising a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East”.

While Bush did not explain what the “message” was, the context makes it abundantly clear. Last September, Israeli warplanes demolished the building in an unprovoked act of aggression that had the potential to trigger a wider war. The US administration, which undoubtedly gave the green light for the attack, presented uncorroborated intelligence last week that the building housed an uncompleted reactor and that Syria was trying to build a nuclear weapon. The unstated threat to Tehran was: the US and Israel are prepared to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities as well.

None of the Israeli and US intelligence made public last week implicated Tehran in Syria’s alleged plans for a nuclear reactor. So why single Iran out for special mention? As far as nuclear proliferation is concerned, Israel is the only country in the region with a stockpile of nuclear weapons, and US regional allies—Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey—have all announced plans for nuclear reactors. By naming Iran, Bush not only underscored the hypocritical character of his stance, but confirmed Tehran is at the top of the list of US targets.

The “message” to Iran came on the same day as a second American aircraft carrier—the USS Abraham Lincoln—arrived in the Persian Gulf. The accompanying battle group includes two guided-missile destroyers—the USS Momsen and USS Shoup. The USS Harry Truman has moved out of the Gulf, but remains in the area covered by the US Central Command, which covers the Middle East and Central Asia.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates played down the deployment, saying it had been planned for a long time. “I don’t think we’ll have two carriers there for a protracted period of time. So I don’t see it as an escalation,” he said, but pointedly added that it could be seen as “a reminder” to Iran. Just last Friday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, branded Tehran as an “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq and stressed that “it would be a mistake [for Iran] to think that we are out of combat capability”.

The potential for a US naval provocation in the Persian Gulf was highlighted in January when the Bush administration deliberately inflated an encounter between US warships and Iranian speedboats. On the basis of a highly dubious American account of the incident, President Bush accused Iran of “a provocative act” and warned of “dangerous consequences” if US warships were attacked.

Last Friday, a US naval security team aboard a cargo vessel—the Westward Venture, hired by the military—fired warning shots at two unidentified boats that approached the vessel. The boats left the area after what the US Navy described as “a few bursts” of machine gun fire. Earlier this month, the US military claimed that three small Iranian boats had approached the patrol ship USS Typhoon in a “taunting manner”—one to within 200 metres—before being warned off. Iranian authorities have rejected US allegations.

Mullen’s remarks about Tehran’s “lethal and malign influence” in Iraq are another unsubstantiated US allegation being recycled repeatedly as a possible pretext for an attack on Iran. While Washington denounces Iran for arming and training so-called special groups to attack US and Iraqi forces inside Iraq, the only evidence made public to date are displays of Iranian-made weapons, allegedly provided by Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC).

Several US newspapers have now reported that the top American commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has ordered the compiling of a new “dossier” on Iranian interference in Iraq. From what is described, however, the new evidence will be no more conclusive than the old—a display of recently manufactured Iranian-made weapons that hardly proves the direct involvement of the Iranian regime in a region awash with illegal arms markets.

It was announced last week that General Petraeus will replace Admiral William Fallon as head of the US Central Command. Fallon stepped down last month after displaying thinly disguised opposition to the Bush administration’s continuing threats of military action against Iran. Petraeus, who has been central to the US “surge” strategy in Iraq, made clear his belligerent attitude when he agreed in congressional testimony earlier this month that Iran was “responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers”.

Last Friday’s Asia Times reported that Petraeus has been effectively acting as Central Command head for months. He has made trips to five Middle Eastern countries since last September—Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates—a job that normally would have been done by Fallon.

A chorus of threatsThere has been a growing chorus of US accusations and threats against Iran over everything from “meddling” in Iraq and its supposed nuclear weapons program to Tehran’s ties with groups such as the Lebanese Shiite organisation Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas, which are branded by Washington as “terrorists”. Everyone in the Bush administration and at the Pentagon appears to be singing from the same song sheet.

On Sunday, in Iraq, US military spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll again accused Iran of arming and training groups that were firing rockets from the suburb of Sadr City in Baghdad. Without providing a shred of evidence, he declared: “The Iranians continue to train Iraqis and finance their networks and over time that is going to build… So over time if they continue to do this activity it will create bigger influence and that’s going to lead to more interference in the internal affairs of Iraq.”

On Monday, CIA director Michael Hayden raised the spectre of a nuclear-armed Syria to justify last September’s Israeli strike. No conclusive proof has been made public demonstrating that the destroyed building was a reactor or that it was nearing completion. The CIA has not explained where Damascus was going to get nuclear fuel or provided any evidence that Syria wanted to build a bomb. Yet, according to Hayden, “in the course of a year after they got full up [fuelled the reactor] they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons.” The remark was aimed not so much at Syria but at Iran which has refused to comply with US demands to shut down its uranium enrichment facilities and end construction on a research reactor.

On the same day, in a report to the UN Security Council, US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad again demanded that “Iran and Syria… stop the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq, and their malign interference in Iraq”. He repeated allegations that the Quds Force was continuing “to arm, train and fund illegal armed groups in Iraq,” saying “this lethal aid poses a significant threat to Iraqi and multinational forces and to the stability and sovereignty of Iraq”.

On Tuesday, in comments to the American Jewish Committee, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stood fully behind Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Hamas, declaring: “[O]f deepest concern, the leaders of Hamas are increasingly serving as the proxy warriors of an Iranian regime that is destabilising the region, seeking a nuclear capability and proclaiming a desire to destroy Israel.” She took aim at a “belt of extremism” stretching from Hamas and Hezbollah to Iraq and Afghanistan, which was “supported overwhelmingly by Iran and to a certain extent Syria, but particularly Iran. “[It] gives this conflict a regional dimension it has not had before,” Rice warned.

On Wednesday, the US State Department released a report branding Iran as the world’s “most active” and “most significant” state sponsor of terrorism. While also listing Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Sudan, the report highlighted Iran’s alleged support for “terrorism”, claiming it was aimed at “deterring the US or Israeli attacks, distracting and weakening the US, enhancing Iran’s regional influence through intimidation, and helping to drive the US from the Middle East”.

The escalating barrage of American propaganda bears an ominous resemblance to the falsehoods told to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The technique of the big lie—the endless recycling of unsubstantiated accusations as fact—is again being employed. A CIA dossier on Syria’s nuclear reactor is to be followed by another on Iranian interference in Iraq. The Bush administration’s vocal right-wing allies are already proclaiming that the White House must respond to Iran’s “proxy war” against the US in Iraq.

War plans are being dusted off and redrawn. In his comments last Friday, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Michael Mullen revealed that the Pentagon was planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran. An article in Saturday’s New York Times reported that “the administration has, in fact, discussed whether to attack training camps, safe houses and weapons storehouses inside Iran” used to train Iraqi insurgents. The newspaper claimed that US strikes on Iran were off the agenda “for now”.

CBS News issued a chilling report on Tuesday, however, indicating that the time frame for strikes on Iran may be quite short. Citing an unnamed US officer, the article stated that the Pentagon had given orders to develop new options for attacking Iran. “Targets would include everything from the plans where weapons are made to headquarters of the organisation known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq,” it added.

According to CBS: “Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt. If that doesn’t produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off—or else.”

A Pentagon spokesman officially denied the report. However, there is no doubt that the current propaganda campaign against Iran points in the one direction: the danger that the Bush administration will launch another criminal war of aggression in the Middle East in a desperate bid to shore up American economic and strategic interests in the energy-rich region.

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Abu Ghraib Film Obscures Truth

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

By Sam Provance | Former Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib who broke the code of silence surrounding the infamous prisoner abuses. He spoke out during the Army’s internal investigation, at a congressional hearing and in press interviews.For his brave integrity, Provance was punished and pushed out of the U.S. military, clearing the way for the Pentagon to pin the blame for the sadistic treatment of Iraqi detainees on a handful of poorly trained MPs. Now, history is repeating itself in Errol Morris’s supposedly hard-hitting documentary on the scandal:

Representatives for film director Errol Morris told me during pre-production that “Standard Operating Procedure” would be the very best documentary on the abuses of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib – the one that would tell the whole truth.

I had pinned great hope on that. It didn’t turn out that way.

My perspective on the Abu Ghraib scandal came from spending from September 2003 to February 2004 at the Iraq prison as a sergeant in Army Intelligence. Working the 8 p.m.-to- 8 a.m. night shift, it was impossible not to notice who was directing the operation. And I shared all this with Morris.

But now I’ve seen the film and I’m disappointed. Morris does little to get to the bottom of what happened. He muddies already opaque waters regarding who was actually responsible for the abuse of prisoners.

The film focuses on the awful photos, the people in them and those who took them. This perspective plays right into the hands of the cover-up artists. It perpetuates the myth that the abuses are rightfully laid at the feet of those impressionable, but very human, young soldiers.

Morris should have been looking up the chain of command; at the civilian and military officials actually responsible for ordering these Military Police Reservists to rough up prisoners.

A no-holds-barred documentary? Give me a break.

Finally, the Whole Truth!

I was first put into contact with the makers of “SOP” while I was still in the Army. From the beginning, I was told this was going to be a huge project with the production support of Sony Pictures Entertainment; and that Morris, who had won an Oscar with his documentary, “The Fog of War,” would be at the helm.

This was to be the breakthrough investigation into what really happened at Abu Ghraib, who was responsible for the abuse and why it was ordered – the project that really got people’s attention, going where previous investigators and media had feared to tread.

Call me gullible but, believing this was to be a groundbreaking work, I fully cooperated with Morris. I assisted him in his quest for documents, videos, photos, notes and helped him contact fellow soldiers who were at Abu Ghraib and knew what happened.

When I was discharged from the Army in October 2006, I went to Boston for a two-day interview.

Morris asked me to sign several contracts before and after the interviews, and I did as he asked without paying much attention to them. I do remember however, that in one contract Morris agreed to pay me one dollar.

In any event, I never got the dollar, but was reminded of this last week when I read in the New York Times that others got paychecks for their participation.

I have never asked for or taken money for media interviews. To me, that undermines the process and trivializes the importance of the issues of torture and prisoner mistreatment and their meaning for the moral atmosphere in our country as a whole.

When the film was finished, Morris told me he had intended to use some of the footage from my two days of interviews and the materials I provided, but decided in the end to “narrowly focus” on the Military Police. This, of course, is what so many others have done and is in the worst tradition of a Nixon-style “modified, limited hangout.”

Chain of Command?

Here’s the oddest thing: Even though Morris’s lens is trained on the Military Police, he does find room for a civilian interrogator, Tim Dugan, who worked at Abu Ghraib for CACI, a contractor factory for civilian interrogators.

I witnessed for myself how civilian personnel, like Dugan, corrupted the military. Indeed, they were the genesis of the break from conventional interrogation techniques into what Vice President Dick Cheney hinted at when he spoke of the “dark side” of intelligence.

It was they who ordered the Military Police and some of my own unit’s Military Intelligence soldiers to “soften” the detainees for interrogation, and encouraged the behavior depicted in the photographs. I know; I was there. And, of course, I told Errol Morris.

So I was surprised, to say the least, to see Morris giving Dugan a place to contend that, essentially, the abuses were all the military’s fault.

Odd indeed. Even Maj. Gen. George Fay, whose investigation of Abu Ghraib left much to be desired, reported the pernicious effect civilian interrogators had on the impressionable and inexperienced soldiers.

Fay reported, for example that Daniel Johnson, one of Dugan’s CACI interrogator colleagues, whom I knew at Abu Ghraib, was using Spc. Charles Graner as “muscle” for his interrogations.

And yet, Morris describes Dugan as “remarkable.” Remarkable, indeed, Errol.

Did no one tell you that CACI, Dugan and several of his fellow interrogators were sued by their victims in Abu Ghraib, seeking to hold them accountable for their behavior?

In the civil case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Abu Ghraib prisoners, the lawsuit implicates Dugan in the abuse.

“CACI interrogator Timothy Dugan also tortured plaintiffs and other prisoners,” the lawsuit alleges. “For example, he physically dragged handcuffed plaintiffs and other prisoners along the ground to inflict pain on them. He struck and beat plaintiffs and other prisoners. He bragged to a non-conspirator about scaring a prisoner with threats to such a degree that the prisoner vomited.

“When a young non-conspirator directed him to cease the torture and comply [with] Army Field Manual 34-52, Dugan scoffed at his youth and refused to follow the direction.”

The lawsuit further alleges that Dugan took part in a CACI cover-up of when a detainee died by going through “the charade of interrogating a prisoner who was already dead as part of the conspiracy’s efforts to conceal a murder.” Dugan is accused, too, of threatening a fellow CACI employee who talked to investigators.

CACI has denounced the lawsuit as baseless, and the individual defendants were dismissed out on a technicality. However, on Nov. 6, 2007, U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson in Washington denied CACI’s motion for summary judgment and ordered a jury trial against CACI.

A criminal investigation also is pending in the Eastern District of Virginia concerning some of the CACI employees.

In “SOP,” Dugan presents himself as a whistleblower who tried to stop the abuses. He claims that he reported to his “section sergeant” that two Army female interrogators were stripping detainees naked as an interrogation technique, and how shocked he was to see this.

Dugan claims he got the brush-off; was told not to get involved. So who was this “section sergeant?” And is he/she above the law?

Why did Dugan not offer himself as a witness in any of the various investigations? Where has he been if he felt then the way he now says he did? Again, why sport the good-guy badge now?

I came away with the impression that Morris was unprepared for the interview and was being taken for a ride.

CACI’s Defense

For obvious reasons, CACI has gone to extraordinary lengths to separate itself from the horrors of Abu Ghraib, arguing that the military alone was at fault.

CACI recently announced the release of a book, Our Good Name: A Company’s Fight To Defend Its Honor And Get The Truth About Abu Ghraib.

CACI contends strongly that its interrogators adhered to the military chain of command, something it has been feverishly trying to establish in the lawsuits against it.

And so, the behavior captured in the photos? That was the military’s responsibility, not CACI’s.

That is not what I observed from my ringside seat.

I told Morris that the reality was that the civilian contractors paid little heed to the military chain of command, and that they were the ones actually running the show. That didn’t make it into the final version of “SOP.”

Even though it is now an established fact that between 70 to 90 percent of detainees at Abu Ghraib were completely innocent, something I learned directly on site, Dugan implies that the harsh interrogation practices applied there were legitimate – except of course for the failings of the military.

This myth-making is intended to hold CACI harmless and help it maintain its very lucrative government contracts. CACI International had $1.6 billion in revenues in 2005. Folks have always told me it all has to do with money; I suppose they’re right.

But Congress should be asking some simple questions. It should start by asking why civilian contractors are being employed in connection with the interrogation of persons under detention in wartime, a function which previously has been entirely in the hands of the uniformed military?

This could yield some interesting answers. Indeed, evasion of military rules and discipline as well as avoidance of congressional oversight might be at the heart of the answers.

Morris takes pride in calling “SOP” a horror movie and – with the mood music and the needless slow-motion reenactments – he makes sure of that.

However, “SOP” does little more than humanize some of the “bad apples” (a good thing, I suppose), while gratuitously absolving the civilian interrogators actually responsible for fouling those apples.

But, wait. Abu Ghraib is not primarily about Military Police – or civilian interrogators. It is about the many thousands of wrongfully detained Iraqis – many of them abused, tortured and even killed. It is also about their families. What about their story?

Morris has called “SOP” just “the tip of the iceberg,” citing the unused volumes of material he’s collected since production began. But Morris owed his viewers a glimpse of the whole iceberg, not just the small misleading piece that bobbed above the surface.

He has announced his next film project: a comedy. Go figure.

Sam Provance, a former Army sergeant specializing in intelligence analysis, refused to remain silent about the torture of Abu Ghraib, where he served for five months at the height of the abuses. He was punished for refusing to take part in the cover-up, and pushed out of the Army. For his sworn testimony to Congress, click here.

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Brown admits mistake in abolishing 10p rate

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

By Patrick Wintour, Nicholas Watt and Allegra Stratton | Gordon Brown yesterday admitted making “mistakes” in abolishing the 10p rate of income tax as the Conservatives ratcheted up the pressure on the eve of the local elections by challenging ministers to publish the Treasury advice on the issue at the time of the 2007 budget.

Both the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, and the Treasury permanent secretary, Nick Macpherson, separately told select committees earlier this week that the then chancellor would have been briefed on the impact of the abolition of the 10p rate.

“The decision to reform the income tax system and reduce the basic rate to 20p, and abolish the 10p rate … reflected considerable analysis and was taken on that basis,” Macpherson told the public accounts committee.

The Conservatives yesterday put in a request to the Treasury for that analysis under the Freedom of Information Act, in the hope that they can then claim that Brown did not make a mistake, but was aware of the consequences of what he was doing.

The former welfare minister Frank Field spent four months in 2007 trying to extract details of the impact of the 10p tax rate abolition in parliamentary written answers.

In his frankest admission of error, the prime minister yesterday said the government “didn’t cover as well as we should have” losses to low earners without children and pensioners aged 60 to 64. He also said he was “listening” and “learning” as prime minister, adding that “hundreds of things pass your desk every week”.

“We made two mistakes, I will be honest about it. We didn’t cover as well as we should that group of low-paid workers who don’t get the working tax credits and we weren’t able to help the 60- to 64-year-olds who didn’t get the pensioner’s tax allowance.”

He told the BBC’s Today programme that the government had tried to rectify these failings in the 2007 pre-budget report and in the 2008 budget.

At the time of the 2007 budget ministers insisted there would no losers, and the prime minister’s spokesman yesterday said it would have been very difficult to calculate how many people might be adversely affected by the complex changes made in the 2007 budget.

In a separate development, Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian Society, the left-of-centre thinktank, accused the government of “neurotic under-confidence”.

Strong and radical leadership was needed because Labour was “badly stuck” over how to win the next general election, he said.

His attack led to sharp criticism from a senior executive member and MP who wrote to him last night saying: “Sometimes it has been hard for the activists who have been out on the door knocker at a time when voters are angry about 10p tax etc.

“They have taken it on the chin, and by doing that have left people feeling that it is still worth voting Labour because we engage with them and are prepared to argue our case.

“It has been hard, and the headlines your piece will garner on the day they are going out to knock up thousands more will dishearten them and make it harder. Frankly the internal debate could have remained stuck for a further 22 hours until the polls close, without in any way harming your case.”

On the eve of polling in the local elections David Cameron told the Guardian that the race for the London mayor was not his only focus.

The Conservative leader said: “The rest of the country is important, because it is how you rebuild your organisation. In the north-west we genuinely did make a breakthrough last year.

“We really did suddenly [go] from a situation where we had patchy representation to having more councils than Labour and taking outright control of some places. The organisation is bigger and better. I put a lot of effort into the local elections, because it is actually about how you build the Conservative party across the country.”

He added that he was prepared for a downturn in his fortunes, saying: “Anyone who has followed American politics recently will see that anything is possible. Yes, of course I had a difficult time last summer over byelections and grammar schools and what have you.

“In a way, it is how you come through the difficult times that shows whether your party is sorting itself out. I think the Conservative party really rose to the challenge last year.”

Cameron said Boris Johnson deserved to win in London and freely admitted that a loss would be “bad”.

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Police reject tougher action on cannabis

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

By Alan Travis - The Guardian | Police will not adopt a tougher approach to cases of simple possession of cannabis when ministers upgrade the legal status of the drug to class B, the Guardian can disclose.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) confirmed last night that the current policy of “confiscate and warn” would continue, despite Gordon Brown’s determination to reclassify the drug in an attempt to “send a tough message” to young people about its use.

Chief constables are debating whether or not fixed penalty fines should be available alongside cannabis warnings. But the basic approach of saving police time by not making an arrest and taking the offender to the police station to be charged, introduced four years ago, will remain.

Before cannabis was downgraded to class C in 2004, 58% of possession cases formally dealt with by police ended in arrest and formal caution, while 42% were taken to court.

Campaigners for drug law reform last night questioned the relevance of the drug classification system, which dates back to 1971, and its ability to send a message.

Roger Howard, chief executive of the UK Drug Policy Commission, and a former government drugs adviser, said: “There will be no new powers or resources for policing if cannabis is made class B, and cannabis warnings can still be issued instead of arrest.”

He said this underlined the muddle at the heart of government over the purpose of a drug classification system which was unlikely ever to be able to “send a message to young people”. Since cannabis had moved from class B to class C, the number of schoolchildren who think it is fine to try cannabis had halved, he said.

It is expected that Acpo guidance to police officers will use different language from existing guidelines to stress the discretion that is available to constables to take more robust action in cases involving repeat offenders or aggravating factors such as disorder or evidence of organised crime.

An Acpo spokesman last night: “The key will be the discretion for officers to strike the right balance. We do not want to criminalise young people who are experimenting.” However, he stressed that cases involving “aggravating factors” were more likely to see an arrest and prosecution.

When the police announced their support for regrading cannabis as a class B drug this year, Simon Byrne, Merseyside’s assistant chief constable and the Acpo lead on policing cannabis, entered a little-noticed but crucial caveat to the police position. He said that since cannabis had been downgraded there had been growing concerns over increased potency, the rise of “homegrown” cannabis farms and a perception that its legal status meant it was seen as a low policing priority.

But he added that the police had supported the decision to downgrade the drug four years ago because of “the disproportionate time spent by frontline police officers in dealing with offenders in possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use. Should the decision be taken to reclassify cannabis to a class B, Acpo believes the service should retain this flexibility in dealing with instances of possession on the street, including the discretion to issue warnings in appropriate circumstances”.

The 2005 Serious and Organised Crime and Policing Act introduced new criteria for making an arrest which emphasised that it had to be necessary because, for example, the officer doubted whether he had been given a real name or a valid address by the offender. The number of cannabis warnings issued has spiralled to more than 100,000 since its legal status was downgraded; that forms an important part of the ability of the police to meet their national target for the number of offences brought to justice.

In legal terms, the move back to class B means the maximum prison sentence for possession will be increased from two to five years.

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