Άρνηση χτυπημάτων αποσπάσματος βασανιστηρίων του Μπους
Τρίτη, 15η Απριλίου 2008Από Jason Leopold
Πρόεδρος George W. Σχόλιο του Μπους των ειδήσεων ABC - ότι ενέκρινε τις συζητήσεις ότι οι κορυφαίοι βοηθοί του που κρατήθηκαν για τις σκληρές τεχνικές ερώτησης - προσθέτει credence στις αξιώσεις από τους ανώτερους πράκτορες FBI στο Ιράκ το 2004 ότι ο Μπους είχε υπογράψει μια εκτελεστική διαταγή εγκρίνοντας τη χρήση των στρατιωτικών σκυλιών, τη στέρηση ύπνου και άλλη τακτική για να εκφοβίσει τους ιρακινούς κρατουμένους.
Όταν η αμερικανική αστική ένωση ελευθεριών απελευθέρωσε το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο FBI Δεκεμβρίου 2004 - μετά από να λάβει το μέσω μιας δίκης νόμων ελευθερίας των πληροφοριών - ο λευκός οίκος έντονα αρνήθηκε ότι οποιαδήποτε τέτοιαδήποτε προεδρική εκτελεστική διαταγή υπεάρξε, καλώντας τον απροσδιόριστος ανώτερο υπάλληλο FBI που έγραψε το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο «μπερδεμένο.»
Ο Πρόεδρος Bush και οι αντιπρόσωποί του επίσης έχουν αρνηθεί επανειλημμένα ότι η διοίκηση συγχωρεί «τα βασανιστήρια,» αν και οι ανώτεροι ανώτεροι υπάλληλοι διοίκησης έχουν αναγνωρίσει τους «μεγάλης αξίας» υπόπτους τρόμου στις επιθετικές τεχνικές ερώτησης, συμπεριλαμβανομένου «» - ή μιμούμενο πνίξιμο - τριών κρατουμένων Al-Qaeda.
Αλλά τα αναδυόμενα δημόσια στοιχεία προτείνουν ότι συμβάσεων οι αρνήσεις του Μπους για «τα βασανιστήρια» ανέρχονται σε σημασιολογικό επιχείρημα, με τη διοίκηση που εφαρμόζει έναν στενό καθορισμό που έρχεται σε αντίθεση με τα ευρέως αποδεκτά πρότυπα που περιλαμβάνονται στο διεθνές δίκαιο, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της Γενεύης και άλλων των ανθρώπινων δικαιωμάτων.
Το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο FBI - το της 22ης Μαΐου 2004 http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI.121504.4940_4941.pdf - ακολούθησε τις κοινοποιήσεις για την κακοποίηση των ιρακινών κρατουμένων στη φυλακή Abu Ghraib και επιδίωξε την καθοδήγηση σχετικά με εάν οι πράκτορες FBI στο Ιράκ υποχρεώθηκαν για να εκθέσουν τις ΗΠΑ. σκληρή ερώτηση στρατιωτικών των τρόφιμων όταν παραβίασε εκείνη η επεξεργασία τα πρότυπα αλλά την τακτοποίηση FBI στα πλαίσια των οδηγιών μιας προεδρικής εκτελεστικής διαταγής.
Σύμφωνα με το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο, η εκτελεστική διαταγή του Μπους επέτρεψε στις ανακρίσεις για να χρησιμοποιήσει τα στρατιωτικά σκυλιά, «θέσεις πίεσης,» ύπνος «διαχείριση,» δυνατή μουσική και «αισθητήρια στέρηση μέσω της χρήσης των κουκουλών, κ.λπ.» για να εξαγάγει τις πληροφορίες από τους κρατουμένους στο Ιράκ.
Το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο FBI τέθηκε σε ένα νέο φως από τις ειδήσεις αναφέρει την προηγούμενη εβδομάδα ότι οι ανώτεροι ανώτεροι υπάλληλοι λευκών οίκων - συμπεριλαμβανομένου του αντιπροέδρου Dick Cheney και του έπειτα-εθνικού συμβούλου Condoleezza Rice ασφάλειας - συναντήθηκαν κρυφά για να συζητήσουν τις συγκεκριμένες μεθόδους ερώτησης που θα μπορούσαν να χρησιμοποιηθούν ενάντια στους κρατουμένους.
«Οι ανώτεροι ανώτεροι υπάλληλοι διοίκησης των Μπους συζήτησαν επανειλημμένα και ενέκριναν τις συγκεκριμένες λεπτομέρειες ακριβώς πώς οι μεγάλης αξίας ύποπτοι Al-Qaeda θα ρωτιόνταν από τη CIA,» ειδήσεις ABC αναφερόμενες http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4635175&page=1, αναφέροντας τις απροσδιόριστος πηγές.
«Οι υψηλού επιπέδου συζητήσεις για αυτές τις ενισχυμένες `τεχνικές ερώτησης» ήταν έτσι λεπτομερείς, αυτές οι πηγές εν λόγω, μερικές από τις συνόδους ερώτησης ήταν σχεδόν - κάτω στον αριθμό χρόνων οι πράκτορες CIA μπόρεσαν να χρησιμοποιήσουν μια συγκεκριμένη τακτική.
“These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al-Qaeda suspects – whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC News.”
On Friday, President Bush confirmed the report, stating matter-of-factly: “I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved”
FBI E-Mail
The May 2004 FBI e-mail stated that the FBI interrogation team in Iraq understood that despite revisions in the Executive Order that occurred after the furor over the Abu Ghraib abuses, the presidential sanctioning of harsh interrogation tactics had not been rescinded.
“I have been told that all interrogation techniques previously authorized by the Executive Order are still on the table but that certain techniques can only be used if very high-level authority is granted,” the author of the FBI e-mail said.
“We have also instructed our personnel not to participate in interrogations by military personnel which might include techniques authorized by Executive Order but beyond the bounds of FBI practices.”
One month after the e-mail was sent to FBI counterterrorism officials in Washington, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales held a news conference in an attempt to contain the fallout from the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Gonzales told reporters that the abuses, which included sexual humiliation of Iraqi men, were isolated to some rogue U.S. soldiers who acted on their own and not as result of orders being handed down from high-level officials inside the Bush administration.
“The President has not directed the use of specific interrogation techniques,” Gonzales said on June 22, 2004. “There has been no presidential determination necessity or self-defense that would allow conduct that constitutes torture.
“There has been no presidential determination that circumstances warrant the use of torture to protect the mass security of the United States.”
Prior to the news conference, the White House selectively declassified and released documents to reporters, including one dated Feb. 7, 2002, and signed by President Bush, that cited the Geneva Convention’s rules about humane treatment of prisoners during conflicts.
Describing the contents of the Feb. 7, 2002, memo, Gonzales said, “This is the only formal, written directive from the President regarding treatment of detainees. The President determined that Geneva does not apply with respect to our conflict with al-Qaeda. Geneva applies with respect to our conflict with the Taliban. Neither the Taliban or al Qaeda are entitled to POW protections.”
Gonzales added: “But the President also determined – and this is quoting from the actual document, paragraph 3; this is very important – he said, ‘Of course, our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment. Our nation has been, and will continue to be, a strong supporter of Geneva and its principles. As a matter of policy, the Armed Forces are to treat detainees humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva’.”
But the FBI e-mail’s reference to an Executive Order describing specific harsh interrogation techniques, allegedly approved by President Bush, appeared to contradict Gonzales’s assertions.
Yoo’s Memo
The issue surrounding U.S. interrogation methods and whether they amount to torture resurfaced two weeks ago when the Defense Department released an 81-page document in response to the ACLU’s ongoing FOIA lawsuit.
John Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, drafted the document, dated March 14, 2003. It essentially provided military interrogators with legal cover if they resorted to brutal and violent methods to extract information from prisoners.
“If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda terrorist network,” Yoo wrote.
“In that case, we believe that he could argue that the Executive Branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”
The legal opinion for military interrogators was virtually identical to an earlier memo that Yoo had written in August 2002 for CIA interrogators. Widely called the “Torture Memo,” it provided CIA interrogators with the legal authority to use long-outlawed tactics, such as waterboarding, when interrogating so-called high-level terrorist suspects.
In declaring that the United States does not engage in torture, Bush administration officials appear to be relying on a narrower U.S. definition of torture than that is accepted under international law, such as the 1984 Convention Against Torture that was signed by the Reagan administration in 1988 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994.
“The threshold for torture is lower under international law: acts that do not amount to torture under U.S. law may do so under international law,” wrote Philippe Sands, law professor at University College London, in a column published in the Dec. 9, 2005, edition of The Financial Times.
“Waterboarding – strapping a detainee to a board and dunking him under water so he believes that he might drown – plainly constitutes torture under international law, even if it may not do so under U.S. law. …
“When the U.S. joined the 1984 convention it entered an ‘understanding’ on the definition of torture, to the effect that the international definition was to be read as being consistent with the U.S. definition The administration relies on the ‘understanding.’
“So, when Ms. Rice says the U.S. does not do torture or render people to countries that practice torture, she does not rely on the international definition. That is wrong: the convention does not allow each country to adopt its own definition, otherwise the convention’s obligations would become meaningless. That is why other governments believe the U.S. ‘understanding’ cannot affect U.S. obligations under the convention.”
At the June 22, 2004, news conference, Gonzales said the White House defined torture as a “a specific intent to inflict severe physical or mental harm or suffering. That’s the definition that Congress has given us and that’s the definition that we use.”
However, on March 8, 2008, President Bush vetoed congressional legislation that called for a specific ban on waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques, including stripping prisoners naked, subjecting them to extreme cold and staging mock executions.
“This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe,” the president said in a radio address http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/08/bush.torture.ap/ explaining his veto.
“We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland.” Bush said. “If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the [Army] field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al-Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives.”
Investigative reporter Jason Leopold is the author of News Junkie, a memoir Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com for a preview.
See More:Bush Torture USA NewsHave Your Say: Bush’s Torture Quote Undercuts Denial
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008at 9:31 pmand is filed under Political News, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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