布什的酷刑行情咬边否认
由贾森· Leopold
乔治· W.总统。 布什的评论到ABC新闻-那他批准了2004年他的高级助手被拿着关于苛刻的审讯技术-的讨论在伊拉克增加信用到要求从资深联邦调查局特工签署了一个行政命令批准用途的布什军事狗、睡眠剥夺和其他战术威逼伊拉克被拘留者。
当美国公民自由联合在2004年12月发布了FBI电子邮件-在获得它以后通过信息行动诉讼自由-白宫强调地否认任何如此总统行政命令存在了，告诉写“弄错的电子邮件的无提名的FBI官员”。
代表布什总统和他的一再也否认了管理赦免“酷刑”，虽然资深政府官员承认了服从的“高值”恐怖嫌疑犯到进取的审讯技术，包括“waterboarding” -或被模仿的淹没-三个阿尔凯达被拘留者。
但涌现的公开证据建议布什的否认关于“酷刑”数额到一个语义论据，当管理申请抗辩在国际法包含的广泛被接受的标准，包括日内瓦和其他人权大会的一个狭窄的定义。
FBI电子邮件-约会2004年5月22日http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI.121504.4940_4941.pdf -被跟随的透露关于伊拉克被拘留者恶习在Abu Ghraib监狱和被寻找的教导联邦调查局特工在伊拉克是否被强制报告美国。 囚犯的军事的苛刻的审讯，当那种治疗在一个总统行政命令的指南之内违犯了FBI标准，但适合。
根据电子邮件，布什的行政命令在伊拉克批准审问者使用军事狗， “重音位置、”睡眠“管理”，大声的音乐和“知觉剥夺通过对敞篷的用途等等”从被拘留者提取信息。
FBI电子邮件上星期被放入新的光由新闻报告资深白宫官员-包括安全顾问Condoleezza Rice副总统Dick Cheney和然后全国-秘密地见面谈论可能使用反对被拘留者的具体审讯方法。
“最资深的布什政府官员一再被谈论和被批准的具体细节确切地怎么高值阿尔凯达嫌疑犯由CIA会询问”，报告的ABC新闻 http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4635175&page=1援引无提名的来源。
“高级讨论关于这些`改进的审讯技术’是，很详细，这些来源认为，某些审讯会议几乎舞蹈设计-下来到次数中央情报局特工可能使用一种具体战术。
“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after the furor over the Abu Ghraib abuses, the presidential sanctioning of harsh interrogation tactics had not been rescinded.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.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 9:31 pm and 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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