TOP STORY
Case of Tortured U.S. Citizen Tests Obama Administration on Human Rights.
In 2 weeks, US citizen Naji Hamdan will be tried in the United Arab Emirates
for "nonspecific charges of ‘promoting terrorism.’"
Story continued on the flip.
Additional stories include: Emails from OPR torture memo investigation reveal evidence of pressure by WH on torture lawyers & add Harriet Miers as putative defendant; how Cheney’s briefing role succeeded in roping in lawmakers; how death penalty guilty pleas may now be available to all prisoners in order to convict 5 martyrs; study indicates link between torture & suicide by prisoners; report shows how limiting calorie intake would not be acceptable at federal prisons; Valtin adds two generals to putative defendant list; and pictures of Uighurs in first protest at Guantánamo.
Last July, Hamdan was "summoned" to the US Embassy in UAE:
He drove two hours through the desert heat from Dubai to answer questions from FBI agents who had arrived from Los Angeles, where Hamdan had gone to school, started a family, built a successful auto-parts business and become a U.S. citizen.
Six weeks later, men kidnapped and rendered him from his apartment for his imprisonment in UAE, where he was tortured in a case his lawyer claims was torture by proxy, or "at the behest" of his own government:
Hamdan was told he was a prisoner of the UAE and was held in a cell painted glossy white to reflect the lights that burned round the clock, according to a note he wrote from prison. Between interrogations, he wrote, he was confined in a frigid room overnight, strapped into "an electric chair" and punched in the head until he lost consciousness.
In one session, the blindfolded prisoner recalled hearing a voice that sounded American. The voice said, "Do what they want or these people will [expletive] you up," Hamdan wrote.
The prisoner obliged, signing a confession that he later said meant only that he would do anything to make the pain stop. The case might have ended there but for Hamdan's U.S. citizenship and his American attorney's assertion that he was tortured "at the behest" of his own government.
The way he was tortured is similar to Bush’s torture program:
In criminal custody, Mr. Hamdan told both his family and the U.S. consular officer who visited him that he had been severely tortured: repeatedly beaten on his head, kicked on his sides, stripped and held in a freezing cold room, placed in an electric chair and made to believe that he would be electrocuted, and held down in a stress position while his captors beat the bottoms of his feet with a large stick. During this horrific process, he said whatever the agents wanted him to say, and those statements may now be used against him in a criminal trial in the U.A.E.
This is not be the first time that Americans asked foreign governments to render, arrest or imprison US citizens under a practice known as "proxy detention."
Three Americans are known to have been arrested by foreign governments at the apparent direction of U.S. authorities, each amid circumstances more suspicious than those surrounding Hamdan.
In 2007, Kenyan authorities detained Amir Meshal of Tinton, N.J., and Daniel Joseph Maldonado of Houston after they were captured among Islamist fighters fleeing a U.S.-backed offensive in Somalia. And Saudi Arabian security officers provided the bulk of the evidence against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a Falls Church man convicted in 2005 of plotting with al-Qaeda.
There is a petition to release Naji Hamdan.
This is a new weekly series with editors Valtin, Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily.
TORTURE MEMOS & EMAILS
- For some time, I’ve been writing about how the OPR report due to be publicly released this summer may provide key evidence of both torture conspiracy of WH officials and torture lawyers as well as evidence that the torture lawyers did not provide legal advice, thus knocking down the primary advice-of-counsel defense created by Bush Team to prevent prosecutions of Bush officials. This evidence includes emails among the torture lawyers and emails between the torture lawyers and WH. Glenn discusses 3 of those emails in What the new Jim Comey torture emails actually reveal. (link to emails in article)
The DOJ torture-authorizing memos are perfectly analogous to the CIA's pre-war intelligence reports about Iraq's WMDs. Bush officials justify their pre-war statements about WMDs by pointing to the CIA's reports -- as though those reports just magically appeared on their desks from the CIA -- when, as is well documented, Dick Cheney and friends were continuously pressuring and cajoling the CIA to give them those threat reports in order to supply bureaucratic justification for the attack on Iraq. That is exactly how the DOJ torture-authorizing memos came to be: Dick Cheney, David Addington and George Bush himself continuously exerted extreme pressure on DOJ lawyers to produce memos authorizing them to do what they wanted to do -- not because they were interested in knowing in good faith what the law did and did not allow, but because they wanted DOJ memos as cover -- legal immunity -- for the torture they had already ordered and were continuing to order. Though one won't find this in the NYT article, that is, far and away, the most important revelation from the Comey emails.
...As a result of his objections, Comey went to Attorney General Alberto Gonazles to urge that the memo not be approved, but Gonzales told him that he was under extreme pressure from Dick Cheney, David Addington, Harriet Miers -- and even Bush himself -- to get these memos issued.
The following day, Comey noted that the loyalty of DOJ lawyers lay with the White House, not with the Justice Department, and they were thus willing to comply with the demands of Cheney and Addington even at the expense of their duties as DOJ lawyers.
- Keeping in mind that the OLC can only provide prospective legal advice, Jason Leopold discusses how Newly Released E-Mails Reveals Cheney Pressured DOJ to Approve Torture, including email indicating retroactive coverage. (link to emails in article)
In another e-mail, dated April 28, 2005, Comey appears to suggest that he was told the legal opinion needed to be drafted quickly to provide retroactive cover for torture that already occurred.
"Gonzales's Chief of Staff Ted Ullyot "mentioned at one point that OLC didn't feel like it could accede to my request to make the opinion focused on one person because they don't give retrospective advice," Comey wrote to his then Chief of Staff Chuck Rosenberg. "I said I understood that, but that the treatment of that person had been the subject of oral advice, which OLC would simply be confirming in writing, something they do quite often."
- U.S. Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic – More details about WH pressure on lawyers: NY Times shows it’s still working for Bush Team with an article that leaves out key facts highlighted by Glenn and Jason. And then confirms some key points:
While signing off on the techniques, Mr. Comey in his e-mail provided a firsthand account of how he tried unsuccessfully to discourage use of the practices. He made a last-ditch effort to derail the interrogation program, urging Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to argue at a White House meeting in May 2005 that it was "wrong."
...The e-mail messages and documents provide new details about a critical year in the interrogation saga, beginning in mid-2004. The C.I.A. inspector general had questioned the legality and effectiveness of the harsh methods, prompting a review of the program. Under intense White House pressure, the Justice Department lawyers in May 2005 approved a series of opinions that reauthorized the harshest practices.
...Mr. Gonzales told him that he was "under great pressure" from Vice President Dick Cheney to complete both memorandums and that President George W. Bush had asked about them, Mr. Comey recounted in one of the 2005 e-mail messages.
Later, after reading a revised draft of the second opinion, Mr. Comey added that "my concerns were not allayed, only heightened." He said he wanted more time to fix the memorandum, but Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff, Theodore Ullyot, told him the White House would not wait.
"I told him the people who were applying pressure now would not be there when the [expletive] hit the fan," Mr. Comey wrote in another e-mail message. "It would be Alberto Gonzales in the bull’s-eye. I told him it was my job to protect the department and the A.G. and that I could not agree to this because it was wrong. I told him it could be made right in a week, which was a blink of an eye, and that nobody would understand at a hearing three years from now why we didn’t take that week."
CHENEY’S TORTURE ROLE
GUANTANAMO REFORMS & DEATH PENALTY GUILTY PLEAS
- U.S. May Permit 9/11 Guilty Pleas in Capital Cases. KSM and other defendants issued a statement for their pleading (pdf file).
The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.
The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. The proposal would ease what has come to be recognized as the government’s difficult task of prosecuting men who have confessed to terrorism but whose cases present challenges [of no admissible evidence due to torture].
- Cynthia Kouril notes how the death penalty guilty pleas is overreaction to the desires of 5 prisoners to become martyrs in Gitmo: Obama Considers Gutting UCMJ Protections -- For What?
The New York Times is reporting that the Obama Administration is considering changing the law to permit prisoners at Gitmo to plead guilty to death penalty cases without need for a trial. This is apparently a reaction to the stated desires of five Gitmo prisoners to become "martyrs."
...Although most civilian US federal and state courts permit guilty pleas in capital cases, the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not.
So, death penalty guilty pleas are ostensibly our cooperative gesture to 5 who want martyrdom but is this proposal limited to them or will it now become the law for all prisoners, even if they don’t seek to be martyrs? Never mind that it will be hard to obtain convictions without the use of evidence obtained by torture or the difficulty of establishing the prisoner’s competency to make a knowing, voluntary and intelligent waiver after years of torture. It is the issue of fairness that the New York Times noted:
But American military justice law, which is the model for the military commission rules, bars members of the armed services who are facing capital charges from pleading guilty. Partly to assure fairness when execution is possible, court-martial prosecutors are required to prove guilt in a trial even against service members who want to plead guilty.
- Judge Allows Government to Appeal (and Delay) Bagram Detainee Case. (Photo is the "hospital on-base, where lawyer Dennis Edney alleges the abuse of Omar Khadr began.")
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates allowed the Obama administration to immediately appeal the cases of three detainees at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Bates had ruled in April that the three detainees -- all captured outside of Afghanistan and sent to the U.S.-run prison, where they’ve been imprisoned without charge or trial for seven years -- had a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus proceedings in a U.S. court. Bates found that their situation was substantially similar to that of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
See also, Quick appeal set on Bagram may affect more than 600 prisoners.
- Obama: Bush-era policies have weakened national security -- Time for a change with indefinite imprisonment:
President Obama said Thursday that some of the terror suspects now being held at Guantanamo Bay may end up in the nation's "supermax" prisons, and he said the United States may have to indefinitely hold others if it is clear that releasing them would endanger the American people.
... Of the 240 remaining, some will be tried in federal courts, some will by tried by military commissions, some will be released, some will be transferred to other countries and some may have to be held indefinitely.
- Guantánamo detainee tries to fire U.S. lawyers, fails – Judge tells uneducated prisoner he can represent himself.
See also, A Child At Guantánamo: The Unending Torment of Mohamed Jawad.
HOW PRISONERS WERE TORTURED
- New Study on Detention and Inhumane Treatment Helps Explain Gitmo Suicides.
New research finds that the psychological impact of captivity in a hostile environment, deprivation of basic needs such as food and sleep, isolation, psychological manipulation and other "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" is actually more damaging psychologically than is physical torture.
..The research concludes that even the sort of acts the U.S. military engaged in that aren’t normally classified as "torture" -- stress positions, exposure to extreme temperatures and the like -- can be more damaging than methods traditionally considered to be torture.
- Suicide by Yemeni prisoner who was held in psychiatric ward at times, none of the suicide prisoners had lawyer.
The Yemeni had been held on occasion in the detention center psychiatric ward, although detention center officials would say neither whether he was found dead in a cell there nor how he had died.
Guantánamo health records show Salih as a 5-foot-7-inch man who was weighed in to Camp X-Ray at 124 pounds on Feb. 8, 2002 -- days after his 24th birthday. His Guantánamo weight chart show that while fasting around Christmas 2005 he had withered to 85 pounds.
None of those men [who committed suicide] had ever met with an attorney either.
- A summary of suicides at Guantánamo.
June 10, 2006: Three detainees, two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, commit suicide by hanging themselves in Camp 1 with nooses made from clothing and bed sheets. The families of the two Saudis -- Yasser Talal al Zahrani and Salah Ali Abdullah Ahmed al Salami -- subsequently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. military in January, alleging brutal treatment led the men to kill themselves. The Yemeni was Mani Shaman Turki al Habardi.
May 30, 2007: A Saudi detainee is found dead, having fashioned a sling to hang himself in his cell at Camp 5, a maximum security section of the prison camp that commanders had described as suicide-proof. Military documents showed that the prisoner, Abdul Rahman Ma'ath Thafir al Amri, previously warned interrogators that some detainees were desperate enough to commit suicide and possibly kill guards as well.
June 1, 2009: Guards find Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih dead in an apparent suicide. Site still unknown.
- Government may be undercounting suicide attempts. Lawyer: Gitmo prisoner slashed wrist, hurled blood, but US says not suicide attempt.
A prison spokesman, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt, confirmed the incident but said Latif's injuries were minor and the prisoner was in no danger. He said the incident would not be categorized as an attempted suicide.
"It's a form of self harm, but it is clearly not classified as a suicide attempt," DeWalt said. "It's a minor injury."
Remes disputes the characterization, saying he was covered in Latif's blood when the prisoner threw it at him.
- How Many Bottles Make a Waterboarding?
A leading Bush Administration official, retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says that the numbers associated with CIA waterboarding sessions--such as 183 times for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 83 times for al Qaeda training camp commander Abu Zubaydah--may even reflect the number of water bottles expended.
Apparently, four or five bottles were used per session. Wilkerson credits the information to a report from the Red Cross, but we can trace it back to Jay Bybee’s memorandums and those of his colleagues at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who paid close attention to the volume and flow of water used in the waterboarding process.
And there is another "corroborating detail" in Windrem’s story. Some of the bottles used had labels with an email address ending in ".pl," suggesting that they were Polish waterbottles. That could mean that waterboarding was carried out in Poland... .
See also, Bottled Waterboarding.
See also, 12 to 16 Bottles, Not 5.
- starve ‘em too.
Steven Bradbury, chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in during George W. Bush’s second term, provided an overview of an authorized CIA technique to manipulate detainee’s diets in order to make them receptive to interrogation. Using references to calories, Bradbury wrote in a May 10, 2005 memo, "[T]he recommended minimum calorie intake is 1,500 kcal/day, and in no event is the detainee allowed to receive less than 1,000 kcal/day." While having his diet restricted, a detainee would be fed not solid food, but "commercial liquid diets (such as Ensure Plus)." The restricted diet, according to Bradbury’s memo, would be subject to "frequent medical monitoring," and a detainee would be measured "weekly" to ensure that he did not lose more than "10 percent of his body weight," which would trigger termination of the diet.
That caloric intake would be unacceptable for the Justice Department to administer to an inmate in a federal prison. The department’s Bureau of Prisons requires federal prisons to adhere to "the Daily Reference Intake (DRI) for nutrients published by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of the Sciences" in order to "ensure proper nutrition," according to the bureau’s 2006 policy handbook. The National Academy of the Science’s Dietary Reference Intakes estimates nutritional requirements on a sliding scale depending on Body Mass Index and level of activity. But for adult men who stand just under five feet tall and who maintain a "sedentary" level of physical activity with a low body mass index, the minimum caloric requirement in the guideline is 1,848 calories. All other nutritional elements of the guideline require greater caloric intakes for adult men, ranging from 2,000 to 3,720 calories.
- Poll: US divided over closing Guantánamo: Torture Ok to stop terror attacks.
Just over half of Americans say torture is at least sometimes justified to thwart terrorist attacks... .
...Nearly eight years after terrorists struck on U.S. soil, more than a third of Americans say they worry about the chance that they or their relatives might fall victim to a terrorist attack - essentially unchanged from 35 percent five years ago.
...Some 52 percent of people say torture can be at least sometimes justified to obtain information about terrorist activities from suspects, an increase from 38 percent in 2005 when the AP last asked the question. More than two-thirds of Republicans say torture can be justified compared with just over a third of Democrats.
PUTATIVE TORTURE DEFENDANTS
- With his permission, Jeff Kaye aka Valtin has posted at FDL: Two Generals Who Enabled Torture Skirt Accountability.
There's been plenty of news and journalistic investigation on the torture enablers George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, David Addington, and a host of other Bush Administration figures. The CIA, too, has come in for its share of investigation and scrutiny. But while the Senate Armed Services Committee conducted a months-long investigation and published last April a 200+ page report on Department of Defense abuse of prisoners, including torture, very little public scrutiny of culpable military officials has occurred.
...But I want to look at the actions of two generals mentioned in the SASC report, "Inquiry on the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody." Both of them are singled out for actions related to the approval of torture under their commands. Both had command responsibility for these actions, and one of them, Air Force Special Operations Brigadier General Lyle Koenig, was specifically singled out for obloquy (although not by name). The other senior officer, Brigadier General Thomas Moore, was the Director of Operations and Plans (J3) for Joint Forces Command (JFCOM).
TORTURE EVIDENCE & FOIA EXEMPTION
- U.S. judge: Guantánamo documents must be public.
A federal judge ordered the United States on Monday to publicly reveal unclassified versions of its allegations and evidence justifying the continued imprisonment of more than 100 detainees being held at Guantánamo Bay.
... The judge ordered the Justice Department to publicly file its unclassified records or show the court what specific information it wants to keep protected, with a colored highlighter, by July 29.
''Providing the public with access to the charges levied against these detainees, as detailed in the factual returns, ensures greater oversight of the detentions and these proceedings,'' he said. "As long as public access does not come at the expense of the litigation interests of petitioners or national security, the court believes the public has a common law right to access the returns.''
- As of last Friday, Democrats postpone action on war bill that includes FOIA ban on torture evidence.
Worried by their prospects in the House, Democrats postponed final action on a nearly $100 billion wartime spending bill until next week so as to buy more time for talks among lawmakers and the return of President Barack Obama from overseas.
The biggest immediate obstacle in the House is finding the right balance between the war funds in the bill and Obama’s addition of billions in new financing for the International Monetary Fund.
Republicans have threatened to bolt, with top leaders in open competition as to who can produce the most inflammatory press release. This puts the pressure on anti-war Democrats -- 51 of whom opposed the bill last month -- to step in and help Obama. But the same liberals, including prominent chairmen, were in open revolt Thursday over the White House’s handling of a Senate provision to bar the release of detainee photographs.
- 3rd Time Congress Relied on FOIA Exemptions to Overrule Courts Allowing Public Release of Government Documents.
In 1981, after losing in the district and appeals courts repeatedly, the government was ordered to turn over to tax researcher Sue Long the results of the Internal Revenue Service's taxpayer compliance measurement program audits. These are the most intense audits the government conducts of taxpayers and are used to set numerical standards for selecting which tax returns to audit.
...More recently, Congress inserted into an appropriations bill a provision overturning a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that would have disclosed information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives database on firearm traces.
Also, in a more widely applicable 1974 amendment to FOIA itself, Congress overturned a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that said federal judges couldn't review executive branch classification decisions.
- Carter re photos and prosecutions:
- Obama gets more time for detainee photos appeal.
The US Supreme Court has extended the deadline for the government to appeal a lower court ruling ordering it to make public dozens of photos allegedly showing US soldiers abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The order by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pushed back a deadline for the Obama administration to file a petition with the Supreme Court by 30 days, from June 9 to July 9.
INVESTIGATIONS & PROSECUTIONS
- Iraq probes torture complaints.
THE interior ministry said on Sunday it has opened an inquiry into complaints of prisoners being tortured and the slow processing of cases in two jails of southern Iraq.
...'There have been cases of torture against 10 prisoners accused of terrorism,' the interior ministry official said. 'They were not innocent, but that does not mean interrogators can torture them. We have established a commission to review the cases of the accused because they insist their confessions were extracted through torture.'
- Fast-track impeachment OK when money at issue, but no lawmaker willingness to investigate torture.
Convicted US district court judge Samuel Kent on Tuesday submitted his letter of resignation to President Barack Obama effective June 2010, after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice charges in connection with the alleged sexual harassment of his secretary and former case manager. The delayed resignation would allow Kent to collect his full current salary of $174,000 and full health benefits until next year, at which point he would not receive any continuing benefits or pension. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), ranking minority member of the US House Judiciary Committee, told reporters that the committee would move forward with impeachment proceedings, scheduled to begin Wednesday, with the goal of removing Kent from office before his resignation becomes effective. A disciplinary panel from the Fifth Circuit has urged the committee to impeach Kent promptly.
- After pressure from US and other countries, Spain's 'World Court' May Be Restricted.
Victims of human rights abuses from around the world have turned to Spain's National Court for help from its bold examining magistrates. Now, the Spanish government, responding to pressure from abroad, wants to clip the court's wings.
...Critics of the court in Madrid may find satisfaction by the end of the year. The ruling Socialists have forged a rare agreement with the conservative opposition to rein in the principle of "universal jurisdiction." The accused will have to be arrested in Spain, a victim will have to be a Spaniard, or there will have to be some other decisive connection to Spain before the court will be allowed to proceed. There will also have to be proof that no other national court system has taken up a given case.
- General Sanchez Calls for Accountability Commission.
The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, "and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission." The General went on to say that, "during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques."
- Petraeus: Bush Administration Violated Geneva Conventions.
Of particular note are his statements about the Geneva Convention. "When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions," he says, "we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those."
GUANTANAMO PRISONER STATUS
- New York Times finally apologizes for false Guantánamo recidivism story.
Too late, the damage is already done.
On May 21, the New York Times published a front-page story, entitled, "1 In 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds" (or, in the web version, "1 in 7 freed detainees rejoins fight, reports says"), in which Elisabeth Bumiller, relying on an unpublished Pentagon report, stated that "74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent."
... On May 28, the Times allowed Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation to write an op-ed criticizing Bumiller’s article, in which they concluded, from an examination of the report (PDF), that a more probable figure for recidivism — based on the fact that there were "12 former detainees who can be independently confirmed to have taken part in terrorist acts directed at American targets, and eight others suspected of such acts — was "about 4 percent of the 534 men who have been released."
- Why is the Obama Administration Blocking the Release of the Innocent Uighurs at Guantánamo? (Article provides some history of court battles.)
On Friday, court-watchers received some deeply depressing news -- 33 pages of unconstitutional hogwash directed at the Supreme Court by President Obama’s Justice Department (PDF), in which no stone of dubious legality was left unturned in the administration’s desperate and unprincipled attempts to mimic its predecessors by preventing 17 Uighurs at Guantánamo from being resettled in the United States.
In presenting the government’s brief to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan had the nerve to claim that the Uighurs "have already obtained relief," explaining, "They are no longer detained as enemy combatants, they are free to leave Guantánamo Bay to any country that is willing to accept them, and in the meantime, they are housed in facilities separate from those for enemy combatants under the least restrictive conditions practicable."
- Gitmo protest captured on film.
Hours after Khadr's brief hearing Monday, fewer than a dozen journalists on the trip, including a Toronto Star reporter, witnessed a rare unscripted moment on the base when two Uighur (pronounced Wee-gur) detainees managed to hold an impromptu protest.
The group was at an Oceanside prison known as "Camp Iguana," where 16 Uighur and one Algerian detainee are imprisoned.
As the journalists neared the fence line, the captives held up messages written in crayon on prison-issued sketch pads, knowing the Pentagon prohibits journalists from speaking to detainees.
- Revealed: Identity Of Guantánamo Torture Victim Rendered Through Diego Garcia.
Using some old-fashioned clerical detective work, Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents around 10 percent of the remaining 240 prisoners in Guantánamo, has compiled a report, "Ghost Detention on Diego Garcia" (PDF), identifying one of two prisoners rendered through the British Overseas Territory of Diego Garcia as Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni (and tentatively identifying the other as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the former "ghost prisoner" who died in a Libyan jail last month).
- Most Americans Want To Keep GitMo Open For Business.
According to a new USA Today/Gallup poll Americans overwhelmingly oppose the closure of the Gaunatanmo Bay detention camp by 65%. Only 32% favor closing the base down.
54% said they would actually be upset if the base closed, and 74% oppose its closure if it meant moving some of the inmates to the respondent's state of residence.
TORTURE LINKS: MUDD & McCHRYSTAL
- DHS intel nominee Philip Mudd withdraws after linked to Bush torture program: The media focus on Mudd having a mere analytical role of using information obtained from torture, similar to the 9/11 commissioners who used torture evidence in their 9/11 report. But, what if Mudd pressured interrogators to use torture? Then, we have another putative defendant in the Bush/Cheney criminal torture conspiracy.
The report said that a Republican lawmaker planned to question Mudd over whether he had "direct knowledge" of the Bush-era harsh interrogation program while serving in a senior analytical role at the CIA.
The sinking of the nomination of someone who had served in an analytical capacity at the CIA, rather than in an operational or senior policy one, shows the broad scope of exposure to the controversial Bush-era harsh interrogation program for officials who did not obviously have a direct role in the program.
An aide to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told the AP that "Mudd's analysts used information obtained through harsh interrogations, and the official said that Mudd is likely to be questioned on whether the analysis branch pressured interrogators in the field to use harsher methods because they believed detainees were not telling the truth."
- As New Afghanistan Commander Sails Toward Confirmation, Key Torture Questions Go Unasked.
First up is the issue of torture. McChrystal has been linked to an operation called the Terrorist Screen Center (TSC), which was located at Camp Nama in Iraq. The institution was one of several Saddam-era torture centers converted into U.S. "interrogation facilities" by special ops forces under the general's command. A 2006 Human Rights Watch report documents extensive prisoner abuses at Nama, including sleep deprivation, the use of extreme heat and cold, sexual humiliation and simulated drowning. One soldier quoted in the report describes the torture of a detainee believed to be an Al-Qaeda financier.
Finally, there's evidence to suggest that McChrystal knowingly violated international law. In an article published in the August 2006 issue of Esquire, the same soldier interviewed in the 2006 Human Rights Watch report points out that McChrystal denied Red Cross workers access to prisoners at Nama -- a violation of Geneva provisions.
- When questioned about torture by lawmakers, McChrystal says he "acted within legal Bush administration guidelines".
Members of special operations units also have been accused of abusing detainees at Iraqi camps, and questions surrounding McChrystal's role were reported to have held up his appointment to his current post at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
McChrystal also faced questions about his handling of the "friendly fire" death in Afghanistan in 2004 of Army Ranger and former National Football League star Pat Tillman.
MORE NEWS
Due to coding errors, I did not post last night. Our great Magnifico found my error and I test posted a diary last night.
This is news from today that I did not want to add to the diary for fear of messing up. Any errors in coding will then be limited to this section. :)
Matthew Alexander --- senior military interrogator for elite task force to find Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and supervisor of interrogations --- refutes Cheney’s claim that torture was beneficial:
- Will House Dems Stand Up to Obama on Torture Photos?
The Weekly Standard and Greg Sargent are both reporting that the House Democratic leadership is boldly (my characterization, not the Standard’s) standing up to the White House and the Senate, which last week passed an amendment to the appropriations bill that would allow Obama to keep those much-discussed detainee abuse photos secret.
...Oddly, the Obama administration and Senate Democrats seem to have followed the advice of Andy McCarthy at National Review, who a few weeks ago specifically suggested that the administration need not follow the court order requiring release of the photos; Congress, with the White House’s support, could just amend FOIA or adopt a new law to allow Obama to conceal the photos, and avoid having to bother with the pesky federal court system, which so far hasn’t given the administration its way.
- Lieberman, Graham Seek To Block Torture Photos At All Costs.
With the war supplemental under fire from some unlikely allies in the House, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened Monday to use any means necessary to keep torture photos hidden.
Lieberman and Graham said in a forceful joint statement that they would attach their bill, which allows the Secretary of Defense to suppress any detainee interrogation photos for three years at a time, to every measure that comes before the Senate until it becomes law. The two senators did not rule out a filibuster, and they suggested that their move has the backing of the White House.
See also, Lieb, Graham threaten scorched earth on pics.
- Why Didn’t Phil Mudd Get Dick Cheney to Back Down on Torture?
Over the Memorial Day recess, Mudd met with senior staff members of the Homeland Security panel whose interest was primarily how he would handle issues of intelligence sharing with state and local police units. When, near the end of a two-hour session, they went over Mudd’s CIA positions from 2001 to 2005, it became apparent that questions about harsh interrogations, renditions and allegations that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda would have to be explored, according to a person at the session who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
"Since he was deputy director of the counterterrorism center, he was going to be asked whether interrogation produced useful intelligence, and if it didn’t, why didn’t he stop it?" the source said.
- E-Mails Suggest Torture Memos Gave Bush Administration Retroactive Legal Cover.
A key defense line for Bush has been that the President was just following the advice of the OLC, which is responsible for setting parameters on presidential authority, and thus Bush and his senior aides shouldn’t be held accountable for any law violations. However, if the White House had been stage-managing those opinions, that defense would crumble.
Comey’s e-mails offer additional proof that the White House was, in fact, pulling the strings on the OLC’s legal opinions, especially after Bush’s longtime legal counsel Gonzales was elevated to the post of Attorney General in 2005.
...In another e-mail, also dated April 28, 2005, Comey suggested that the legal opinion may have been needed quickly to provide retroactive cover for torture that already occurred.
Gonzales's Chief of Staff Ted Ullyot "mentioned at one point that OLC didn't feel like it could accede to my request to make the opinion focused on one person because they don't give retrospective advice," Comey wrote to Rosenberg. "I said I understood that, but that the treatment of that person had been the subject of oral advice, which OLC would simply be confirming in writing, something they do quite often."
- Boumediene: 'I'm a normal man. I'm not a terrorist'.
Lakdhar Boumediene, accused of plotting to blow up the US and British embassies in Sarajevo, told ABC news he never once was questioned about the alleged plot in his more seven years at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Boumediene, whose prison ordeal ended last month with his release in France after two and a half years on hunger strike, said in an interview he was tortured by interrogators determined to link him to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
See also, Lakhdar Boumediene Says He Was Tortured at Gitmo.