Yet more information is trickling out on the BushCo torture regime. Via Jeralyn, the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research (the watchdogs on the bogus released-prisoners-turned-terrorist numbers) have issued a new report [pdf] on the FBI and DoD role in torture at Guantanamo.
From the press release:
Newark, NJ - Today Seton Hall Law delivered a report establishing that military officials at the highest levels were aware of the abusive interrogation techniques employed at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO), and misled Congress during testimony. In addition, FBI personnel reported that the information obtained from inhumane interrogations was unreliable.
Professor Mark Denbeaux, Director of the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, commented on the findings: "Who knew about the torture at GTMO? Turns out they all did. It's not news that the interrogators were torturing and abusing detainees. We've got FBI reports attesting to this. But now we've discovered that the highest levels knew about the torture and abuse, and covered it up.
"Abu Ghraib was the flashpoint and provoked the FBI to formally hand its reports to the DOD, which in turn forced the DOD to respond with what became known as the Schmidt Report. Schmidt's investigation was essentially a whitewash, but, ironically, the abuse was so pervasive that his team turned up still more incidents. To conceal the problems documented by both the FBI and the military, the DOD published an incomplete, sanitized report, culminating in Schmidt testifying before Congress that there was no torture or abuse at GTMO.
"Five generals were either complicit in the abusive interrogation techniques or were central figures in their cover-up. They concealed these practices from Congress, to which they are ultimately accountable. They undermined our democracy, and undercut America's claim to the moral high ground in the fight against terror."
The information Professor Denbeaux and his students have used to compile this, and twelve other Guantanmo reports, comes from government documents obtained through FOIA requests. And that doesn't include the remaining toture memos that the Justice Department seems reluctant to release.
It seems that the truth, or at least parts of it, will out. These kinds of revelations will come out in dribs and drabs, from dedicated groups like the Seton Hall students and the ACLU, and from a variety of investigative journalists, perhaps even conscience stricken whistleblowers. It's inevitable that more and more damaging information will come to light.
Which argues again for our Congress and Obama's Justice Department to be proactive rather than reactive in dealing with it. Set aside the fact that we are legally obligated under international treaties to investigate potential war crimes. Forget that an official accounting of crimes committed in all of our names is the moral, ethical thing to do.
Looked at through a purely political prism, every report like this, every news story about a foreign country investigating American torture, makes it increasingly worse for us in the eyes of the remainder of the world for there to be no official American government investigations.
