The International Committee of the Red Cross regularly complained to senior United States officials in Iraq and in Washington over the last several months about prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, a spokesman for the group said on Thursday.
The spokesman, Roland Huguenin, said, "Our reports to the U.S. administration contained many aspects which have now been reported with clear descriptions of the treatment of prisoners."
Mr. Huguenin, who spoke by telephone from London, said the reports were based on the Red Cross's interviews with prisoners and "were very extensive and detailed."
"We knew everything that was going on," he said.
[…]
He said one thing that Red Cross officials did not know was that guards were taking photos of what was occurring.
Other human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, said this week that they had complained to the administration about reports of prisoner abuse and humiliation. Officials with the groups said they took personal appeals to L. Paul Bremer III, head of the occupation authority in Iraq, and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, but that their appeals often seemed to fall on deaf ears.
If it ain't on Fox News, it don't exist for these folks.
Here are the allegations from the Red Cross report that were so difficult for administration officials like Condoleeza Rice to imagine without photographs provided by the torturers. Reported by the Wall Street Journal:
TREATMENT DURING INTERROGATION
Methods of Ill-Treatment
• Hooding, used to prevent people from seeing and to disorient them, and also to prevent them from breathing freely. One or sometimes two bags, sometimes with an elastic blindfold over the eyes which, when slipped down, further impeded proper breathing. Hooding was sometimes used in conjunction with beatings thus increasing anxiety as to when blows would come. The practice of hooding also allowed the interrogators to remain anonymous and thus to act with impunity. Hooding could last for periods from a few hours to up to two to four consecutive days, during which hoods were lifted only for drinking, eating or going to the toilets
• Handcuffing with flexi-cuffs, which were sometimes made so tight and used for such extended periods that they caused skin lesions and long-term aftereffects on the hands (nerve damage), as observed by the ICRC
• Beating with hard objects (including pistols and rifles), slapping, punching, kicking with knees or feet on various parts of the body (legs, sides, lower back, groin)
• Pressing the face into the ground with boots
• Threats (of ill-treatment, reprisals against family members, imminent executive or transfer to Guantanamo)
• Being stripped naked for several days while held in solitary confinement in an empty and completely dark cell that included a latrine
• Being paraded naked outside cells in front of other persons deprived of their liberty and guards, sometimes hooded or with women's underwear over the head
• Acts of humiliation such as being made to stand naked against the wall of the cell with arms raised or with women's underwear over the head for prolonged periods, while being laughed at by guards, including female guards, and sometimes photographed in this position
• Being attached repeatedly over several days, for several hours each time, with handcuffs to the bars of their cell door in humiliating (i.e. naked or in underwear) and/or uncomfortable position causing physical pain
• Exposure while hooded to loud noise or music, prolonged exposure while hooded to the sun over several hours, including during the hottest time of the day when temperatures could reach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher
• Being forced to remain for prolonged periods in stress positions such as squatting or standing with or without the arms lifted
These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information or other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offences or deemed to have an "intelligence value."
Every bit as sickening as the behavior itself are the cavalier frat-house excuses made for it by the vast right-wing sycophantic choir.
All the religious values that Bush supposedly embodies are revealed (again) to be a hollow mask.
"In a systematic way" describes the physical and psychological coercion, but not the lax way the prison was staffed and supervised, the random way the prisoners were rounded up, and certainly not the capricious and ideological way the decision to go to war was made in the first place.
[Judge David] Hittner chastised prosecutors for vascillating between an original indictment of six felonies and a final indictment of just one misdemeanor, suggesting that justice may not have been served in either instance.
"Such maneuvering as is present in this case might be seen as a blatant manipulation of the justice system," Hittner said.
It is very unusual for federal prosecutors to knock six felony counts down to one misdemeanor charge, several legal experts said. They said this deal suggests that those who believed Lea Fastow was charged just to help prosecutors get her husband were right.
Lea Fastow helped others commit financial crimes against Enron shareholders and employees, but she singlehandedly committed crimes against art with a $20 million budget all to her lonesome.
We've discussed the media blather and handwringing over the Fastow children before.
The FBI, closely tracking the anti-war movement in the 1970s, concluded John Kerry was a glib, moderate figure in a Vietnam veterans group that took a radical turn around the time he left it, documents show.
The FBI file on Vietnam Veterans Against the War says the organization swung toward "militant and revolutionary-type activities" but accuses Kerry, now the Democratic presidential candidate, of little more than charisma.
[...]
An FBI summary of the anti-war protests Kerry helped organize in April 1971 says the decorated war hero "overshadowed" many of the organization's other leaders and was "a more popular and eloquent figure" than the rest.
Moderate... charisma... popular... eloquent....
Who knew that the FBI was already covertly campaigning for Kerry in 1971?
Under moderate supervision, provide intelligence support for interviewing local nationals and determining there threat to coalition forces. Must be able to work with interpreters to gather intelligence information from multiple sources. Must be able to effective interview Local Nationals and complete the interview reports on the findings of the interview. Must be able complete mission in a field environment. Under moderate supervision provides Information Security, and preforms security background investigations on individuals requesting a security clearance. Provides support of contractor background investigative services. Provides investigative services and case control management support.
Required:
Requires a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and US citizenship. Must have at least two years experience as a military policeman or similar type of law enforcement/intelligence agency whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques. At a minimum must have a Bachelor's degree or equivalent, and zero to two years of related experience for level one position. Level 2 position requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent, and two to four years of related experience. Must be able to work and live in a hostile field environment with minimum medical facilities. Must process excellent communications skills and the ability to work in extreme environments for extended periods of time. Must be able to use a computer and efficient with Microsoft Word and Excel. Will be required to travel for training updates and other mission requirements. Develop and present reports and briefings to the Military Chain of Command.
Applicants must be "efficient" with Microsoft Excel so that they can maintain accurate spreadsheets of the Iraqi prisoners they have "debriefed."
No mention of the blood-salary the interrogators will receive for playing their small but scandalous part in the neocon crusade, but it's probably a bit more remunerative and harrowing than working at Wal-Mart. Further proof that the higher-paying jobs are indeed moving overseas.
America's soaring federal budget deficits represent a major obstacle to the country's long-term economic stability, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Thursday.
Greenspan told a banking conference that the federal budget deficit was a bigger worry to him than America's soaring trade deficit or the high level of household debt because those two problems can be corrected by market forces.
"Our fiscal prospects are, in my judgment, a significant obstacle to long-term stability because the budget deficit is not readily subject to correction by market forces that stabilize other imbalances," he said in remarks to a banking conference.
Greenspan noted that the federal deficit, estimated to climb above $500 billion this year, will amount to 4.25 percent of the total economy after being in surplus just a few years ago.
It wasn't simply the surplus. It deserves a name. It was the Clinton surplus, an actual bipartisan accomplishment led by a Democrat.
Bush is the man responsible for our present record deficits with the unique combination of his limitless "War on Terror" (in a country with imaginary WMDs) with ultra-generous tax breaks for his wealthiest backers. Now Greenspan quite literally accuses him of destabilizing the United States with his lack of sound budgetary leadership.
Ironically, the last two presidents to preside over record deficits thanks to their failed economic policies were both Republicans, both warmongers with a fixation on Saddam Hussein, and both named Bush.
Incredibility. The Wall Street Journal interviews Henri Barkey, "a former State Department analyst. Mr. Barkey, a 50-year-old native of Turkey, worked at the State Department during the Clinton administration, focused on Iraq and the Middle East. He is now chairman of Lehigh University's International Relations Department.":
How does this scandal strain U.S. diplomatic relations in the Arab world, especially on human rights?
For a long time we will not be able to say anything to any country in the world about human rights because all of them will snicker behind our backs. They'll say, "How can you say this after what you have done? You talk about torture? You've done torture. You talk about humiliation in prisons? You've done that same thing." But the problem is much wider. It undermines human rights policy everywhere in the world.… The president's apology[, had he made one, would have have been] necessary not just for the Arab world, but for the rest of the world, to restore credibility.
We have no right to lecture any other country on human rights, torture, or even democratic and fair elections.
This is what happens when the Supreme Court appoints an underqualified dictator.
