Bush's Support of Torture: Global Impact and Un-American Reputation

[Skyhunter]

It apears that part of the justification for the Iraq war was based on false intelligence derived by torture.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html

 

[Informal Logic]

It apears that part of the justification for the Iraq war was based on false intelligence derived by torture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html

What gets me even more is the Bush administration has then tried to use this as proof that the intelligence was faulty--not "fixed." However, the Bush administration was made aware several times that the informant/information was NOT reliable. So they torture then they perpetuate the lies. It would be great if we could take Cheney to the salt pit and get the truth out of him.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

So Bush finally caves on torture; being the good Christian that he is [what a joke!].

Could it be that everyone has been reminded that torture is not only immoral and illegal, it also doesn't work.

 

[Art]

Stalin used to enjoy telling an amusing anecdote regarding Beria one of his favourite people in his secret police (He referred to him fondly as our Himmler). He mentioned to Beria one day he had lost his favourite pipe. Beria rang him a few days later and Stalin told him he had found it under the sofa. Beria responded "Impossible! Three people have already confessed to stealing it"

It seems Stalin who had more than a little knowledge about such matters understood the problem with information extracted under torture.

 

[Art]

As this article points out the Bush stance toward torture is seriously undermining the US' standing in the world.

Critics: Light Sentence May Tarnish U.S.


By JON SARCHE Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

DENVER — An unexpectedly light sentence for an Army interrogator who once faced life in prison for the death of an Iraqi general could tarnish the government and hurt human-rights efforts around the globe, critics said.
Prosecutors said during Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr.'s court-martial that his interrogation of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush "could fairly be described as torture" and had stained the military's reputation. During the trial, testimony showed he stuffed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag and straddled his chest.

If the tables were turned and an American general had suffered the same fate from interrogators in an enemy's hands, there would have been an uproar in the U.S., said Eugene Fidell, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Institute of Military Justice, a private group that monitors military justice policy.

"How is this going to look overseas?" he said.

Mowhoush, the former commander of Saddam Hussein's air defenses, surrendered to the Army on Nov. 10, 2003, in hopes of seeing or securing the release of his four sons.

The sentence was

Late Monday, a military jury ordered a reprimand and forfeiture of $6,000 in pay, and restricted him to his home, office and church for two months. The sentence will still be reviewed by Fort Carson's commander, Maj. Gen. Robert W. Mixon.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3610957.html

Just to refresh people's memory of what the UN Convention Against Torture says;

Article 1
1. Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3
1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Any breeches of these articles sound familiar??

 

[SOS2008]

This isn't torture, but along the lines of the larger topic of secret prisons and adherence to international law or conventions, how does this play for our global image?

How U.S. used Iraqi wives for ‘leverage’
Suspected insurgents' spouses jailed to force husbands to surrender
Associated Press
Updated: 3:39 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2006

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family’s door telling him “to come get his wife.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11061831/

In reference to demands of the kidnappers of American journalist Jill Carroll, who threatened to kill her by last Friday unless all women prisoners were freed, this reflects poorly on the U.S.