Panel Faults Bush, Not Soldiers, For Abuse

Senate Report Says Abuse Of Detainees Was Result Of Administration Policies

(AP)  The physical and mental abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the direct result of Bush administration detention policies and should not be dismissed as the work of bad guards or interrogators, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.

The Senate Armed Services Committee report concludes that harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA and the U.S. military were directly adapted from the training techniques used to prepare special forces personnel to resist interrogation by enemies that torture and abuse prisoners. The techniques included forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, and until 2003, waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.

The report is the result of a nearly two-year investigation that directly links President Bush's policies after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, legal memos on torture, and interrogation rule changes with the abuse photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq four years ago. Much of the report remains classified. Unclassified portions of the report were released by the committee Thursday.

Administration officials publicly blamed the abuses on low-level soldiers the work "of a few bad apples." Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called that "both unconscionable and false."

"The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees," Levin said.

Arizona Republican and former prisoner of war Sen. John McCain, called the link between the survival training and U.S. interrogations of detainees inexcusable.

"These policies are wrong and must never be repeated," he said in a statement.

Lawrence Di Rita, a senior aide to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at the time the Abu Ghraib and other abuses took place, disputed the report.

"This oddly timed report provides no evidence that contradicts more than a dozen other investigations that found that there was no systematic or widespread detainee mismanagement," Di Rita told The AP. "A relatively small number of people abused detainees, and they were brought to justice in criminal or civil proceedings."

The report comes as the Bush administration continues to delay and in some cases bar members of Congress from gaining access to key legal documents and memos about the detainee program, including an August 2002 memo that evaluated whether specific interrogation techniques proposed to be used by the CIA would constitute torture.

That memo, written by Jay Bybee, then-chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was guided in part by an assessment of the psychological effects of resistance survival training on U.S. military personnel. The CIA provided that document to his office, Bybee told the Senate Armed Services Committee in an October letter, obtained by The Associated Press.

[downsteamjim]

Carl Levin cares more about getting elected than protecting the U.S. I hope he has all these wonderful people sent from Gitmo to his home district. I am sure they would all vote for him.

[babooph]

Soldiers are trained to do as they are told -without question.

[impeach___w]

the law is not a grey are as bush would have us belive. It is black and White a clearly spelled out in the constitution and our laws. Bush has no power except that which is provided by the Constitution itself. He took an oath to protect and then violated that "g o d da mned peice of paper" that gives him any presidential power.

[nghtcase]

You''re the only one saying anything about being scared. While I''m not exactly happy about the war, I''m glad that it''s being fought over there and not here on American soil.
How any of you think he "acted" as he pleased, makes you that much more naive!! I don''t understand why you believe that congress, BOTH rep''s and dem''s, sat on their faces with nothing to say. Somehow....with the way they''re running off at the mouth now, I find that very hard to believe!

[impeach___w]

You''''re such a ******* Do you honestly think that NO ONE knew *** was going on?? Doesn''''t congress send what they feel should be done to the president? Doesn''''t it have to pass thru THEM first? He didn''''t just pull those orders out of his ***. THEY ALL KNEW before Bush did. It''''s so easy to make a "patsy" out of someone else. Therefore, Bush was only doing the JOB that was asked of him by THEM. Unlike another president we had, Mr "too busy getting a job" clinton.


nghtcase, Congress are wimps we live in a nation of laws with a government for and by the people. The AG could do it himself but he is evil too.
The people now know what was done in our names with our money and we want justice.
If the information gleened was so important, none of these people should have any qualms about doing some time for getting this "important" info. Locking up the terrorists and tortuers should all be part of keeping your scared a$$e$ safe if you believe in torture so strongly.

[erb0087]

Obama''s popular vote victory, 52%-46%, while impressive and decisive, particularly for the first major Black presidential candidate, was not a landslide.

The landslide was in the Electoral College, 365-173.

[erb0087]

"that"s why Obama won by a landslide"

An electoral college landslide, helped by astonishing Obama victories in GOP stronghold states like North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia and New Hampshire.

America clearly had had enough of Bush''s lazy incompetence.

[arnoldbowers]

I as either loosing my mind or "rightchase" has really flipped out the stupidass bush is still holding secret the things he did to the people he has captrured and put in cuba for his pleasure and then he personnaly did commit treason by allowing the military men and women do as they pleased and even thanked them for doing so. They got him the answers he wanted and he did not care if they were fact or fiction just the answers he wanted.
Our Republican comntroled Congess at the time were all in lolla la land as they had complete and controled power and the democrats could do nothing as they had given their word like "FOOLS WHICH THEY WERE" THAT THEY WOULD NOT FILLERBUSTER TO STOP ANY THING.
GW BUSH AND CHENEY NEED TO BE TAKEN TO THE hAGUE FOIR WAR CRIMES TRIALS.
Frank Bowers eyes wide open and brain still working, unlikde RIGHTCHASE.

[nghtcase]

It''''s No wonder Bush wants immunity for everyone who was ''''just following orders''''- his illegal orders.
Posted by impeach___w at 07:33 PM : Dec 11, 2008
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You''re such a ******* Do you honestly think that NO ONE knew *** was going on?? Doesn''t congress send what they feel should be done to the president? Doesn''t it have to pass thru THEM first? He didn''t just pull those orders out of his ***. THEY ALL KNEW before Bush did. It''s so easy to make a "patsy" out of someone else. Therefore, Bush was only doing the JOB that was asked of him by THEM. Unlike another president we had, Mr "too busy getting a job" clinton.

[tnz650-2009]

Impeach_O is probably one of those republican slugs that doesn''t care what we do, as long as we''re at "war" and he an beat his chest and waive his misguided pride all over the place. He probably STILL thinks there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that what we''re doing there is actually protecting Americans. As long as there''s a soldier involved, then whatever they''re doing is good for the country. But when it comes down to actually doing some good for the troops, like writing his republican congressman and demanding that action be taken on the abysmal way the military is treating Iraq vetrans, he probably doesn''t have any time for that. Would probably interfere with his T-off time at the country club. Your kind are nothing but all bark an no action. Except to stand in the way of people who really do want to do something good for the country. Bark away lamo. Your chest thumping, patriotic rhetoric is old and tired and laughable.