PentaPost opines, "When the prisoner abuse allegations first became public in May, many members of Congress, including several senior Republicans, vowed to pursue the evidence up the chain of command and not to allow low-ranking reservists to be prosecuted while more senior officials escaped sanction. Yet, as matters now stand, Mr. Rumsfeld, Gen. Sanchez and other senior officials are poised to execute just such an escape. When the scandal began, these leaders told Congress they were prepared to accept responsibility for the wrongdoing. As it turns out, they didn't mean that in any substantive respect. Their dodge shames not only them but the legal and legislative bodies charged with enforcing accountability."

ABC Nightline reports "Consider the following scenario: Some rather frightening prisoners - ones that might not elicit your sympathy - are placed in a situation where many are abused. Complaints are made to the proper authorities; it remains unclear if any of them made their way to chief executive George W. Bush. Those complaints largely go nowhere. Then months later, photographic evidence of the abuse emerges, whipping up a media outcry and a promise by Bush to get to the bottom of the atrocities. This scenario is not just the story of Abu Ghraib circa 2004. It was also a prisoner abuse scandal from 1997 in Brazoria County, Texas, when Bush was governor... Because of a prison abuse case in 1972, Judge William Wayne Justice eventually ruled that a sentence to a Texas prison amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional. 'It's like a picture of the second circle of hell that emerges from that judgment,' Elsner said."

John Kerry declared, "The Schlesinger report makes clear that Secretary Rumsfeld was responsible for setting a climate where these types of abuses could occur. 'By failing to plan to win the peace, by failing to make sure our troops received the proper training, equipment, reinforcement and command guidance, and by failing to take corrective actions once all of this became apparent, Secretary Rumsfeld did not demonstrate the leadership required from a Secretary of Defense. 'That is why today I am calling on Secretary Rumsfeld to resign effective immediately. In addition, I call on the President to appoint an independent investigation to review the entire decision making process that led to these abuses and provide a comprehensive set of reforms so that we can ensure that this never happens again. 'As Harry Truman said, 'The buck stops here.' The time has come for our Commander in Chief to take charge.'"

The investigative report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the prison abuse. It "acknowledges that military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees off the record books and hid them from international humanitarian organizations. The report also mentions substantiated claims that at least one male detainee was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib... It will expand the circle of soldiers considered responsible for abuse beyond the seven military police soldiers already facing charges, to include more than a dozen others - low-ranking soldiers, civilian contractors and medics. Sources have said that the report also criticizes military leadership, from the prison and up through the highest levels of the U.S. chain of command in Iraq at the time... [Lt. Gen. Ricardo] Sanchez, however, will not be recommended for any punitive action or even a letter of reprimand. About 300 pages of the 9,000-page report will be released."

PentaPost reports, "According to a copy of a signed statement Davis said he gave investigators May 27, he went in late October 2003 to Tier 1-A, the section of Abu Ghraib that housed prisoners of special interest to intelligence services, to speak with a member of his team. There, his statement says, 'I observed two service members. . . . I perceived both service members to be military intelligence (MI). I saw both MI soldiers handcuff two naked Iraqi detainees to the bars of cells on opposite sides. I then witnessed the same MI soldiers handcuff the detainees together, face to face. The MI soldier . . . approached me and asked me in a sarcastic tone of voice: 'Do you think we crossed the line?' or words to that effect. I responded: 'I am not sure, you are MI' or words to that effect... Davis said he reported the incident to his platoon leader and was told, 'They are MI and they are in charge, let them do their job,' or words to that effect."

The Oregonian reports, "The national guardsman peering through the long-range scope of his rifle was startled by what he saw unfolding in the walled compound below. From his post several stories above ground level, he watched as men in plainclothes beat blindfolded and bound prisoners in the enclosed grounds of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days. In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices -- metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs." Allawi is the new Hussein - thousands died for Bush's lies.

NY Times opines, "A week ago, John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was satisfied that Donald Rumsfeld was keeping his promise to leave no stone unturned to investigate the atrocities of Abu Ghraib prison. A newly released report by the Army's inspector general shows that Mr. Rumsfeld's team may be turning over stones, but it's not looking under them. The authors of this 300-page whitewash say they found no 'systemic' problem - even though there were 94 documented cases of prisoner abuse, including some 40 deaths, 20 of them homicides... Mr. Warner held only one hearing in the last month - on the new report - and agreed to the ground rules on the Red Cross reports. We've always been skeptical that the Defense Dept. can investigate itself credibly, and now it's obvious that it plans to stick to the 'few bad apples' excuse. The only way to learn why innocent Iraqis were tortured by American soldiers is a formal Congressional inquiry, with subpoena power."

"Some of the worst things that happened that you don't know about. OK? Videos. There are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at [Abu Ghraib]... The women were passing messages out saying please come and kill me because of what's happened. And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been [video] recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has, and they're in total terror it's going to come out. It's impossible to say to yourself, how did we get there, who are we, who are these people that sent us there... We're dealing with an enormous, massive amount of criminal wrong-doing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher. And we have to get to it, and we will." Read (or watch) the whole speech.

Ed Cone blogs, "Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. 'The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking,' the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was 'a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher.' He called the prison scene 'a series of massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and the vice president, by this administration anyway... war crimes.'... Hersh describes a Pentagon in crisis. The defense department budget is 'in incredible chaos,' he says, with large sums of cash missing, including something like $1 billion that was supposed to be in Iraq... He ripped the supine US press, pledged to bring home all the facts he could, said he was not sure he could deliver all the damning info he suspects about Bush administration responsibility for Abu Ghraib." Impeach Bush Now!

Der Spiegel reports, "'Between January and May of this year we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations' the representative of the International Red Cross, Florian Westphal, told the TV station SWR's Magazine 'Report Mainz'. He noted that these were places of detention controlled by coalition troops. According to Westphal the number of children held captive could be even higher. The TV Magazine also reported of evidence and eye witness reports according to which U.S. soldiers also abused children and youthful detainees. Samuel Provance, a staff sergeant stationed in the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison said that interrogating officers had pressured a 15 or 16 year old girl. Military police had only intervened when the girl was already half undressed. On another occasion, a 16 year old was soaked with water, driven through the cold, and then smeared with mud. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, confirmed the detention of Iraqi children."

"Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been holding off on further grilling of Pentagon managers and field generals until his committee gets a report overseen by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay on the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American troops. But Capitol Hill sources say Warner doesn't plan to wait much longer. Over the next three weeks, he is expected to hold a series of hearings - just before the conventions kick off the political season and the usual August congressional recess. If the Fay report... comes out in the heat of a political campaign, the hearings will go on despite the potential impact on the campaign, Warner said in a brief interview. 'I will not let politics deter me,' he said... Democrats want to go beyond committee hearings, creating either an independent commission to investigate detainee abuse or a special board of inquiry with subpoena powers, the latter of which could act during the fall campaign season."

NewStandard writes, "On May 4, we published a story about Sadiq Zoman, an Iraqi who US troops abducted from his home in Kirkuk and, one month later, dropped off at a Tikrit hospital in a 'persistent vegetative state,' his body exhibiting telltale signs of torture. We told the story of Mr. Zoman's family -- nine daughters and a wife who have sold every last possession to pay for his care as he lies unresponsive and helpless. They are desperate for answers and accountability from the foreign forces occupying their country, and who, from all evidence, deprived them of a husband and father as they knew him.... The US Army needs to hear that the American public wants the truth about what happened to Sadiq Zoman. If the military does not already know the real story, it should immediately investigate, and it should cooperate with The NewStandard's own investigation into the story. You can help pressure the military. Call the following people and demand answers."

"Defense attorneys preparing for Pfc. Lynndie England's upcoming hearing on charges she abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison have compiled a list of 100 potential witnesses stretching from the halls of power in Washington, D.C., to the sand-swept vistas of Iraq. By putting top government officials like Vice President Dick Cheney on their witness list, England's attorneys are serving notice that in defending their client, they will attempt to put on trial the Bush administration's policies on intelligence gathering from detainees. Like most other military police reservists charged in the abuse scandal, England has claimed military intelligence officers ordered the MPs to 'soften up' the detainees prior to interrogations. However, just because her attorneys want those witnesses doesn't mean that many of them will be on the stand later this month at England's Article 32 hearing in Fort Bragg, N.C." If they have nothing to hide, they should testify!

"In April 2003, Rumsfeld approved the use in Guantanamo of at least five other high-pressure techniques also listed on the Oct. 9 Abu Ghraib memo, none of which was among the Army's standard interrogation methods. This overlap existed even though detainees in Iraq were covered, according to the administration's policy, by Geneva Convention protections that did not apply to the detainees in Cuba. The documents obtained by The Post, which include memos from Abu Ghraib and statements made by prison officials for the Army's investigation, make clear that this overlap was no accident. No formalized rules for interrogation existed in Iraq before the policy imposed on Sept. 10, one day after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller -- who was then in charge of the Guantanamo site -- departed from Iraq. He was accompanied on the Iraq visit by at least 11 senior aides from Guantanamo, including officials from the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency."

The conservative London Daily Telegraph reports, "New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House. The Telegraph understands that four confidential Red Cross documents implicating senior Pentagon civilians in the Abu Ghraib scandal have been passed to an American television network, which is preparing to make them public shortly. According to lawyers familiar with the Red Cross reports, they will contradict previous testimony by senior Pentagon officials who have claimed that the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident."

"A California National Guardsman says three fellow soldiers brazenly abused detainees during interrogation sessions in an Iraqi police station, threatening them with guns, sticking lit cigarettes in their ears and choking them until they collapsed. Sgt. Greg Ford said he repeatedly had to revive prisoners who had passed out, and once saw a soldier stand on the back of a handcuffed detainee's neck and pull his arms until they popped out of their sockets. 'I had to intervene because they couldn't keep their hands off of them,' said Ford, part of a four-member team from the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion that questioned detainees last year in Samarra, north of Baghdad. He said the abuse took place from April to June. Ford's commanding officers deny any abuse occurred, and say investigations within their battalion and by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division determined they had done nothing wrong." Court-martial all the CO's!

"The torture and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was the predictable result of the Bush administration's decision to circumvent international law, Human Rights Watch said. Its 38-page report, 'The Road to Abu Ghraib,' examines how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques - and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops. 'The horrors of Abu Ghraib were not simply the acts of individual soldiers,' said Kenneth Roth. 'Abu Ghraib resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to cast the rules aside.' ... HRQ also urged the administration to detail the steps being taken to ensure that these abusive practices do not continue, and to prosecute vigorously all those responsible for ordering or condoning this abuse. 'Everyone has seen the Abu Ghraib pictures,' said Roth. 'It's time President Bush provides the full picture of U.S. policy on torture.'"

"US intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators. A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were 'having a contest' to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs... The statements by the dog handlers provide the clearest indication yet that military intelligence personnel were deeply involved in tactics later deemed by a US Army general to be 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses.'... The military intelligence officer in charge of Abu Ghraib later told investigators that the use of unmuzzled dogs in interrogation sessions was recommended by a two-star general and that it was 'okay.'"

"The head of the interrogation center at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq told an Army investigator in February that he understood some of the information being collected from prisoners there had been requested by 'White House staff,' according to an account of his statement obtained by The Washington Post. Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, an Army reservist who took control of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center on Sept. 17, 2003, said a superior military intelligence officer told him the requested information concerned 'any anti-coalition issues, foreign fighters, and terrorist issues'... The precise role and mission of Jordan, who is still stationed in Iraq and through his attorneys has declined requests to speak with the news media, remains one of the least well understood facets of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal." Exactly which of the evil Busheviks received Jordan's info? We want their heads on a platter!!

Boston.com: "Ashcroft told Congress yesterday that the Bush administration "rejects torture," but he refused to comment on a series of internal legal memoranda about the treatment of detainees, further fueling speculation that administration policies led to the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and the war on terrorism. Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft said the memos were the privilege of the executive branch's decision makers, and resisted calls by both Democrats and Republicans to make them public. The grilling yesterday focused on a March 2003 memo prepared by administration lawyers for Rumsfeld, obtained by the Globe. It concluded that Bush was not bound by international and American laws banning torture when approving harsh interrogation techniques and that military officials could be shielded from prosecution if they believed they were acting under orders from superiors."

"CCR has posted the controversial Pentagon 'Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism' on its website. The report is further proof of the Bush administration's disregard for the Constitution and civil liberties and shows there was planning at high levels of government to abuse and torture detainees. CCR President Michael Ratner stated, 'This memo and others show there was planning far up the chain of command to torture detainess; the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere cannot be swept under the rug by going after low-level soldiers. Apparently highly placed U.S. officials were willing to approve interrogation methods that violate every convention on torture the United States has ever signed. But they needed to find cover for their actions and a defense to possible criminal prosecution. Government lawyers writing this report wildly distorted the law in an effort to exempt officials from potential criminal prosecution.'" Impeach Bush Now!

"Bush's lawyers counsel, in effect, that the end justifies the means. It's the proverbial ticking time bomb scenario. Torture the bastard to avert a terrorist attack. But not only is this illegal; it doesn't work. Senator John McCain says the tortured will rarely provide reliable information, Bush's legal experts also rehabilitated the 'superior orders' defense. It didn't work for the Nazis at Nuremberg or Lt. William Calley who was prosecuted for the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. That defense can only be asserted when the defendant was following a lawful order. An order to commit torture would be unlawful, as it would violate the Convention Against Torture and the Torture Statute. But Haynes' team assures Bush his orders would be legal because he's the president and he's the highest law in the land. Indeed, one of the lawyers who prepared the report said the intention of the political appointees heading the working group was to realize 'presidential power at its absolute apex.'"

"John Ashcroft, warned that he might be risking a contempt citation from Congress, told lawmakers he won't release or discuss memoranda that news reports say offered justification for torturing suspected terrorists. Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Ashcroft about reports in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times that the Justice Department advised the White House in 2002 and 2003 that it might not be bound by U.S. and international laws prohibiting torture. Ashcroft said he wouldn't reveal confidential advice he gave to President George W. Bush or discuss it with Congress... Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, challenged Ashcroft to say whether he was invoking executive privilege in refusing to give Congress the Justice Department memos. Ashcroft said he wasn't invoking executive privilege. 'You might be in contempt of Congress, then,' Biden replied. 'You have to have a reason. You better come up with a good rationale.'"

Growing evidence contradicts the administration's contention the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the result of actions by a few rogue soldiers. The WSJ has obtained a draft of a report prepared by Bush administration lawyers in March of last year contending "the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department." In the draft of the report obtained by the Journal, "passages were deleted as was an attachment listing specific interrogation techniques and whether Mr. Rumsfeld himself or other officials must grant permission before they could be used. The complete draft document was classified 'secret' by Mr. Rumsfeld and scheduled for declassification in 2013."

Reuters: "The pope, who strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year, met Bush in the Vatican while thousands of armed police lined major roads in Rome and anti-war demonstrators began to gather to protest against the presidential visit. The pontiff and the resident held 15 minutes of private talks [notice how the press spins a 15-minute audience into 'private talks' - plural, even!] alone in the pope's frescoed study before making addresses. But the pope reserved his toughest words for a reference to the scandal over U.S. troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners. 'In the past few weeks other deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all and made more difficult a serene and resolute commitment to shared human values,' he said. 'In the absence of such a commitment, neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome.' "

Carolyn Wakeman writes, "Women obviously played an important role in the abuse inflicted on male detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. We've seen the shocking photographs of Pfc. Lynndie England holding a leash attached to the neck of a naked Iraqi prisoner and of Spc. Sabrina Harman with a broad grin and a thumbs-up sign standing behind a pyramid of naked, hooded males. We know that a third enlisted woman, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, has been charged with participating in acts of prisoner abuse. We also know that women were prominent in the chain of command connected to the incidents of torture," including Brig. Gen. Barbara Fast, intelligence deputy to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez; Capt. Carolyn Wood of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion; and Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski. Wakeman wants to know why...

PentaPost furiously opines: "No one has been criminally charged in any of the cases, even though some date to December 2002. Investigations have been shoddy and secretive. And no senior officer or administration official has accepted responsibility or been held accountable for allowing unlawful killings to take place under his or her command... It is horrifying to contemplate that U.S. interrogators have tortured and killed foreign prisoners and that their superiors have ignored or covered up their crimes -- and yet that is where the available facts point. Pentagon officials say they will pursue investigations vigorously and that those guilty of crimes will be brought to justice... But the sorry record of the Bush administration -- and the resident's own refusal to speak the truth about it -- suggests that justice will require vigorous and sustained intervention by outside parties, beginning with Congress." Hey PentaPost - your beloved Congress is run by an EXTERMINATOR!

Sid Blumenthal writes, "The trials and investigations surrounding Abu Ghraib raise the question of whether it was an extension of the far-flung gulag, built after Sept. 11, that has been operating outside the Geneva Conventions. Documents have surfaced showing that the office of legal counsel in the Justice Department created the rationale for breaking out of the Geneva Conventions. Those memos were reflected in a memo to the president from the White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, calling the conventions 'quaint.' Such memos are not spontaneously generated, autonomous pieces of paper, but produced as part of an elaborate process that almost certainly involves in the end a presidential finding: that is, a signed directive authorizing special operations or secret action. Will the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating, now demand to see that finding, establishing the president as having approved the policy?"

Tom Garner points out that Gen. Geoffrey Miller says he "did not tell General Karpinski I was going to Gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib" - but Gen. Karpinski says he did. Miller says he did not tell Col. Pappas to use dogs, but Pappas says he did. "Clearly someone is not telling the truth, and since all three officers were interviewed under oath, Karpinski and Pappas by Army investigator Major General Antonio Taguba, and Miller by the Senate Armed Services Committee, someone has committed perjury. My bet is that the perjurer is Miller. The evidence so far, two versus one, suggests this. If Miller did lie under oath to the Senate, this is very serious."

ABCNewsOnline: "Iraqi officials have dismissed a plan by Bush to demolish the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and says those running it should be made more accountable. Interim Interior Minister Samir al-Sumaidy says "While I can understand the wish to abolish Abu Ghraib, to remove the memory and the stain on the reputation of those who perpetrated the criminal acts against its prisoners, I personally don't think a building itself has a meaning, positive or negative. If the situation was left to me I would not abolish it, I would change the way we administered it ...make it more open to inspection and make the people who are running it more accountable."

IOL: "Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech on Monday were not enough to keep George Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the US mission in Iraq. During the half-hour televised address, Bush mispronounced Abu Ghraib each of the three times he mentioned it while announcing US plans to tear down the infamous jail and replace it with a new facility. But the Republican resident, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it "abugah-rayp". The second version came out "abu-garon", the third attempt sounded like "abu-garah"." Makes ya proud to be 'Mericun.

AP: "Something may be missing from the Senate's copy of the Army report on the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Two-thousand pages or more. Time magazine says Senate aides discovered about a third of the pages were missing as they were putting the report into binders. It was supposed to be six-thousand pages. The report by Major General Antonio Taguba was the basis for this month's hearings by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had the report with him when he testified before the committee. Copies were delivered to the committee afterward. A Pentagon spokesman says 'if there is some shortfall in what was provided, it was an oversight.' " How do you "overlook" TWO THOUSAND PAGES?

Guardian reports, "The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe. The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees... several of the women were now pregnant... The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame. Late last year, Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, 'happening all across Iraq'." This is why Republicans want to stop the prison investigations!

NY Times reports, "Presented last fall with a detailed catalog of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the American military responded on Dec. 24 with a confidential letter to a Red Cross official asserting that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions... In recent public statements, Bush administration officials have said that the Geneva Conventions were 'fully applicable' in Iraq. That has put American-run prisons in Iraq in a different category from those in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo, where members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been declared unlawful combatants not eligible for protection. However, the Dec. 24 letter appears to undermine administration assertions of the conventions' broad application in Iraq... In testimony last week on Capitol Hill, Col. Marc Warren, a top American military lawyer in Iraq, defended harsh techniques available to American interrogators there as not being in violation of the Geneva Conventions.'"

"A witness who told ABC News he believed the military was covering up the extent of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison was today stripped of his security clearance and told he may face prosecution because his comments were 'not in the national interest.' Sgt. Samuel Provance said in addition to his revoked security clearance, he was transferred to a different platoon, and his record was officially 'flagged,' meaning he cannot be promoted or given any awards or honors. Provance said he was told he will face administrative action for failing to report what he knew at the time and for failing to take steps to stop the abuse. 'I see it as an effort to intimidate Sgt. Provance and any other soldier whose conscience is bothering him, and who wants to come forward and tell what really happened at Abu Ghraib,' said his attorney Scott Horton." Another BushFeld coverup - Impeach Bush Now!

NBC reports, "The Army's elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees. The [top-secret] battlefield interrogation facility known as the 'BIF' is... the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq's prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don't apply, Delta Force's BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists - but not the most wanted among Saddam's lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards. These sources say the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF's six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he's drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation. In Washington Thursday evening, a senior Pentagon official denied allegations of prisoner abuse at BIF operated by Delta Force in Iraq."

"A military lawyer for a soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib abuse case stated that a captain at the prison said the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq was present during some 'interrogations...' according to a recording of a military hearing obtained by The Washington Post. Capt. Robert Shuck, said he was told that Lt. Gen. Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib...Shuck said the company commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese, was prepared to testify in exchange for immunity...A Defense Department spokesman yesterday referred questions about Sanchez to U.S. military officials in the Middle East,... Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the senior military spokesman in Iraq, said Sanchez was unavailable for comment but would 'enjoy the opportunity' to respond later."

"The U.S. Army has investigated the deaths of 37 prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, Pentagon officials revealed Friday... The nine prisoner homicides apparently still under investigation: Abdul Jaleel, 46, who died January 9, 2004, at Forward Operating Base Rifles near Al Asad, Iraq. He died of 'blunt force injuries and asphyxia.' Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a former commander of Saddam Hussein's air defenses, who died November 26, 2003, during interrogation at Qaim, Iraq. His death may have involved a CIA officer who is an interrogator. Doctors attributed his death to 'asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression.' Manadel Al-Jamadi, who was being held at Abu Ghraib. He died November 4, 2003, death of 'blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration,' doctors said. Two CIA personnel, an officer and a contract translator, were present when he died, and the agency and Justice Department are conducting inquiries." Etc. ad nauseum.

"Pfc. Lynndie England had a chance to explain why she was standing in a prison hallway, holding a naked man on a leash. She said another photo of a fellow soldier threatening to hit a detainee was a ruse. He never did follow through, she said. Spec. Jeremy Sivits, however, described how soldiers did in fact punch detainees, even knocking one unconscious. There are also the detainees' versions. One prisoner, who tells investigators he was among those forced to lie in a pile of naked men -- a formation captured in one of the first Abu Ghraib photos to be released -- said the guards 'treated us like animals, not humans... No one showed us mercy.' Then, finally, there is a voice for the man seen worldwide with arms outstretched and wires attached to his body. In sparse, pained language, he described standing there wearing nothing but a hood and a blanket as a soldier put 'electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis.' He heard someone say, 'Which switch is on for electricity?'"

New documents obtained by PentaPost "contain tantalizing hints about the role of military intelligence officers who operated in the shadows of Tier 1A at the prison. One military police officer said in a sworn statement that civilian and military intelligence officers frequently visited Tier 1A at night, spiriting detainees away for questioning out of sight of the MPs inside a 'wood hut' behind the prison building... Special visitors frequented the wing at night, Davis said. They included representatives from the military's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and other government agencies (OGA), a common expression for the CIA. 'On the night shift, FBI, OGA, CID, MI would be in and out of the wing interrogating prisoners, bringing them in, or taking them away to the wood hut behind the hard site or away period,' Davis said. 'Someone was always there from the other agencies or military personnel, it seemed.'"

"Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets. The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers... One day, [a] detainee said, American soldiers held him down and spread his legs... A soldier stepped on his head, he said, and someone broke a phosphoric light and spilled the chemicals on him. 'I was glowing and they were laughing,' he said. The detainee said the soldiers eventually brought him to a room and sodomized him with a nightstick. 'They were taking pictures of me during all these instances.'"

The New York City Bar Association "thoroughly reviewed US laws, international treaties including the Convention Against Torture, and the laws of other countries experienced with terrorism. Yet despite this breadth of laws and treaties, the Association was surprised to learn that the Dept of Defense has not issued adequate guidance to military personnel in the interrogation or treatment of those in their custody... While the Department of Defense has declared that the US intends to abide by the Convention Against Torture and has promised to investigate allegations of abuse, the current allegations raise serious questions as to the level of attention given to compliance with international humanitarian law. The Association's report finds that for the Dept. of Defense's statement of intent to abide by the Convention Against Torture to be meaningful policy and not an empty promise, the following recommendations, among others, must be implemented immediately."

Molly Ivins writes, "Normally, something like Abu Ghraib can be blamed in part on the Downward Communication Exaggeration Spiral, which afflicts most organizations. Someone at the top makes a mild suggestion, and by the time it reaches the troops, it's iron-clad law. This appears to be a rare case of a reverse spiral, with the orders coming from the very top and questions being raised about them all the way down, until finally Army Spc. Joseph Darby spoke out and set off the Taguba investigation. There is more than sufficient evidence pointing to the culpability of those at the top. But the Pentagon is putting out the word that it was 'only a few bad apples,' six low-level soldiers who have already been charged, with no one else involved. This just stinks of cover-up. Damned if I think these six low-level soldiers should be hung out there to take the blame for a set of explicitly written and signed policies made by people bearing some of the highest titles in the land."

"ABC News has obtained two new photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing Spc. Charles Graner and Spc. Sabrina Harman posing over the body of a detainee who was allegedly beaten to death by CIA or civilian interrogators in the prison's showers. The detainee's name was Manadel al-Jamadi. According to testimony from Spc. Jason Kenner, the man was brought to the prison by US Navy SEALs in good health. Kenner said he saw extensive bruising on the detainee's body when he was brought out of the showers, dead. Kenner says the body was packed in ice during a 'battle' between CIA and military interrogators over who should dispose of the body. The Justice Department opened an investigation into this death and four others today following a referral from the CIA. The photos were taken by Staff Sgt. Ivan 'Chip' Frederick, who in e-mails to his family has asked why the people responsible for the prisoner's death were not being prosecuted in the same manner that he is."

PentaPost reports, "Sgt. Samuel Provance said [military] intelligence interrogators told military police to strip down prisoners and embarrass them as a way to help 'break' them. The same interrogators and intelligence analysts would talk about the abuse with Provance and flippantly dismiss it because the Iraqis were considered 'the enemy'... [Provance said] the highest-ranking military intelligence officers at the prison were involved and that the Army appears to be trying to deflect attention away from military intelligence's role... Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski claimed that military intelligence imposed its authority so fully that she eventually had limited access to the interrogation facilities. And an attorney for one of the soldiers [said] that the Army has rejected his request for an independent inquiry, which could block potentially crucial information about involvement of military intelligence, the CIA and the FBI from being revealed." Stop the coverup - Impeach Bush Now!

"Dozens of soldiers - other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged - were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABC News. 'There's definitely a cover-up,' the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. 'People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet.' Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABC News despite orders from his commanders not to... [Maj. Gen. George] Fay started his probe on April 23, but Provance said when Fay interviewed him, the general seemed interested only in the military police, not the interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from testifying. Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner... 'I feel like I'm being punished for being honest,' Provance told ABC News." Impeach Bush Now!

Fred Kaplan writes, "Bush knew about it. Rumsfeld ordered it. Steven Cambone administered it. Lt. Gen. William Boykin, instructed Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been executing the program involving al-Qaida suspects at Guantanamo, to go do the same at Abu Ghraib. Miller told Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the 800th Military Brigade, that the prison would now be dedicated to gathering intelligence. Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, also seems to have had a hand in this sequence, as did William Haynes, the Pentagon's general counsel. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, learned about the improper interrogations... but said or did nothing about it for two months, until it was clear that photographs were coming out. Meanwhile, those involved in the interrogations included officers from military intelligence, the CIA, and private contractors, as well as the mysterious figures from the Pentagon's secret operation."

UPI reports, "Over the past weekend and into this week, devastating new allegations have emerged putting Stephen Cambone, the first Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, firmly in the crosshairs and bringing a new wave of allegations cascading down on the head of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when he scarcely had time to catch his breath from the previous ones. Even worse for Rumsfeld and his coterie of neo-conservative true believers who have run the Pentagon for the past 3.5 years, three major institutions in the Washington power structure have decided that after almost a full presidential term of being treated with contempt and abuse by them, it's payback time. Those three institutions are: The United States Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and the old, relatively moderate but highly experienced Republican leadership in the United States Senate. None of those groups is chopped liver: Taken together they comprise a devastating Grand Slam."

"Two of the Pentagon's top officials, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone and Army intelligence chief Lieut. Gen. Keith Alexander, misled the Senate Armed Services Committee about their complicity in interrogations of Iraqi prisoners, as national security investigative reporter Jason Vest reports in an exclusive Nation Online article posted on May 14. Vest cites an internal Pentagon memorandum as well as contradictions between Cambone's and Alexander's testimony to the Senate last week and earlier, previously unreported comments at an April 7 hearing of the Armed Services Committee. Remarks made by the two officials in the April 7 hearing--unreported elsewhere--revealed much more knowledge and coordination on intelligence and interrogation matters than the two indicated on May 11. " Cambone is Rumsfeld's protege from PNAC - a key player in what Joseph Wilson calls the PNAC "coup d'etat."

NY Times reports, "As of February, many of the 100 or so prisoners categorized by US officials as 'high value detainees' because of the special intelligence they are believed to possess, had been held since June 2003 for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells without sunlight. While not tantamount to the sexual humiliation and other abuses inflicted on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the conditions have been described by the Red Cross as a violation of the Geneva Conventions... The principal responsibility for the high-value prisoners and their treatment belonged to the Iraq Survey Group, headed by Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]... The survey group falls under the overall authority of the CIA, under George J. Tenet, for matters related to the illicit weapons hunt. But on other matters it reports to the Central Command, under Gen. John P. Abizaid." Despite Red Cross complaints, these war crimes continue...

PentaPost reports, "Three directives in particular have already begun to attract congressional scrutiny: The first is a classified report by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller on Sept. 9, 2003, demanding that the military police at Abu Ghraib be dedicated and trained to set 'the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees.' The report, which [Stephen] Cambone has testified was presented to his deputy William Boykin, contained five recommendations spelling out how this was to occur and reported it had already begun. The second is an Oct. 12 classified memo signed by Sanchez that demanded a 'harmonization' of military policing and intelligence work at Abu Ghraib... The third is a Nov. 19 memo from Sanchez's office that formally placed the two key Abu Ghraib cellblocks where the abuses occurred under the control of Pappas and his 205th Military Intelligence Brigade."

Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker: "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of elite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror... The Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A."

"Abusive treatment under the supervision of military intelligence officers may have been intentionally used as part of the interrogation of Iraqi captives at the Abu Ghraib prison, according to a previously unpublished photograph of U.S. soldiers and other personnel obtained by NBC News. The photograph was taken during the interrogation of several Iraqi prisoners who are depicted naked in a heap on the floor, according to a military police officer who faces a court-martial in connection with alleged abuses at the notorious facility. The officer, Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, of Greene County, Pa., is leaning against the wall in the photograph, which was provided by his attorney, Guy Womack. Graner identified four other soldiers in the photograph, labeled Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the copy provided to NBC News, as military intelligence officers, who he said were in charge of interrogations at the prison. A civilian translator is labeled No. 2, and Graner is No. 1."

"Top GOP leaders said Wednesday they oppose the release of hundreds of fresh images showing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, saying they could compromise the prosecution of those soldiers implicated in the acts and further inflame tensions in Iraq." Funny, concern for inflaming tensions in Iraq hasn't kept Bush and the GOP from rounding up and refusing all legal rights to thousands of Muslims, from trashing the Middle East Road map (said by scores of diplomats to be the most inflammatory action Bush could possibly have taken), from killing hundreds of citizens in Falluja and leveling their homes -- or from appointing as ambassador to Iraq a man known to have condoned and covered up torture, rape and murder. You'll have to try another excuse Repugs. We don't buy it.

"According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the 'R2I' (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself. Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners."

"Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war... But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons... while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership... From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes. In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world. Accountability here is essential -- even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war."

PentaPost opines, "The Bush administration still seeks to mislead Congress and the public about the policies that contributed to the criminal abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Yesterday's smoke screen was provided by Stephen A. Cambone [who] assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that the administration's policy had always been to strictly observe the Geneva Conventions in Iraq... and that the abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were consequently the isolated acts of individuals. These assertions are contradicted by International Red Cross and Army investigators, by U.S. generals overseeing the prisoners, and by Mr. Cambone himself... If Bush and his senior officials would acknowledge their complicity in playing fast and loose with international law and would pledge to change course, they might begin to find a way out of the mess. Instead, they hope to escape from this scandal without altering or even admitting the improper and illegal policies that lie at its core."

NY Times opines, "The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team. That cynical approach was on display yesterday morning in the second Abu Ghraib hearing in the Senate, a body that finally seemed to be assuming its responsibility for overseeing the executive branch after a year of silently watching the bungled Iraq occupation. The senators called one witness for the morning session, the courageous and forthright Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who ran the Army's major investigation into Abu Ghraib. But the Defense Department also sent Stephen Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, to upstage him."

"60 Minutes II exclusively obtained an American soldier's home video from Camp Bucca in Southern Iraq and Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, where American soldiers have been accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners. The video shows a young soldier's disdain for the Iraqi prisoners. She says: 'We've already had two prisoners die...but who cares? That's two less for me to worry about.' Two other soldiers who were at Camp Bucca and are accused of abusing prisoners there tell Correspondent Dan Rather that the problems began with the chain of command -- the same chain of command that was in charge of Abu Ghraib when the pictures of torture and abuse were taken."

"Outlaw behaviour... pains Donald Rumsfeld. The US defence secretary is particularly anguished by newspaper leaks of torture in Iraqi prisons. That amounts to a violation of national security...He apologised last week for the scenes... alongside his own image on split television screens: the prisoner on a leash, the piles of naked bodies...Mr Rumsfeld did not apologise for the Red Cross reports of unarmed Iraqi prisoners being shot to death by military personnel ... He said nothing of the 'interrogation techniques' developed by US intelligence agencies...He expressed no regret for employing private contractors to question people who were accused of no crime, then hiding their sadistic behaviour from public scrutiny..Such leaders have placed themselves outside the bounds of international law, their own code of justice and their much-admired constitution. In doing so, they have also removed the protection of law from those who follow their orders."

"To what extent have the policies of the Bush administration - and the values and attitudes that have characterized the conduct of the so-called war against terror - contributed to a state of mind and morale in the American military that opened the way to the torture, abuse and, in some cases, apparent murder of prisoners in Iraq? Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration displayed hostility toward international law and treaty obligations that it considered as limits on U.S. national sovereignty or as obstacles to American national interest. In the Afghanistan war it summarily shipped prisoners outside of the country...in disregard of Geneva norms concerning prisoners taken in war...U.S. Army regulations on dealing with prisoners of war were bypassed, since these people were by presidential definition 'enemy combatants,' not prisoners of war."

Paul Krugman writes, "Did top officials order the use of torture? It depends on the meaning of the words 'order' and 'torture.' Last August Mr. Rumsfeld's top intelligence official sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantanamo prison, to Iraq. General Miller recommended that the guards help interrogators, including private contractors, by handling prisoners in a way that 'sets the conditions' for 'successful interrogation and exploitation.' What did he and his superiors think would happen? To their credit, some supporters of the administration are speaking out. 'This is about system failure,' said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). But do Mr. Graham, John McCain and other appalled lawmakers understand their own role in that failure? By deferring to the administration at every step, by blocking every effort to make officials accountable, they set the nation up for this disaster."

The last Army Manual accessible to the public that includes guidelines for prisoner interrogation is FM-34-52, put out in 1987. According to these guidelines, "experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation," and that such abuse is a "poor technique" that "yields unreliable results" and "may damage subsequent collection efforts... Interrogators are encouraged to gain trust and manipulate with trickery and rewards for good behavior, but not with force or the threat of force." But the top brass now claims there was an update that gives the OK to abusive treatment: FM 34-52 "Intelligence Interrogation." Guess when this was put out? September, 1992, under George Bush I.

The military top brass are trying to imply that some of the abuse of prisoners was OK by military guidelines. But this is a big fat LIE. "Inhumane treatment of any kind" is clearly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and military law, according to a 1987 edition of FM 34-52, the Army's manual on "intelligence interrogations," and current legal guidelines issued by the Army's intelligence school at Fort Huachucha, Ariz. The 1987 manual, the latest edition available to the public, says "experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation," describing it as a "poor technique" that "yields unreliable results" and "may damage subsequent collection efforts." Interrogators are encouraged to gain trust and manipulate with trickery and rewards for good behavior, but not with force or the threat of force." So reports Knight-Ridder.

Just when we thought that the horrors at Abu Ghraib was awakening a sense of nonpartisan conscience in some Repugs, like Linsday Graham and Joe Lieberman [Dem in name only], we were sorely disappointed. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on 5/11, both men deflected US accountability by claiming the beheading of an American by Iraqis was somehow proof the torture of prisoners was justifiable. Shockingly, Graham stated that "the enemy" in Iraq "were animals" and would commit any crime "in the name of God." HELLO! Bush & Co. have made this a religious war. The man behind the interrogation plan in Iraq, Gen. Jerry Boykin has claimed God talks to him and said the enemy in Iraq are "Satan."

Robert Scheer writes: "Someone's lying -- big-time -- and neither Congress nor the media have begun to scratch the surface. The several low-ranking alleged sadists charged in the Iraq torture scandal did not control the wing of the prison in which they openly and proudly did the devil's work. That power was in the hands of high-ranking U.S. military intelligence officers who established abusive conditions that were condemned by the Red Cross in a complaint to U.S. authorities well before the horrid incidents that recently shocked the nation." But what are Bush, Rummy, Powell and the rest of the crew doing now? Lie, deny and and accuse critics of "lying." This is getting to be a very clear pattern on everything, from the reasons for war to 9/11, to Medicare Reform.

There are few people on Capitol Hill aside from John Ashcroft who are more rabidly fundamentalist than Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma. So it comes as no surprise that he can't see what the big deal is about a few "infidels" being tortured, raped, and murdered. AP reports that Inhofe claims that anyone with a problem with the crimes is just a Bush critic seeking political gain. Inhofe read aloud from an e-mail issued by the Kerry campaign in which he called for Rumsfeld's resignation. Like all campaign emails, it also came with a stock request for donations. But to Inhofe this was "proof" of "partisan politics."

The Guardian reports: "Iraq's first human rights minister launched a blistering attack yesterday on America's chief administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, saying that he had warned him repeatedly last year that US soldiers were abusing Iraqi detainees."

Now that the initial shock is wearing off, the media is quickly going back to business as usual, protecting George "a Dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier" Bush. Editor & Publisher, about the only industry watchdog of American editorial content, reported on May 10 that most newspapers are now running the photos of prisoner abuse inside, not on page one, though this is clearly the most important national news story. In addition, they are censoring content. While the photo of the naked prisoner being threatened by dogs is shown, few papers have shown the aftermath photo, with a wounded prisoner being sat upon by a smiling soldier.

This is the full version of the report given to both the US and UK governments officially in February on prisoner abuse in Iraq. The Red Cross had, from May 2003 on continually notified UK and US officials as to the problem of abuse and was ignored.

E. O'Connell writes: "George Bush demonstrates his 'Christian values' with tepid outrage after he ignored the Red Cross and Amnesty International about widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq. By allowing Rumsfeld to break the military's chain of command structures, inserting highly-paid, GOP friendly private contractors into the system, Bush destroyed all accountability. If you are outraged, do something. Don't suffer in silence." See: http://www.bushoccupation.com

Heather Wokusch writes: "Despite Taguba's report detailing US 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' of Iraqi detainees, the President declared, 'We acted, and there are no longer mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms in Iraq.' In George Bush's America, denial about inmate mistreatment runs similarly rampant. As Texas governor, Bush oversaw the executions of 152 prisoners and thus became the most-killing governor in the history of the United States. Ethnic minorities, many of whom did not have access to proper legal representation, comprised a large percentage of those Bush put to death, and in one particularly egregious example, Bush executed an immigrant who hadn't even seen a consular official from his own country (as is required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the US was a signatory). Bush's explanation: 'Texas did not sign the Vienna Convention, so why should we be subject to it?' "

"The torture tactics used to 'soften up' Iraqi detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail began under orders from the highest level of the US defence administration, it was claimed yesterday. The creation of torture units was the consequence of orders by the Defence Department - headed by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld... Last August, the Department ordered General Geoffrey Miller - then in charge at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay - to go to Iraq to find ways to improve the flow of intelligence from detainees, an investigation by Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper has found. The general recommended creating a single central interrogation unit at Abu Ghraib. It was in this unit where the degradation of Iraqi prisoners - now graphically exposed by more than 1000 photographs - took place... Democrat Congressman Jim McDermott, said he was convinced abuse had been sanctioned from the top. 'It wasn't just six soldiers who did it. It goes all the way to the top - to the Presidency,' he said."

Newsweek reports, "Donald Rumsfeld likes to be in total control. He wants to know all the details, including the precise interrogation techniques used on enemy prisoners. Since 9/11 he has insisted on personally signing off on the harsher methods used to squeeze suspected terrorists held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The conservative hard-liners at the Department of Justice have given the secretary of Defense a lot of leeway. It does not violate the spirit of the Geneva Conventions, the lawyers have told Rumsfeld, to put prisoners in ever-more-painful 'stress positions' or keep them standing for hours on end, to deprive them of sleep or strip them naked. According to one of Rumsfeld's aides, the secretary has drawn the line at interrogating prisoners for more than 24 hours at a time or depriving them of light." Impeach Rumsfeld - and Bush (ImpeachCentral.com)

Geoffrey Hoon, the UK equiv. of Rumsfeld, was grilled by angry MPs in parliament on May 11. His excuses and stances were extremely similar to those being used by Bush and Rummy. For example, Hoon used the "I never actually saw the February report" defense and the claim that he believed allegations were "already being investigated." Earlier, he had also used the "isolated incidents by rogue soldiers" routine. What we want to know is -- at what point did the White House and Downing Street work out their stories?

Asia Times: "Behind Rumsfeld's apologies lies an attempt to cover up a controversial character hired by him to pin down the 'interrogation' process: Lt-Gen William 'Jerry' Boykin, a Christian fundamentalist ...[who] sees the 'war on terror' as a religious war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Satan, with Islam of course cast in the latter role. Boykin has said 'our spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus'. Boykin also believes that George W Bush was not elected to the White House by mere mortals, but chosen by God [does he think Antonin Scalia is God?], and that he himself received his orders from God.' Boykin has made it very clear that he sees the war on terror as 'a war against Muslims." Boykin, working with Stephen Cambone and Geoffrey Miller are named by AT as probable key torture administrators, both in Guantanamo and Iraq.

Bush issued a shocking statement to the world during a 5/10 "press conference": He endorses the systematic torture of civilians. No, he didn't use those words, but he heartily and unquestioningly endorsed Rumsfeld's conduct of the war, which includes systematic torture of civilians as a part of the operation. The statement was made in total safety from public opinion. As AP reports: "This was a made-for-media appearance: Apart from those standing next to Bush and a handful of top White House aides, there was no other audience besides the journalists assembled just off of Rumsfeld's office." And, Bush answered no questions about the scandal or the rising death count in Iraq. Instead, he commended Rumsfeld's policy: "You are doing a superb job."

Despite an overwhelming preponderance of evidence presented before and since 9/11 that Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and nothing to do with the attack on America, and that Saddam Hussein did not have WMDs trained on the US, Bush continued to make inflammatory statements supporting these lies. Many of the soldiers involved in the horrors now being revealed in Iraq have said they believed they were "punishing" people involved in 9/11 who had posed a direct threat to the US. Now Bush expresses disgust at these same soldiers - soldiers whose beliefs and attitudes were directly shaped by the lies of their own "commander-in-chief." It can fairly be argued that as commander-in-chief promoting inflammatory lies, Bush is more directly responsible for the atrocities than the soldiers following his lead. Here's a sample - see para. 15 esp.)

Seymour Hersh writes, "In the background are two Army dog handlers, in full camouflage combat gear, restraining two German shepherds. The dogs are barking at a man who is partly obscured from the camera's view by the smiling soldier. Another image shows that the man, an Iraqi prisoner, is naked. His hands are clasped behind his neck and he is leaning against the door to a cell, contorted with terror, as the dogs bark a few feet away. Other photographs show the dogs straining at their leashes and snarling at the prisoner. In another, taken a few minutes later, the Iraqi is lying on the ground, writhing in pain, with a soldier sitting on top of him, knee pressed to his back. Blood is streaming from the inmate's leg. Another photograph is a closeup of the naked prisoner, from his waist to his ankles, lying on the floor. On his right thigh is what appears to be a bite or a deep scratch. There is another, larger wound on his left leg, covered in blood."

"SEN. CARL LEVIN: I think some of the environment here was actually set at the White House when they said it was a bunch of legalisms to discuss whether or not the Geneva Conventions would apply to prisoners directly or whether they would be treated consistent with the Geneva Conventions or in the same way but not precisely according--they were splitting legal hairs about the application of Geneva Conventions and it seems to me that sent exactly the wrong message to the intelligence people and to the guards themselves. MR. RUSSERT: You believe the president then is ultimately responsible? SEN. LEVIN: I think he helped to create the atmosphere by the way in which he called the Geneva Convention discussion relative to Afghanistan a matter of legalism. It's not legalism. It goes right to the heart of this matter." You go, Carl!

NYT: "[T]he man who directed the reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last year and trained the guards there resigned under pressure as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time. [That] official, Lane McCotter, later became an executive of a private prison company, one of whose jails was under investigation by the Justice Department when he was sent to Iraq as part of a team...picked by Attorney General John Ashcroft to rebuild the country's criminal justice system."

IHT: "The question tears at all of us, regardless of party or ideology: How could American men and women treat Iraqi prisoners with such cruelty - and laugh at their humiliation? We are told that there was a failure of military leadership. Officers in the field were lax. Pentagon officials didn't care. So the worst in human nature was allowed to flourish. But something much more profound underlies this terrible episode. It is a culture of low regard for the law, of respecting the law only when it is convenient. Again and again, over these last years, George W. Bush has made clear his view that law must bend to what he regards as necessity. National security as he defines it trumps American commitments to international law. The Constitution must yield to novel infringements on American freedom."

BBC: "Iraq's former US-appointed human rights minister, Abdel Basset Turki, has said Mr Bremer knew about the alleged abuses earlier than the coalition has admitted. Mr Turki said he highlighted abuses last November in a conversation with Bremer. 'He listened but there was no answer,' Mr Turki, who quit a month ago over the bloody US siege of the city of Falluja, The International Red Cross said earlier it had repeatedly asked the US authorities to take action over alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib months before CBS television reported it ten days ago. US Congressman Steve Buyer, who served as a legal adviser during the 1991 Gulf War, has said that the Pentagon rejected his offer to go to Iraq last year to give advice on handling prisoners. " All of this points to the fact that the Pentagon did not consider the torture a "problem."

"On Nov. 19, 2003, General Sanchez made a surprising decision: he transferred formal command of Abu Ghraib to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade under Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, a 32-year military veteran whose unit, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, had been assigned to the prison as the chief interrogators since it opened. Working with Colonel Pappas was Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, who headed the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the prison. General Karpinski, Colonel Phillabaum and the military police in the battalion contend that the military intelligence officers had, even before Nov. 19, essentially taken control of the prisoners in the Tier 1 cellblock and had encouraged their mistreatment. General Taguba concluded that the 372nd 'was directed to change facility procedures to 'set the conditions' for interrogations. 'It was like they were in charge now; it's a military intelligence unit now,' said a member of the 320th Battalion, Sgt. John Lamela, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa."

Robert Fisk writes:"Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi... For a year now, Iraqis have been trying to tell journalists of the brutal treatment they are receiving at the hands of their occupiers...Who taught Lynndie and her boyfriend and the other American sadists of Abu Ghraib prison to do this? ...Lynndie and her boyfriend were not part of a 'rogue' unit. They were told to do these despicable things. They were encouraged. This was an order from someone. Who? When can we see their pictures, their identity, their passports, their orders?"

"There were no rules, by her account, and there was little training. But the mission was clear. Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, a military police officer who has been charged with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said she was assigned to break down prisoners for interrogation. 'They would bring in one to several prisoners at a time already hooded and cuffed,' ...'The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk.'...Harman, a 26-year-old Army reservist from Alexandria, said members of her military police unit took direction from Army military intelligence officers, from CIA operatives and from civilian contractors who conducted interrogations."

Andrew Buncombe writes: "The photographs involving Ms England and six other soldiers have forced the people of Fort Ashby and the rest of America to think deeply, to look to themselves and consider where this behaviour came from, to ask what makes people behave in this way?... Another young woman soldier from West Virginia about which the same ready-to-go phrase was used, was Jessica Lynch... Ms Lynch's story was a great morale-boosting tale for troops and public alike... As it transpired, the truth was a little different. Ms Lynch had not been shot or stabbed by her captors, she had not fought them off until her weapon jammed, the special forces had not met any resistance at the hospital when they collected her. Indeed the doctors at the hospital had done everything they could for the young woman and as Ms Lynch admitted herself, the Pentagon had used her in its propaganda." Still, Jessica Lynch is to be commended. But the ironies multiply when contrasting her story with England's.

A paper trail now proves that at least US reps in Iraq were aware of prisoner abuse from March 2003 onward. The same paper trail indicates the abuse was widespread and systematic. But Bush & Co are continuing to claim the abuse was "limited," the work of a few acting on their own and that the administration did not know about it until January 2004. AP: "The International Committee of the Red Cross said it warned American officials of prisoner abuse in Iraq more than a year ago and that the mistreatment was "not individual acts." "There was a pattern and a system," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations, said in Geneva. Some of the actions were "tantamount to torture," he said. The ICRC findings were "discussed at different moments between March and November 2003, either in direct face-to-face conversations or in written interventions," Kraehenbuehl said.

The Wall Street Journal has released the ICRC report on conditions at Abu Ghraib and another military detention center near Baghdad. The Red Cross director of operations, Pieree Kahenbuhl added, "this report includes observations and recommendations from visits that took place between March and November 2003. The report itself was handed over to the Coalition Forces (CF) in February of 2004. It is important to understand that this report represents the summary of concerns that were regularly brought to the attention of the CF throughout 2003. This is important to understand in the sense that what appears in the report of February 2004 are observations consistent with those made earlier on several occasions orally and in writing throughout 2003. In that sense the ICRC has repeatedly made its concerns known to the Coalition Forces and requested corrective measures prior to the submission of this particular report."

US Newswire: "Today, responding to graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by smiling American soldiers and to newly disclosed reports indicating that the military command knew of inhumane practices, leaders of The Interfaith Alliance (TIA), whose members come from more than 75 faith traditions, called on political, military, and religious leaders to go beyond apologies and to seek reconciliation, accountability, and justice. 'Reconciliation and accountability must begin at the top,' said the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, TIA president. 'We commend Bush for his belated public apology. That's a good first step, but it's only a small one. We urge him to immediately begin a review of all statements, policies, and actions by him and his administration that created, allowed, or contributed to these atrocities in Iraq, to the dramatic increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans since 9/11, and to the surge in anti- American sentiments around the world."

Philip Kennicott writes: "These photos, we insist, are not us. But these photos are us. Yes, they are the acts of individuals (though the scandal widens, as scandals almost inevitably do, and the military's own internal report calls the abuse 'systemic'). But armies are made of individuals. Nations are made up of individuals. Great national crimes begin with the acts of misguided individuals; and no matter how many people are held directly accountable for these crimes, we are, collectively, responsible for what these individuals have done. We live in a democracy. Every errant smart bomb, every dead civilian, every sodomized prisoner, is ours. And more. Perhaps this is just a little cancer that crept into the culture of the people running Abu Ghraib prison. But stand back. Look at the history. Open up to the hard facts of human nature, the lessons of the past, the warning signs of future abuses."

This report written in May, 2003 clearly indicates that intensive interrogation of prisoners may have been planned since that time. " A law professor who specializes in human rights issues, Ralph Steinhardt of George Washington University in Washington [says] that he takes a dim view of Bush's decision to keep Iraqi prisoners in detention by refusing to declare the war over [and instead only calling 'an end to major conflict']. Steinhardt says Bush and his military advisers clearly want as much time as they can get to extract valuable information from the prisoners." Although Steinhardt suggested that this might be evidence that Bush was trying to abide by the Geneva Conventions, hindsight tells a very different story.

NY Times reports, "Grisly photographs taken at Abu Ghraib prison of two dead men may indicate that the violence at the prison went far beyond degrading treatment of detainees... The photographs come from the same collection of pictures that show military guards humiliating other detainees. All of the photographs, including those of the dead men, were taken at Abu Ghraib... Military officials have said they are investigating 10 deaths of detainees, but have not said where any of the deaths occurred and have so far declined to provide any explanation of the photographs or describe the circumstances of the deaths... Since the prisoner abuse scandal broke, the C.I.A.'s inspector general has said he is investigating the involvement of C.I.A. officers and contractors in three deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, including one at Abu Ghraib. In addition, the Justice Department is examining whether anyone violated federal law in cases involving the C.I.A."

On 10/8/03, Bush declared: "Iraq is free of rape rooms and torture chambers." As recently as 5/3/04, Bush declared: "Because we acted, torture rooms are closed, rape rooms no longer exist, mass graves are no longer a possibility in Iraq." Slate.com has the full list of Bush's torture chamber lies. Impeach Bush Now (ImpeachCentral.com)!

Guardian: "Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis, picked up at random by US troops .Torin Nelson, who served as a military intelligence officer at Guantanamo Bay before moving to Abu Ghraib as a private contractor last year, alleged that [private security] companies were so anxious to meet the demand for their services, they sent 'cooks and truck drivers' to work as interrogators. He claimed many of the detainees are 'innocent of any acts against the coalition'. 'One case in point is a detainee whom I recommended for release and months later was still sitting in the same tent with no change in his status.' "

Joanna Bourke writes: "A woman ties a noose around a naked man's neck and forces him to crawl across the floor. Uniformed people strip a group of hooded men, then laboriously assemble them into a pyramid. Men are forced to masturbate and simulate fellatio. In the past few days, we have all participated in the pornographic gaze. The sight of wide-eyed, grinning young men and women posing in front of their stripped and degraded captives has proved profoundly shocking. These snapshots tell us more than we may perhaps want to know about our society's heart of darkness. This festival of violence is highly pornographic. The victims have been reduced to exhibitionist objects or anonymous 'meat'. The people taking the photographs exult in the genitals of their victims. There is no moral confusion here: the photographers don't even seem aware that they are recording a war crime. For the person behind the camera, the aesthetic of pornography protects them from blame."

BBC: "There is no sign that President Bush has been able to undo the damage caused by the photographs of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by the very troops sent to liberate them. Looking at the front pages in Cairo this morning," Bush might well wonder why he bothered to make his pitch at all. "The problem for the Americans is that no-one in the Arab world believes these are isolated incidents; everyone expects far worse yet to come. So al-Wafd, an opposition newspaper in Egypt, shows what are described as photographs of American soldiers shooting civilians from a helicopter in Iraq - a story with unhelpful echoes of Vietnam."

"The NYT writes, 'the [Busheviks] had difficulty explaining why they had not acted earlier and more aggressively to deal with the abuse.' One reason: No one wants to admit to having read the report. According to the LA Times, the White House has known about the investigation since December. The report was completed in February. Gen. Richard B. Myers called Dan Rather at CBS three weeks before the story ran and asked the network to hold it; this past Sunday, questioned on Face the Nation, Myers admitted he still hadn't read the report himself. Two days after Myers's admission, Bush still hadn't read the report and his press secretary attempted to shield him, claiming he 'only become aware of the photographs and the Pentagon's main internal report about the incidents from news reports last week.' And Donald Rumsfeld... said while he'd seen a summary and recommendations from the investigation, he hadn't read the full report. The report is 53 pages. What are they waiting for?"

Reuters: "For the men sipping tea in a cafe in Baghdad, George W. Bush's pledge that soldiers who abused Iraqi prisoners would be punished was credible -- but only if the Americans fulfill other pledges first. Others were more skeptical, saying the Americans had not fulfilled pledges they gave Iraqis after toppling Saddam Hussein more than a year ago -- pledges on security, reliable electricity supplies, jobs and many more. 'We are an occupied nation, and when you are occupied you have nothing in your hand,' said Yossuf Ayob.'I don't know if we can believe this because the Americans have lost all their credibility when a year after the end of the war nothing has changed in our lives.' An old man sitting in one corner smoking a water pipe didn't even bother to look at the television high on the wall."

Cheryl Seal writes: "The Bush administration is feigning shock and disgust over the revelations of systematic torture of Iraqi prisoners. But there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the White House was fully aware that such crimes were being committed and by whom. Not only that, they continually took steps to cover their own butts should the matter ever come up - like refusing to sign onto the International Court and declaring an instant end to the war in May 2003 to circumvent the Geneva Convention. Among the mercenaries being trained in the US and deployed to Iraq, some on the Pentagon payroll, are former commandos from the brutal Pinochet regime and 'enforcers' from South Africa's former Apartheid regime."

"U.S. officials are conducting at least six separate investigations of alleged mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at a prison in Baghdad amid indications that abuse of detainees, including humiliating treatment and beatings, may have occurred at other U.S. facilities, NBC News has learned... But officials told NBC News that at least five other investigations were under way to determine whether similar mistreatment was taking place at other U.S. facilities and could be a symptom of a larger systemic problem. In an interview with NBC News, a former Iraqi prisoner at a separate detention center said he was held down by six U.S. soldiers, who he said beat the bottoms of his feet with steel rods. The former prisoner, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said that he had cheered the ouster of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that after his treatment at the hands of his U.S. captors, he considered the Americans to be as bad as '10 Saddams.' "

Reuters: "A former head of the U.S. Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba has been sent to Iraq to ensure proper prison conditions, after photos apparently showed U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, the military said on Friday... 'Major General Geoffrey Miller, who was running the Guantanamo operations, is now on the ground serving as deputy manager for detention operations,' Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, told a news conference in Baghdad." Back in 2003, Miller recommended that Guantanamo interrogation techniques be used at Abu Ghraib. And now Bush has appointed him to 'ensure proper prison conditions'??? This is an outrage! (Enter 'Guantanamo' in our search engines to read news reports about torture at Bush's concentration camp in Cuba).

The Australian reports: "The claim that the 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' by at least six US military police were actively encouraged by intelligence officers came in a confidential military report leaked to The New Yorker magazine. The magazine also reported that when one Iraqi prisoner was so stressed by questioning -- possibly by CIA officers -- that he died, his body was packed in ice for a day and then taken from the jail with a mock intravenous drip in his arm to disguise his death... Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW... claimed the bold behaviour of the soldiers in posing for photographs with the prisoners 'suggests they had nothing to hide from their superiors'... Among the alleged abuses were: breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees... beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair... threatening male detainees with rape... sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick."

"Former Iraqi human rights minister Abdel Basset Turki said US overseer Paul Bremer knew in November that Iraqi prisoners were being abused in US detention centres. 'In November I talked to Mr Bremer about human rights violations in general and in jails in particular. He listened but there was no answer. At the first meeting, I asked to be allowed to visit the security prisoners, but I failed,' Turki told AFP. 'I told [Bremer] the news. He didn't take care about the information I gave him. 'The prisoners I spoke to, they told me about how Iraqi prisoners were left in the sun on US bases for hours, prevented to pray and wash and left for two days on a chair and kicked at Abu Gharib,' he said. ... Turki resigned from his post on April 8 in anger over the US military offensives on Najaf and Fallujah."

"In late August and early September, 2003, a team from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, visited Iraq to see whether it could help U.S. forces there obtain 'better information' [sic] from detainees. That team was overseen by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commander at Guantanamo. Among its recommendations were that military police guards act as 'an enabler for interrogation,' Taguba's report found. But Taguba questioned whether Iraqi detainees should be treated similarly to Al Qaeda suspects in Guantanamo. 'There is a strong argument that the intelligence value of detainees held at [Guantanamo] is different than that of the detainees/internees held at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq,' he wrote." By creating secret off-shore torture chambers in Guantanamo, the Busheviks have corrupted the entire US military. And now Maj. Gen. Miller has been appointed to oversee prison conditions in Iraq! Impeach Bush Now!

Excerpts of the Army's investigative report on alleged abuses at U.S. military prisons in Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, Iraq. It was requested by the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and written by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. "Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force. The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence..."

PentaPost reports, "The photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib -- images that reached Iraqi newspapers on Sunday, following a three-day holiday -- have reinforced the long-held view here that the U.S. occupation is intent on humiliating the Iraqi people. The system has been rife with complaints for months, but now the testimony of former Iraqi prisoners claiming abuse at the hands of U.S. jailers has gained new credibility while further damaging the reputation of the U.S. occupation authority. Interviews with former Iraqi prisoners and human-rights advocates present a picture of the U.S. prison system here as a vast wartime effort to extract information from the enemy rather than to punish criminals. Former prisoners say lengthy interrogation sessions, employing sleep depravation, severe isolation, fear, humiliation and physical duress, were regular features of their daily regimen and remain so for the estimated 2,500 to 7,000 people inside the jails."

NY Times reports, "The report on General Taguba's investigation identified two military intelligence officers and two civilian contractors for the Army as key figures in the abuse cases at Abu Ghraib. In his internal report on his findings in the investigation, General Taguba said he suspected that the four were 'either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and strongly recommended disciplinary action.'... The report identifies Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th military intelligence brigade, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center and Liaison Officer to the 205th Military intelligence Brigade, Steven Stephanowicz, an Army contract employee from CACI, and John Israel, a contractor and civilian interpreter with CACI, as the people suspected of being 'either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.' "

"The photographs... show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects--Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits--are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant... In one [photo], Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides."

BBC News: "The Ministry of Defence has launched an investigation into allegations that British soldiers have been pictured torturing an Iraqi prisoner. The photographs, obtained by the Daily Mirror newspaper, show a suspected thief being beaten and urinated on. Downing Street swiftly condemned the pictures, echoing concerns it earlier expressed over images of Iraqi prisoners being abused by US troops... After being beaten and urinated on, he was driven away and dumped from the back of a moving vehicle, the soldiers claimed, unaware if he was dead."

"Bush on Friday said, 'A year ago I did give the speech from the carrier saying we had achieved an important objective, accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein [Don't rewrite history -- you said, 'Mission Accomplished', major military operations were over...you liar!]. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed and now sits in a jail,' the president said.' "

"Arab satellite televisions, seen by millions of Arabs and Muslims, began their news bulletins with the pictures, which they said showed the 'savagery' of U.S. troops. 'The pictures reflect the brutality of occupation and the absence of values and ethics which Americans said they came to Iraq to promote. They have shown the world how much malice and hatred they carry against Arabs,' added Ali Mohsen Obadi. Arabs said the photos would only fuel growing animosity and attacks against the United States by Muslims, already angered by its occupation of Iraq and its 'unlimited support' of Israel. 'I was saddened. This was not just the humiliation of those poor Iraqis. I felt humiliated too and so all Muslims and their leaders should feel,' said Palestinian Mahmoud Shaker, 20. Driver Hatem Ali, 30, said: 'Americans are racists and cowards, that's what I understood from these pictures.' "

"The battle for Iraqi hearts and minds was already fast being lost with the savage attack on Fallujah; [the prison photos] finished it off altogether. What excuse can Washington offer? One of Bush's excuses for overthrowing Saddam was that he was ousting a regime that tortured and humiliated Iraqis. The Americans are now seen as no different. Clearly, some US soldiers think that Iraqis can be humiliated, tortured and degraded. The question is whether this was an isolated incident. Or does the rot go further? No matter what crimes these prisoners may have committed; no matter the fact that Saddam Hussein treated his prisoners far worse; nothing excuses such revolting treatment. What is even more outrageous is the reported claim by some from the US prison guards arrested that they had not been trained how to handle detainees properly. Such an excuse begs belief. Does a soldier need to be trained to know that humiliation and torture of helpless individuals is utterly unacceptable?"

"Amnesty International has received frequent reports of torture or other ill-treatment by Coalition Forces during the past year. Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention. Many have told AI that they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods often reported include prolonged sleep deprivation; beatings; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights. Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment has been adequately investigated by the authorities. AI is calling for investigations into alleged abuses by Coalition Forces to be conducted by a body that is competent, impartial and independent, and seen to be so, and that any findings of such investigations be made public. In addition reparation, including compensation, must be paid to the victims or to their families."

Julian Borger writes, "The investigation names two US contractors, CACI International Inc and the Titan Corporation, for their involvement in Abu Ghraib... Colonel Jill Morgenthaler told the Guardian: 'One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him.' She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens... 'It's insanity,' said Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who has examined the case, and is concerned about the private contractors' free-ranging role. 'These are rank amateurs and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?' The Pentagon had no comment on the role of contractors at Abu Ghraib, saying that an inquiry was still in progress."

BBC reports: "A US general has been suspended in Iraq over the alleged abuse of prisoners by US troops in jails she ran. [notice how the word "abuse" is substituted for the more-to-the-point term: torture] She is one of seven officers being investigated. "The army confirmed the suspension after US television broadcast images of US soldiers allegedly abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. CBS TV says it has "dozens" of pictures showing a wide range of maltreatment." (There's photographic evidence and it's still being called "alleged"!?) Taken by US troops, many of the pictures show American troops watching in apparent approval." Is this what we want to become?

"Iraqis detained by US troops accused their captors of torture and degrading treatment, rights group Amnesty International reported yesterday, calling on the occupying forces to bring human rights violators to justice. Detainees also said US troops had shot some captives, the London-based rights watchdog reported, in a study based on interviews with former prisoners of US forces across Iraq. Amnesty staff heard complaints that included prolonged sleep deprivation and detainees being forced to stay in painful positions or wear hoods over their heads for long periods. 'These conditions taken together would amount to torture as defined by United Nations standards,' Amnesty's deputy executive director in the United States, Curt Goering.