[Vision2020] Red Cross Report On Torture Exposes BS From The Weekly Standard

[Tbertruss@aol.com]

Visionaries:
The info at the bottom is from a Red Cross report copyied from this link: 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/
The full report can be downloaded as a PDF file from this link.  I guess the Wall Street Journal broke the report today and the Red Cross verified it is authentic.  The Red Cross is well known for trying to avoid controversy so it can do its work without being shut out by fears of the Red Cross reporting things the powers that be do not want public.
It reports evidence of wide spread abuse and torture that upper level military command would have had to have been living in a cave to be unaware of, that continued over time as a pattern demonstrating upper level military command complicity in the torture.  It reports that the White House and the Pentagon ignored repeated warnings from Iraq administrator Paul Bremer.  Also that the report was given to US officials in February, supporting that theory that keeping this info from publc view was a deliberate cover up by the Pentagon and White House.  Either that or Bush and his henchmen/women are so far out of the loop as to be doing the loop de loop.  Of course some reports of actions taken to correct or punish US abuse of prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere where reported during 2004.  But the full extent and nature of the abuse and torture, the worst of which has not been exposed yet and may deliberately be kept out of pubic view, was most definately kept secret.
Therefore the following comment from the article from the online Weekly Standard that Pat Kraut offered us as a "different point of view" is BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
"Nowhere in the record of events made public so far is there a hint that allegations of wrongdoing, once leveled, were ever brushed aside or not taken with utmost seriousness by the military chain of command."
Ted Moffett
Here is part of the MSNBC article on the Red Cross report:
The Associated Press
Updated: 7:51 p.m. ET May  10, 2004 GENEVA - Intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq estimated that 70 percent to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, the Red Cross said in a report that was disclosed Monday, and Red Cross observers witnessed U.S. officers mistreating Abu Ghraib prisoners by keeping them naked in total darkness in empty cells. 
Abuse was, “in some cases, tantamount to torture,” it said. 
The report supports allegations by the International Committee of the Red Cross that abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers was broad and “not individual acts” — contrary to President Bush’s contention that the mistreatment “was the wrongdoing of a few.” 
The report said “high-value detainees” were singled out for special mistreatment. It did not specify them, but The Associated Press has learned that they included some of the 55 top officials in former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime who were named in a deck of playing cards given to troops. 
“Since June 2003, over 100 ‘high-value detainees’ have been held for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells devoid of daylight,” the report said. 
“ICRC delegates directly witnessed and documented a variety of methods used to secure the cooperation of the persons deprived of their liberty with their interrogators,” according to the confidential report.
The delegates saw in October how detainees at Abu Ghraib were kept “completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total darkness,” the report said. 
• Red Cross warned U.S.
May 10: U.S. officials said the White House and the Pentagon ignored repeated warnings from Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer and Secretary of State Colin Powell. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.Nightly News  “Upon witnessing such cases, the ICRC interrupted its visits and requested an explanation from the authorities,” it said. “The military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation explained that this practice was ‘part of the process.’ ” 
This apparently meant that detainees were progressively given clothing, bedding, lighting and other items in exchange for cooperation, it said. 
The report said investigators found evidence supporting prisoners’ allegations of other forms of abuse during arrest, initial detention and interrogation, including burns, bruises and other injuries. 
The 24-page document, which the Red Cross confirmed as authentic after it was published Monday by The Wall Street Journal, said the abuses took place primarily during the interrogation stage by military intelligence. Once the detainees were moved to regular prison facilities, the abuses typically stopped, it said. 
The report said some abuses were “tantamount to torture,” including brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of “imminent execution.” 
“These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an ‘intelligence value.’ ” 
The agency alleged that arrests tended to follow a pattern. 
“Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property,” the report said. 
“Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people,” it said. 
“Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles.” 
It said some coalition military intelligence officers estimated that “between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake. They also attributed the brutality of some arrests to the lack of proper supervision of battle group units.” 
Fact File Probing the military  At least seven investigations have been launched into allegations of abuse by U.S. personnel at military prisons. Click below for details: • Guantanamo Naval Base • Bagram, Afghanistan • Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigation • Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba report • Worldwide • Army reserve: Training • Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligence     Guantanamo Naval BaseDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asks Navy inspector general in May to investigate the prisons at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at the Charleston, S.C., Naval Station Brig, where war-on-terror detainees are being held.Follow-up: Ongoing   Bagram, AfghanistanInvestigation into the deaths of two inmates in December 2002, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after complaints by human rights groups. Military coroners rule the deaths homicide.Follow-up: Ongoing, although the military says that procedures have been modified at the Afghan facility.   Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigationCriminal investigation into the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad after complaints made by a soldier in January 2004.Follow-up: Six Army soldiers from the 800th Military Police Brigade charged in March with various offenses including dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts.   Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba reportGen. Ricardo Sanchez orders an investigation in January into abuses at Abu Ghraib to be conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba.Follow-up: In a lengthy report, Taguba concludes in March that "several U.S. Army soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law." Six noncommissioned and commissioned officers receive letters of reprimand.   WorldwideArmy’s inspector general office in February launches an investigation of "detention operations around the world" to ensure humane, normal policies are followed.Follow-up: Ongoing   Army reserve: TrainingLt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, orders an investigation in May into the state of training of Army Reserve units. The 800th is an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Totten, N.Y.Follow-up: Ongoing   Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligenceArmy Maj. Gen. George Fay, the service's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, launches an investigation in May into the possible involvement of military intelligence personnel in the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.Follow-up: Ongoing 
 U.S. told over time
Antonella Notari, chief spokeswoman for the Red Cross, would not discuss the full report Monday.
“It is our report,” Notari told The Associated Press. “That’s all I can say.”
But Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the Red Cross’ director of operations, said Friday that the report was given to U.S. officials in February. He said it only summarized what the agency had been telling U.S. officials in detail from March