[Vision2020] Geneva Convention Trashed: Rumsfeld Pushed For Gitmo Style Interrogations
Tbertruss@aol.com
Tbertruss@aol.com
Sun, 16 May 2004 19:19:17 EDT
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4989422/
=C2=A0 =20
The Roots of Torture
The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to=20
fight a new kind of war. A NEWSWEEK investigation
David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images-Pool
Tough tactics: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed for a Gitmo style=20
approach to prisoner interrogations in Iraq
=20
By John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
May 24 issue - It's not easy to get a member of Congress to stop talking.=20
Much less a room full of them. But as a small group of legislators watched t=
he=20
images flash by in a small, darkened hearing room in the Rayburn Building la=
st=20
week, a sickened silence descended. There were 1,800 slides and several vide=
os,=20
and the show went on for three hours. The nightmarish images showed American=
=20
soldiers at Abu Ghraib Prison forcing Iraqis to masturbate. American soldier=
s=20
sexually assaulting Iraqis with chemical light sticks. American soldiers=20
laughing over dead Iraqis whose bodies had been abused and mutilated. There=20=
was=20
simply nothing to say. "It was a very subdued walk back to the House floor,"=
said=20
Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.=20
"People were ashen."
The White House put up three soldiers for court-martial, saying the pictures=
=20
were all the work of a few bad-apple MPs who were poorly supervised. But=20
evidence was mounting that the furor was only going to grow and probably sin=
k some=20
prominent careers in the process. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman=20
John Warner declared the pictures were the worst "military misconduct" he'd=20=
seen=20
in 60 years, and he planned more hearings. Republicans on Capitol Hill were=20
notably reluctant to back Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And NEWSWEEK ha=
s=20
learned that U.S. soldiers and CIA operatives could be accused of war crimes=
.=20
Among the possible charges: homicide involving deaths during interrogations.=
=20
"The photos clearly demonstrate to me the level of prisoner abuse and=20
mistreatment went far beyond what I expected, and certainly involved more th=
an six or=20
seven MPs," said GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former military prosecutor. He a=
dded:=20
"It seems to have been planned."
Indeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal=E2=80=
=94that of=20
a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires dangling=20
from his fingers, toes and penis=E2=80=94may do a lot to undercut the admini=
stration's=20
case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That's because the practi=
ce=20
shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known only to veterans of th=
e=20
interrogation trade. "Was that something that [an MP] dreamed up by herself?=
=20
Think again," says Darius Rejali, an expert on the use of torture by=20
democracies. "That's a standard torture. It's called 'the Vietnam.' But it's=
not common=20
knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did this, but someone taught them."
Who might have taught them? Almost certainly it was their superiors up the=20
line. Some of the images from Abu Ghraib, like those of naked prisoners=20
terrified by attack dogs or humiliated before grinning female guards, actual=
ly portray=20
"stress and duress" techniques officially approved at the highest levels of=20
the government for use against terrorist suspects. It is unlikely that=20
President George W. Bush or senior officials ever knew of these specific tec=
hniques,=20
and late last week Defense spokesman Larry DiRita said that "no responsible=20
official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could concei=
vably=20
have been intended to result in such abuses." But a NEWSWEEK investigation=20
shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Def=
ense=20
Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secre=
t=20
system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods.=20
It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards o=
f=20
the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners=20=
of=20
war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin=20
Powell and America's top military lawyers=E2=80=94and they left underlings t=
o sweat the=20
details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. Whil=
e=20
no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a=
=20
systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults,=
=20
threats and humiliation=E2=80=94methods that the Red Cross concluded were "t=
antamount to=20
torture."
The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this syste=
m=20
of interrogation, according to internal government memos obtained by=20
NEWSWEEK. What started as a carefully thought-out, if aggressive, policy of=20
interrogation in a covert war=E2=80=94designed mainly for use by a handful o=
f CIA professionals=E2=80=94
evolved into ever-more ungoverned tactics that ended up in the hands of=20
untrained MPs in a big, hot war. Originally, Geneva Conventions protections=20=
were=20
stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But later Rumsfeld himself,=20
impressed by the success of techniques used against Qaeda suspects at Guanta=
namo=20
Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led to their use in Iraq, even=20
though that war was supposed to have been governed by the Geneva Conventions=
.=20
Ultimately, reservist MPs, like those at Abu Ghraib, were drawn into a syste=
m in=20
which fear and humiliation were used to break prisoners' resistance to=20
interrogation.
=20
=20
AP
=20
She is the grinning, pixieish face of the current scandal, the anti-Jessica=20
Lynch who, by coincidence, grew up in another small town in a different part=
of=20
the same state. And until last week, Ft. Ashby, W.Va., was equally proud of=20
England, who had bagged groceries and worked in a chicken plant before joini=
ng=20
the Reserves to earn money for college. (Her dream, reportedly, was to becom=
e=20
a storm-chasing meteorologist.) Her parents fled the onslaught of reporters,=
=20
but at a press conference her best friend, Destiny Goin, described England a=
s=20
"a caring person" who adopted a stray cat in Iraq. She was also, at 21,=20
divorced after a two-year marriage to a high-school boyfriend, and four mont=
hs=20
pregnant by another soldier who has been charged in the case, Cpl. Charles G=
raner=20
Jr. (below). England's lawyer acknowledged a "relationship" with Graner but,=
=20
under questioning, refused to call it a romance--and reminded reporters that=
=20
Graner was her supervisor. England's sister, Jessica Klinestiver, insists th=
at in=20
her guard work she "was following orders, and that's what people in the=20
military are supposed to do." =20
=20
=20
=20
AP
=20
Abu Ghraib Prison was an unlikely setting for a love affair, but Graner, 35,=
=20
managed to conduct a "relationship" with England; the two posed arm in arm,=20
grinning, behind a heap of naked Iraqi prisoners, for one of the more notori=
ous=20
photos to emerge from the scandal. In civilian life, Graner, of Uniontown,=20
Pa., is a guard at one of the state's toughest prisons, in Waynesburg; he an=
d his=20
wife, with whom he had two children, 11 and 13, separated in 1997 and later=20
divorced. Graner's lawyer, Guy Womack, told reporters last week that his=20
client's "spirits are high," and asserted that Graner was "following orders"=
from=20
military and civilian interrogators. Said Womack: "He knows he didn't do=20
anything wrong." =20
=20
=20
=20
Washington Post
=20
Determined to follow her father and brother into the police force, Harman,=20
26, of Lorton, Va., sought training in the Army Reserves. As soon as she=20
graduated from boot camp, though, she was shipped off to Iraq and the former=
pizzeria=20
manager became a prison guard--and now, her mother, Robin, fears, a=20
scapegoat. Investigators say Harman took several of the photographs of naked=
prisoners=20
as they were abused and humiliated, and she has been charged with attaching=20
electrodes to the fingers, toes and penis of a hooded prisoner, who was warn=
ed=20
he would be electrocuted if he fell asleep. She told The Washington Post in=20=
an=20
e-mail last week that her job was to "make it hell so they would talk." =20
=20
=20
=20
AP
=20
He's 26, married to a woman in the Navy and the father of a 4-year-old son=20
and a 10-year-old daughter. The New Jersey-born Davis was a star on his=20
high-school track team and later competed at Morgan State University in Balt=
imore. "I=20
witnessed prisoners in the [military intelligence] hold section being made t=
o=20
do various things that I would question morally," he told investigators. "We=
=20
were told that [military intelligence] had different rules." His family insi=
sts=20
he's innocent, noting that he doesn't appear in any of the photographs=20
published last week. =20
=20
=20
=20
AP
=20
He was trained, according to his father, to fix trucks, and his civilian wor=
k=20
experience was mostly at McDonald's, but the 24-year-old Sivits found himsel=
f=20
inside Abu Ghraib Prison, and was allegedly present when some of the=20
notorious pictures were taken. His father, Daniel, a career military man, to=
ld The=20
Baltimore Sun that he had counseled his son never to snitch on a fellow=20
soldier--advice that Jeremy seems to have followed, although according to hi=
s mother,=20
Freda, he knew that something was wrong. "Jeremy said, 'Mom, if I would have=
=20
said something, what would have happened to me?' He was damned if he did and=
=20
damned if he didn't." =20
=20
=20
=20
AP
=20
The senior enlisted man among those charged, Frederick, 37, is a prison guar=
d=20
in Virginia, as is his wife, Martha. He wrote his family about a prisoner=20
"stressed" by interrogators until he died; the body, he said, was packed in=20=
ice=20
and given a fake IV to simulate a medical emergency. When he brought up his=20
concerns about conditions at Abu Ghraib to a senior officer, the response, h=
e=20
said, was not to worry about it: military intelligence was pleased with the=20
results. =20
=20
=20
Little is known about Ambuhl, 29, who lives in Centreville, Va.=20
=20
=20
=20
AP
=20
He was an unlikely, even a reluctant, hero--an auto mechanic from rural=20
Pennsylvania, a background that hardly set him apart from the other soldiers=
of the=20
372d. When he was identified as the whistle-blower, his friend Doug=20
Ashbrook's first thought was "That doesn't sound like Joe." But when Darby f=
irst saw=20
the now infamous pictures of Iraqi prisoners being punished after a brawl, h=
e=20
was troubled enough to slip an anonymous letter to Army investigators. He la=
ter=20
provided evidence in a sworn statement. Now his family worries about the lab=
el=20
of "whistle-blower." As his sister-in-law explains: "There are bad people wh=
o=20
might think this brings the U.S. bad publicity." =20
=20
Source: Newsweek =E2=80=A2 Print this =20
=20
"There was a before-9/11 and an after-9/11," as Cofer Black, the onetime=20
director of the CIA's counterterrorist unit, put it in testimony to Congress=
in=20
early 2002. "After 9/11 the gloves came off." Many Americans thrilled to the=
=20
martial rhetoric at the time, and agreed that Al Qaeda could not be fought=20
according to traditional rules. But it is only now that we are learning what=
,=20
precisely, it meant to take the gloves off.
The story begins in the months after September 11, when a small band of=20
conservative lawyers within the Bush administration staked out a forward-lea=
ning=20
legal position. The attacks by Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center and the=20
Pentagon, these lawyers said, had plunged the country into a new kind of war=
. It was=20
a conflict against a vast, outlaw, international enemy in which the rules of=
=20
war, international treaties and even the Geneva Conventions did not apply.=20
These positions were laid out in secret legal opinions drafted by lawyers fr=
om=20
the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and then endorsed by the=20
Department of Defense and ultimately by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales=
,=20
according to copies of the opinions and other internal legal memos obtained=20=
by=20
NEWSWEEK.
Continued
Page 2: Interpreting the Anti-Torture Convention
Page 3: No Telling Where the Scandal Will Bottom Out
----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
--
-----------------------------------
V2020 Post by Ted Moffett
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<BR>
The Roots of Torture<BR>
The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to=20=
fight a new kind of war. A NEWSWEEK investigation<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/=
Photos/mag/040524_Issue/040515_Torture_wide.hmedium.jpg" WIDTH=3D"423" HEIGH=
T=3D"239" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"21745">David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images=
-Pool<BR>
Tough tactics: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed for a Gitmo style ap=
proach to prisoner interrogations in Iraq<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
By John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff<BR>
Newsweek<BR>
<BR>
May 24 issue - It's not easy to get a member of Congress to stop talking. Mu=
ch less a room full of them. But as a small group of legislators watched the=
images flash by in a small, darkened hearing room in the Rayburn Building l=
ast week, a sickened silence descended. There were 1,800 slides and several=20=
videos, and the show went on for three hours. The nightmarish images showed=20=
American soldiers at Abu Ghraib Prison forcing Iraqis to masturbate. America=
n soldiers sexually assaulting Iraqis with chemical light sticks. American s=
oldiers laughing over dead Iraqis whose bodies had been abused and mutilated=
. There was simply nothing to say. "It was a very subdued walk back to the H=
ouse floor," said Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intell=
igence Committee. "People were ashen."<BR>
<BR>
The White House put up three soldiers for court-martial, saying the pictures=
were all the work of a few bad-apple MPs who were poorly supervised. But ev=
idence was mounting that the furor was only going to grow and probably sink=20=
some prominent careers in the process. Senate Armed Services Committee chair=
man John Warner declared the pictures were the worst "military misconduct" h=
e'd seen in 60 years, and he planned more hearings. Republicans on Capitol H=
ill were notably reluctant to back Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And NE=
WSWEEK has learned that U.S. soldiers and CIA operatives could be accused of=
war crimes. Among the possible charges: homicide involving deaths during in=
terrogations. "The photos clearly demonstrate to me the level of prisoner ab=
use and mistreatment went far beyond what I expected, and certainly involved=
more than six or seven MPs," said GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former militar=
y prosecutor. He added: "It seems to have been planned."<BR>
<BR>
Indeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal=E2=80=
=94that of a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires=20=
dangling from his fingers, toes and penis=E2=80=94may do a lot to undercut t=
he administration's case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That'=
s because the practice shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known=
only to veterans of the interrogation trade. "Was that something that [an M=
P] dreamed up by herself? Think again," says Darius Rejali, an expert on the=
use of torture by democracies. "That's a standard torture. It's called 'the=
Vietnam.' But it's not common knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did thi=
s, but someone taught them."<BR>
<BR>
Who might have taught them? Almost certainly it was their superiors up the l=
ine. Some of the images from Abu Ghraib, like those of naked prisoners terri=
fied by attack dogs or humiliated before grinning female guards, actually po=
rtray "stress and duress" techniques officially approved at the highest leve=
ls of the government for use against terrorist suspects. It is unlikely that=
President George W. Bush or senior officials ever knew of these specific te=
chniques, and late last week Defense spokesman Larry DiRita said that "no re=
sponsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that co=
uld conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses." But a NEWSWEEK=
investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush,=
along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, s=
igned off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the=20=
door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the h=
istorical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of=20=
detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of=
Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers=E2=80=
=94and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened t=
o prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized ou=
tright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of priso=
ners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation=E2=80=
=94methods that the Red Cross concluded were "tantamount to torture."<BR>
<BR>
The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this syste=
m of interrogation, according to internal government memos obtained by NEWSW=
EEK. What started as a carefully thought-out, if aggressive, policy of inter=
rogation in a covert war=E2=80=94designed mainly for use by a handful of CIA=
professionals=E2=80=94evolved into ever-more ungoverned tactics that ended=20=
up in the hands of untrained MPs in a big, hot war. Originally, Geneva Conve=
ntions protections were stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But=20=
later Rumsfeld himself, impressed by the success of techniques used against=20=
Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led=
to their use in Iraq, even though that war was supposed to have been govern=
ed by the Geneva Conventions. Ultimately, reservist MPs, like those at Abu G=
hraib, were drawn into a system in which fear and humiliation were used to b=
reak prisoners' resistance to interrogation.<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_lynndie_england.vsmall.jpg"=20=
WIDTH=3D"148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"4696"> <BR>
AP<BR>
<BR>
She is the grinning, pixieish face of the current scandal, the anti-Jessica=20=
Lynch who, by coincidence, grew up in another small town in a different part=
of the same state. And until last week, Ft. Ashby, W.Va., was equally proud=
of England, who had bagged groceries and worked in a chicken plant before j=
oining the Reserves to earn money for college. (Her dream, reportedly, was t=
o become a storm-chasing meteorologist.) Her parents fled the onslaught of r=
eporters, but at a press conference her best friend, Destiny Goin, described=
England as "a caring person" who adopted a stray cat in Iraq. She was also,=
at 21, divorced after a two-year marriage to a high-school boyfriend, and f=
our months pregnant by another soldier who has been charged in the case, Cpl=
. Charles Graner Jr. (below). England's lawyer acknowledged a "relationship"=
with Graner but, under questioning, refused to call it a romance--and remin=
ded reporters that Graner was her supervisor. England's sister, Jessica Klin=
estiver, insists that in her guard work she "was following orders, and that'=
s what people in the military are supposed to do." <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_charles_graner.vsmall.jpg" W=
IDTH=3D"148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"4170"> <BR>
AP<BR>
<BR>
Abu Ghraib Prison was an unlikely setting for a love affair, but Graner, 35,=
managed to conduct a "relationship" with England; the two posed arm in arm,=
grinning, behind a heap of naked Iraqi prisoners, for one of the more notor=
ious photos to emerge from the scandal. In civilian life, Graner, of Unionto=
wn, Pa., is a guard at one of the state's toughest prisons, in Waynesburg; h=
e and his wife, with whom he had two children, 11 and 13, separated in 1997=20=
and later divorced. Graner's lawyer, Guy Womack, told reporters last week th=
at his client's "spirits are high," and asserted that Graner was "following=20=
orders" from military and civilian interrogators. Said Womack: "He knows he=20=
didn't do anything wrong." <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_harman.vsmall.jpg" WIDTH=3D"=
148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"3762"> <BR>
Washington Post<BR>
<BR>
Determined to follow her father and brother into the police force, Harman, 2=
6, of Lorton, Va., sought training in the Army Reserves. As soon as she grad=
uated from boot camp, though, she was shipped off to Iraq and the former piz=
zeria manager became a prison guard--and now, her mother, Robin, fears, a sc=
apegoat. Investigators say Harman took several of the photographs of naked p=
risoners as they were abused and humiliated, and she has been charged with a=
ttaching electrodes to the fingers, toes and penis of a hooded prisoner, who=
was warned he would be electrocuted if he fell asleep. She told The Washing=
ton Post in an e-mail last week that her job was to "make it hell so they wo=
uld talk." <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_javal2.vsmall.jpg" WIDTH=3D"=
148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"5000"> <BR>
AP<BR>
<BR>
He's 26, married to a woman in the Navy and the father of a 4-year-old son a=
nd a 10-year-old daughter. The New Jersey-born Davis was a star on his high-=
school track team and later competed at Morgan State University in Baltimore=
. "I witnessed prisoners in the [military intelligence] hold section being m=
ade to do various things that I would question morally," he told investigato=
rs. "We were told that [military intelligence] had different rules." His fam=
ily insists he's innocent, noting that he doesn't appear in any of the photo=
graphs published last week. <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_jeremy_sivitz.vsmall.jpg" WI=
DTH=3D"148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"4807"> <BR>
AP<BR>
<BR>
He was trained, according to his father, to fix trucks, and his civilian wor=
k experience was mostly at McDonald's, but the 24-year-old Sivits found hims=
elf inside Abu Ghraib Prison, and was allegedly present when some of the not=
orious pictures were taken. His father, Daniel, a career military man, told=20=
The Baltimore Sun that he had counseled his son never to snitch on a fellow=20=
soldier--advice that Jeremy seems to have followed, although according to hi=
s mother, Freda, he knew that something was wrong. "Jeremy said, 'Mom, if I=20=
would have said something, what would have happened to me?' He was damned if=
he did and damned if he didn't." <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_ivan_fredrick.vsmall.jpg" WI=
DTH=3D"148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"3926"> <BR>
AP<BR>
<BR>
The senior enlisted man among those charged, Frederick, 37, is a prison guar=
d in Virginia, as is his wife, Martha. He wrote his family about a prisoner=20=
"stressed" by interrogators until he died; the body, he said, was packed in=20=
ice and given a fake IV to simulate a medical emergency. When he brought up=20=
his concerns about conditions at Abu Ghraib to a senior officer, the respons=
e, he said, was not to worry about it: military intelligence was pleased wit=
h the results. <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Little is known about Ambuhl, 29, who lives in Centreville, Va. <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<IMG SRC=3D"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Newsw=
eek/brills/img/iraq_prisoner_abuse_soldiers/nwk_joseph_darby_whistleblower.v=
small.jpg" WIDTH=3D"148" HEIGHT=3D"148" BORDER=3D"0" DATASIZE=3D"4366"> <=
BR>
AP<BR>
<BR>
He was an unlikely, even a reluctant, hero--an auto mechanic from rural Penn=
sylvania, a background that hardly set him apart from the other soldiers of=20=
the 372d. When he was identified as the whistle-blower, his friend Doug Ashb=
rook's first thought was "That doesn't sound like Joe." But when Darby first=
saw the now infamous pictures of Iraqi prisoners being punished after a bra=
wl, he was troubled enough to slip an anonymous letter to Army investigators=
. He later provided evidence in a sworn statement. Now his family worries ab=
out the label of "whistle-blower." As his sister-in-law explains: "There are=
bad people who might think this brings the U.S. bad publicity." <BR>
<BR>
Source: Newsweek =E2=80=A2 <A HREF=3D"javascript:OPW('nwk_040508_iraq_abu=
se_soldiers','printVer');">Print this</A> <BR>
<BR>
"There was a before-9/11 and an after-9/11," as Cofer Black, the onetime dir=
ector of the CIA's counterterrorist unit, put it in testimony to Congress in=
early 2002. "After 9/11 the gloves came off." Many Americans thrilled to th=
e martial rhetoric at the time, and agreed that Al Qaeda could not be fought=
according to traditional rules. But it is only now that we are learning wha=
t, precisely, it meant to take the gloves off.<BR>
<BR>
The story begins in the months after September 11, when a small band of cons=
ervative lawyers within the Bush administration staked out a forward-leaning=
legal position. The attacks by Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center and the P=
entagon, these lawyers said, had plunged the country into a new kind of war.=
It was a conflict against a vast, outlaw, international enemy in which the=20=
rules of war, international treaties and even the Geneva Conventions did not=
apply. These positions were laid out in secret legal opinions drafted by la=
wyers from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and then endors=
ed by the Department of Defense and ultimately by White House counsel Albert=
o Gonzales, according to copies of the opinions and other internal legal mem=
os obtained by NEWSWEEK.<BR>
<BR>
<B>Continued<BR>
<A HREF=3D"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4989436/">Page 2: Interpreting the An=
ti-Torture Convention
</A><A HREF=3D"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4989438/">Page 3: No Telling Wher=
e the Scandal Will Bottom Out</A></B></B><BR>
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V2020 Post by Ted Moffett<BR>
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