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<DIV><FONT size=3>Now we know that tremendous pressure had to have
been put on Newsweek by the White House to retract their story about the
Quran being flushed down the toilet which was true!! We have the most corrupt
administration ever. Look at the lies the military has been telling especially
the Tillman death cover-up and it all starts from the top and rolls down.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Dick Schmidt</DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=5></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=5>FBI Records Cite Quran Abuse
Allegations<BR></DIV></FONT></STRONG>
<P><FONT size=-1>By ROBERT BURNS<BR>The Associated Press<BR>Wednesday, May 25,
2005; 4:59 PM<BR></FONT>
<P><NITF>
<P>WASHINGTON -- Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison told U.S.
interrogators as early as April 2002, just three months after the first
detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Quran,
declassified FBI records say.</P>
<P>"Their behavior is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying of his guards
during an interrogation by an FBI special agent in July 2002. "About five months
ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Quran in the toilet."</P>
<P>The statements about guards disrespecting the Quran echo public allegations
made many months later by some detainees and their lawyers after prisoners'
release from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The once-secret FBI documents show a
consistency to the allegations and are the first indication that Justice and
Defense department officials were aware in early 2002 that detainees were
accusing their guards of mistreating the holy book.</P>
<P>Separately on Wednesday, Amnesty International urged the United States to
shut down the prison, calling it "the gulag of our time." White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said the human rights group's complaints were "unsupported by
the facts" and that allegations of mistreatment were being investigated.</P>
<P>In its annual report, Amnesty accused the United States of failing to live up
to its responsibility to set the standard for human rights protections. Rather,
the group said the United States has been the biggest disappointment "after
evidence came to light that the U.S. administration had sanctioned interrogation
techniques that violated the U.N. Convention against Torture."</P>
<P>Some 540 men are being held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of links to
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government or the al-Qaida terror network. Some
have been jailed for more than three years without charge. The Defense
Department argues that the detention prevents these enemy combatants from
fighting against the United States.</P>
<P>Pentagon officials have said recently that the public claims by released
detainees were not credible and that the terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay
had been trained to make such false claims.</P>
<P>Indeed, the FBI records cite at least one instance in which a detainee is
said to have falsely claimed that a guard had dropped a Quran. "In actuality the
detainee dropped the Quran and then blamed the guard. Many other detainees
reacted to this claim," the FBI document said, and that sparked an uprising "on
or about 19-20 July 2002."</P>
<P>In an April 6, 2002, FBI interrogation, one of the detainees said guards had
been "pushing them around and throwing their waste bucket at them in the cell,
sometimes with waste still in the bucket, and kicking the Quran."</P>
<P>Another detainee stated that he had been beaten unconscious at Guantanamo Bay
in the spring of 2002, a period in which U.S. interrogators were pressing hard
for intelligence information they believed some of the detainees held on the
planning, structure and tactics of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist
network.</P>
<P>The newly released FBI records do not indicate whether the allegations were
investigated or substantiated.</P>
<P>In response to a recent Newsweek story, later retracted, that U.S. officials
had confirmed allegations of Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay, Pentagon
officials have said repeatedly that they have turned up no credible,
substantiated claims that U.S. military guards had deliberately treated the
Muslim holy book with disrespect.</P>
<P>Pentagon officials had no immediate comment on the new FBI documents, which
were made public Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU said
it received them in response to a federal court order that directed the FBI and
other agencies to comply with the organization's request under the Freedom of
Information Act.</P>
<P>In many of the interrogations described in the FBI documents, military
officers were present. Some were with the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations; others were Navy and Army investigations personnel.</P>
<P>Large portions of the interrogation summaries were blacked out by FBI censors
before being released to the ACLU.</P>
<P>U.S. Southern Command, which is responsible for the Guantanamo Bay detention
center, responded to the Newsweek story by beginning a review of written logs
searching for corroborated incidents of Quran mishandling. As of Wednesday,
officials had not reported finding any.</P>
<P>In January 2003, the military issued a three-page written guideline for
handling a detainee's Quran, including a stipulation that it should be handled
"as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art," and that it not be placed in
"offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet or
dirty/wet areas."</P>
<P>ACLU officials said the newly declassified documents provide new evidence
that U.S. authorities at Guantanamo Bay were mistreating symbols of the
detainees' religious beliefs as a tactic to force them to talk.</P>
<P>"The United States government continues to turn a blind eye to mounting
evidence of widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody," said ACLU
Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "If we are to truly repair America's
standing in the world, the Bush administration must hold accountable
high-ranking officials who allow the continuing abuse and torture of
detainees."</P></NITF><!-- start the copyright for the articles --></BODY></HTML>