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| Bush Admin. Attempts to Block Iraqi Child Abuse Images
Bush Condones the Raping of Children Quote: http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/rep...8m&Content=608
Bush Administration Files 11th Hour Papers Blocking the Release of Darby CD Photos and Video Of Abu Ghraib Torture
On July 22 2005, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced the latest efforts of the Bush Administration to block the release of the Darby photos and videos depicting torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison facility. On June 2, 2004, CCR, along with the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace filed papers with the U.S. District Court, charging the Department of Defense and other government agencies with illegally withholding records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody. Since then, the organizations have been repeatedly rebuffed in their efforts to investigate what happened at the prison.
In June, the government requested and received an extension from the judge stating that they needed time in order to redact the faces of the men, women and children believed to be shown in the photographs and videos. They were given until today to produce the images, but at the eleventh hour filed a motion to oppose the release of the photos and videos, based on an entirely new argument: they are now requesting a 7(F) exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals. Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.
Joseph Darby was the U.S reservist who turned over the photos and videos to U.S. Army officials and touched off the Abu Ghraib scandal in April 2004.
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” stated Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We can not move forward from this scandal until we have a full public accounting and independent investigation into what happened at Abu Ghraib. The government cannot continue to hide evidence of torture. The time to release these photos and videos was a long time ago.”
Expectations are that the FOIA request will release more than 100 photos and 4 videos, all believed to document deplorable human rights violations by U.S. military personnel against Iraqi civilians.
Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, stated, “The public must be informed of what is being done in our name. It is this Administration that has put our troops at risk and caused world-wide anger by fostering policies that promote torture and refusing to hold those responsible publicly accountable.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights once more calls for a complete, transparent independent investigation into the torture and abuse of detainees that goes all the way up the chain of command and demands that the Administration apply the Geneva Conventions to every detainee being held in U.S. custody around the world.
This is part of the request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C.
| Quote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050721/...ms_congress_dc
White House threatens veto on detainee policies
By Vicki Allen
Thu Jul 21, 7:45 PM ET
The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.
The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.
In a statement, the White House said such amendments would "interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war."
"If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice," the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week "on the standard of treatment of prisoners."
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham who was working on legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo, also said he would offer an amendment.
They were working with Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia on amendments intended to prevent further abuses in the wake of the scandal over sexual abuse and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and harsh, degrading interrogations at Guantanamo.
Possible measures included barring the holding of "ghost" detainees whose names are not disclosed, codifying a ban against cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, and using the Army manual as a basis for all interrogations.
Democrats on Thursday said they would push an amendment to establish an independent national commission to investigate policies that led to abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Armed Services Committee's top Democrat, said the commission on detainee abuses was needed because "the most serious scandal in recent military history needs an objective investigation."
Levin said the commission should be modeled on the bipartisan commission that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said the Pentagon's own investigations into detainee abuses left "huge gaps. ... The military reviewing itself, that's not good enough."
Pentagon "talking points" against the special detainee commission circulating around the Capitol said the issue had been "thoroughly investigated" and "a new open-ended investigation" would add "nothing but political theater."
The talking points said reforms were under way, and the Pentagon "has the matter well in hand. The department and the services are doing everything possible to address this challenge."
| Quote: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Ruef...eld_050704.htm
VETERANS FOR PEACE
Rueful Rumsfeld: `Cruel' truth hurts: Rape and murder feared in Iraq abuse
By Noelle Straub
Saturday, May 8, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal took an explosive turn yesterday with the revelation that photos and graphic videotapes not yet made public show abuses more horrific than those already seen.
Signaling the worst revelations are yet to come, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the additional photos show "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.''
"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist,'' Rumsfeld testified before Congress.
"If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse. That's just a fact."
The unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys, according to NBC News.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is "going to get worse'' and warned that the most "disturbing" revelations haven't yet been made public.
"The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here," he said. "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.''
In daylong sworn testimony before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, Rumsfeld offered his "deepest apologies" for the prisoner abuses.
"These events occurred on my watch," Rumsfeld said. "I take full responsibility."
Under questioning, Rumsfeld admitted that "it's possible" his resignation would undo some of the damage inflicted by the scandal.
Some Democrats, including both Bay State senators, have called for Rumsfeld to step down.
"If I felt I could not be effective I would resign in a minute,'' Rumsfeld said. "I would not resign simply because people try to make a political issue out of it.''
President Bush is so far standing by Rumsfeld.
In comments made public yesterday, Bush gave an interview to a third Arab television station in which he said six times that he was "sorry" about the prisoner abuse.
Testifying alongside Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended the military response to the abuses. He said officials acted quickly to investigate the incidents after a soldier reported them.
"Our commanders did exactly the right thing in a timely manner,'' Myers said.
Sen. Carl Levin, (D-Mich.), the top-ranking committee Democrat, said the incidents were not isolated but rather "part of an organized and conscious process to extract information."
Levin said military intelligence officers told the soldiers guarding Iraqis to treat them harshly to soften them up for interrogations.
But Rumsfeld denied that, insisted they were individual instances of misconduct.
Army Secretary Les Brownlee said military probes of 25 prisoner deaths found that a dozen were due to natural causes, one was justifiable homicide, two were homicides and the others were still under investigation.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned that the scandal, if not dealt with quickly, could turn Iraq into another Vietnam.
"We risk losing public support for this conflict," McCain said. "As Americans turned away from the Vietnam War, they may turn away from this one."
After the hearing, McCain said Rumsfeld's testimony failed to answer basic questions, such as how high up the chain of command the fault reaches.
Lawmakers promised to pursue a series of hearings into the matter.(emphasis mine)
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the scandal a "Catastrophic crisis of credibility for our nation."
"In the Middle East and too often today, the symbol of America is not the Statue of Liberty. It's the prisoner standing on a box wearing a dark cape and a dark hood on his head, wires attached to his body, afraid that he's going to be electrocuted," he said.
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This is just sickening, Sickening! I don’t know how anybody can absolve one self of this it is just inexcusable. One can hide behind this using the phony excuse of Protecting the identities of the victims but it is only an excuse and one that is only there to protect Bush and his cronies. Bush is evil incarnate if he protects his own neck and the profits he has made of his campaign and does so at expensive of murder and rape children who deserve better and deserve to have their perpetrators brought out into the light so they can be officially charged and prosecuted. __________________ Does George Bush remember he put his hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution, and not the other way around? -- Bill Maher
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