Bush-authorized torture = war crimes said FBI
posted by gatekeeper50 05/22/2008 03:02:09 PM EST
Even FBI agents suspected the interrogation techniques at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were illegal as reported in the following sentence from the Washington Post article. (
click here)
At one point, FBI agents went so far as to collect allegations of abuse in what they labeled a "war crimes file," the inspector general's report said, but the file was closed without action shortly afterward.
TPMMuckracker also covers the Inspector General's report including charts and revelation of previously undisclosed techniques.
Washington Post:
Five years ago, as troubling reports emerged about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a career lawyer at the Justice Department began a long and relatively lonely campaign to alert top Bush administration officials to a strategy he considered "wrongheaded."
TPMMuckracker:
But as you dig down into the
370-page report (.pdf), it's most revealing for what it shows the U.S. government was actually doing to detainees. Because of the limited jurisdiction of the DOJ inspector general, the report was focused on the FBI. But in establishing the environment in which the FBI was operating, the report paints a picture of ghastly treatment of detainees by the United States on a consistent long-term basis.
In the course of his investigation, the IG interviewed 450 FBI agents who were detailed to Gitmo at one time or another. Nearly half reported witnessing or hearing about "rough or aggressive treatment of detainees, primarily by military investigators."
The report contains a chart of the conduct FBI agents reported at Gitmo and the manner in which the agents learned of the conduct.
Bruce C. Swartz, a criminal division deputy in charge of international issues, repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics at White House meetings of a special group formed to decide detainee matters, with representatives present from the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA.
Swartz warned that the abuse of Guantanamo inmates would do "grave damage" to the country's reputation and to its law enforcement record, according to an investigative audit released earlier this week by the Justice Department's inspector general. Swartz was joined by a handful of other top Justice and FBI officials who said the abuse would almost certainly taint any legal proceedings against the detainees.
