From the front page of Friday’s Post …
U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators.
A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were “having a contest” to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs, according to the previously undisclosed statements obtained by The Washington Post.
The statements by the dog handlers provide the clearest indication yet that military intelligence personnel were deeply involved in tactics later deemed by a U.S. Army general to be “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses.”
Then there’s this from the Associated Press …
“What I’ve authorized is that we stay within U.S. law,” Bush told reporters at the close of the G-8 summit in Savannah, Ga.
Asked if torture is ever justified, Bush replied, “Look, I’m going to say it one more time. … The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you.”
When addressing this topic today <$Ad$>President Bush placed great emphasis on the fact that whatever may have happened would have been consistent with his order that “anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations.”
But that statement has a certain, shall we say, tortured ring to it when we’ve just seen this lengthy Pentagon memo which describes novel and improbable legal interpretations by which actions that seem on their face to violate US laws and international treaties actually do not because of the president’s plenary powers as commander-in-chief and grand interrogation muckety-muck.
And one other thing: can we have a show of hands of those who still think those half dozen reservists weren’t following orders?
