General: Torture testimony not banned

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

SUSAN WALSH / ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. military legal advisor wouldn't rule out the possibility that statements by suspected terrorists subjected to waterboarding, or simulated drowning, could be used at hearings being conducted at Guantánamo Bay.

''If the evidence is reliable and probative and the judge concluded it is in the interest of justice to use that evidence,'' it would be admitted, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann told a Senate Judiciary terrorism subcommittee in Washington Tuesday.

Still, Hartmann testified that statements obtained by torture are barred at the hearings, or Combat Status Review Tribunals. The tribunals at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba are to determine whether prisoners can be held as enemy combatants.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the subcommittee chairwoman, asked Hartmann whether his testimony meant that ``evidence from waterboarding is not being used to prepare cases.''



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/340...

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Guantanamo Legal Adviser Refuses To Say Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees” this morning, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian military torture. “I’m not equipped to answer that question,” said Hartmann.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked the hypothetical, pushed Hartmann on his answer, asking him directly if it would be a “violation of the Geneva Convention”:

GRAHAM: You mean you’re not equipped to give a legal opinion as to whether or not Iranian military waterboarding, secret security agents waterboarding downed airmen is a violation of the Geneva Convention?

HARTMANN: I am not prepared to answer that question, Senator.

After Hartmann twice refused to answer, Graham dismissed him in disgust, saying he had “no further questions.” Watch it:

at Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/11/graham-waterboardin... /


Admin Prevents Former Gitmo Prosecutor from Testifying before Congress
By Paul Kiel - December 11, 2007, 11:12AM
When Col. Morris Davis stepped down as the Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor in October, the reason given seemed to be a somewhat bureaucratic one. He stepped down, it was reported, "in a dispute over whether Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, legal advisor to the administrator overseeing the trials, has the power to supervise aspects of the prosecution."

But in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times, Davis is crystal clear. "I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively or responsibly," he writes.

It's a taste of what he would have said had he been allowed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, during its hearing on the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced at the beginning of the hearing that the committee had invited Davis to testify, but that "the Defense Department has ordered him not to appear."

Update: Here's video of Feinstein's comments:

link at TPM:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004877.php


and this just in from Dana Perino:

White House says Hayden won't talk about interrogation techniques

WHITE HOUSE (AP) - The White House says Congress won't learn about CIA interrogation techniques from agency director Michael Hayden during two days of questioning.

Hayden is due to appear today and tomorrow before congressional panels about the destruction of videotapes of terror suspect interrogations.

White House press secretary Dana Perino says the CIA interrogation program approved by the president is safe, tough, effective and legal. She adds that Hayden won't talk about techniques and "explain to the enemy" what the U.S. is doing.

more:http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=7481318

[Hydra]

1. Tin Pot USA

Do they know how idiotic they sound?

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Mark Twain

[maddezmom]

2. we don't torture but we can use torture evidence

[Solly Mack]

5. talk about a disconnect

[pinto]

3. Oh Dana...a private, closed door hearing with Congressional committees,

sworn to secrecy, constitutes "explaining to the enemy"?

Oh Dana.

[OnyxCollie]

6. Bushco is an ideologically-motivated terrorist organization.

Congress is the enemy.

[coalition_unwilling]

4. Thomas Hartmann, America's answer to Adolf Eichmann. Hartmann

would be wise to review Nuremberg very carefully. It wasn't only the highest level Nazi muckety-mucks who were prosecuted.

[Supersedeas]

10. this is a new kind of 'justice'

[Supersedeas]

7. when the militarization of the US is complete and these rules apply to US citizens...then what

[tinymontgomery]

8. What a piss poor

excuse of a General. I am so glad I'm out and not serving under the likes of people like him. How would you like to be one of those airman and not have a general over you that has your back side if things go wrong. How far the military leadership has fallen.

[jberryhill]

9. Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartman is a traitorous enemy of the United States

He is a disgusting weasel of a man who has jeopardized the lives of American military men in the future by his own failure of conscience and decency.

What a disgrace.

[donkeyotay]

11. "the CIA interrogation program approved by the president"

The torture isn't torture because the president approved it. Of course it was approved by the president. Under the unitary executive logic of the torture memo, it is the commander in chief who can make up the rules as he commits endless war. The rest of us are just along for the ride. and what a short ride it is going to be: drunk frat boy drives country into ditch.

[DCKit]

13. "Drunk Fratboy Drives Country into Ditch"

If that hasn't been a headline in The Onion, it needs to be, encompassing the gap between hysterically funny and frighteningly true.

[Maeve]

12. "If the evidence is reliable"??????????

Evidence gained from torture is NOT FREAKING RELIABLE!!!!! We're so far down the rabbit hole, I'm not sure we can get back out anymore.

Good heavenly daze...

[maddezmom]

14. and torture is illegal