MSNBC Picks up the US Govt. Authorized Prisoner Treatment story

[doni_georgia]

The Roots of Torture
The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war. A NEWSWEEK investigation:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/

snip:
Today there is no telling where the scandal will bottom out. But it is growing harder for top Pentagon officials, including Rumsfeld himself, to absolve themselves of all responsibility. Evidence is growing that the Pentagon has not been forthright on exactly when it was first warned of the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib. U.S. officials continued to say they didn't know until mid-January. But Red Cross officials had alerted the U.S. military command in Baghdad at the start of November. The Red Cross warned explicitly of MPs' conducting "acts of humiliation such as being made to stand naked... with women's underwear over the head, while being laughed at by guards, including female guards, and sometimes photographed in this position." Karpinski recounts that the military-intel officials there regarded this criticism as funny. She says: "The MI officers said, 'We warned the about giving those detainees the Victoria's Secret catalog, but he wouldn't listen'." The Coalition commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and his Iraq command didn't begin an investigation until two months later, when it was clear the pictures were about to leak.

Now more charges are coming. Intelligence officials have confirmed that the CIA inspector general is conducting an investigation into the death of at least one person at Abu Ghraib who had been subject to questioning by CIA interrogators. The Justice Department is likely to open full-scale criminal investigations into this CIA-related death and two other CIA interrogation-related fatalities.

As his other reasons for war have fallen away, President Bush has justified his ouster of Saddam Hussein by saying he's a "torturer and murderer." Now the American forces arrayed against the terrorists are being tarred with the same epithet. That's unfair: what Saddam did at Abu Ghraib during his regime was more horrible, and on a much vaster scale, than anything seen in those images on Capitol Hill. But if America is going to live up to its promise to bring justice and democracy to Iraq, it needs to get to the bottom of what happened at Abu Ghraib.

[doni_georgia]

1. Story has also been picked up by NY CBS affliliate

CBS Channel 2 New York:
http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_story_137084221.html

Wonder if and when the networks will pick this up?

[madrchsod]

2. after reading herch`s "new yorker "piece

on buzzflash that is out tomorrow and this article i find the berg "murder" even more doubtful..i`m really leaning towards the shadow people who run the prisons..read it and you`ll see...orange jump suit anyone?

[dmr]

3. Bushco* won't be able to spin this or

sweep it under the rug.

The ramifications of this is monumentous, and will be felt for decades and longer.

Damn them!

[xultar]

4. WOW, how Brave for a major News Outlet to tell the HONEST News

for once? You think BushCo Faux News and Turn Tail and Run CNN might eventually get around to telling the real deal?

[doni_georgia]

7. Many local papers/media outlets are running with this

Falls Church (VA) News Press headline reads: "Culpability for Prison Abuse Goes Straight to Oval Office"
Detroit Free Press, Contra Costa Times in CA, Just found it in Newsday (NY), Kentucky.com, Maryville Daily Times (TN), Seattle Times, Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Tri Valley Herald (CA), Baltimore Sun - are all running or have run in the last 24 hours this story!

Think this may have legs folks!

[1monster]

5. AOL has this on their front page AND they are running a poll...

Do you believe Rumsfeld approved the use of abuse on prisoners in Iraq?
Yes 56%
No 33%
Not sure 11%
Total Votes: 41,107

[FreakinDJ]

6. This story just dosen't have legs........................

It is running it's Ass Off !!

The best part it basicly illustrates the same abuse if not worse is being conducted at Gitmo

PS: How many detainees have died in US Custody

[doni_georgia]

8. Local conservative papers are running with it - Where's CNN, ABC and CBS?

I am checking Google news updates on the story. Let's see how long it takes the major networks to pick this up.

[MoonRiver]

10. It's on Yahoo.

[Walt Starr]

9. OMFG, Faux News PICKED IT UP TOO!!!!!

If they lose Faux, they are foing too get less than 30% of the vote!

[doni_georgia]

11. Of course they are reporting the article's allegations are false

Rumsfeld Denies New Abuse Revelations:

Rumsfeld expanded secret program of physical coercion and humiliation meant for Al Qaeda suspects in Afghanistan to prisoners in Iraq, magazine reports

The Defense Department strongly denied the claims made in the report, which cited unnamed current and former intelligence officials and was published on the magazine's Web site. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita (search) issued a statement calling the claims "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120051,00.html

[doni_georgia]

12. ABC running Rummy's denial/ Presidential finding the real story

ABC NEWS:
Pentagon Denies Report's Rumsfeld Claims
Pentagon Denies Report That Rumsfeld OK'd Program Encouraging Coercion, Humiliation of Prisoners

Looks like this is the story the networks have chosen to run - that Rumsfeld and Bushco deny all charges that they ordered this thing. Bullshit. The truth will come out.

yesterday here on DU, someone who works for a local newspaper posted that he had received a call stating that there was a "presidential finding" issued in August 2003 authorizing the methods used against Al Qaeda be allowed in Iraq. We know there was a secret presidential finding in 2001 allowing suspected terrorists to be sent to international prison camps (set up an run by the US government) to be tortured and interrogated. A Canadian national was sent to one such camp in Syria. His story is available here:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200401/msg00036.html


And here is news clip about the presidential finding allowing the CIA to kill Al Qaeda operatives:
http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorintelligence/bushwidened.html

Guaranteed there is a presidential authorization to expand these policies to Iraq. That's why Bushco keep claiming that the insurgents in Iraq are foreign Al Qaeda (despite reports to the contrary from people who were working in humanitarian aid in Iraq).