General is said to have urged use of dogs (WP)

[Supormom]

Idea came from former Guantanamo Bay commander, officer says.

A U.S. Army general dispatched by senior Pentagon officials to bolster the collection of intelligence from prisoners in Iraq last fall inspired and promoted the use of guard dogs there to frighten the Iraqis, according to sworn testimony by the top U.S. intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison.

According to the officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, the idea came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who at the time commanded the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was implemented under a policy approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. military official in Iraq.

"It was a technique I had personally discussed with General Miller, when he was here" visiting the prison, testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the officer placed in charge of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison where abuses occurred in the wake of Miller's visit to Baghdad between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003.

"He said that they used military working dogs at Gitmo , and that they were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information" from the prisoners, Pappas told the Army investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, according to a transcript provided to The Washington Post.

More...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5063441/

[shanti]

1. and they also used these

dog tactics during the civil rights movement. it wasn't humane then, it isn't humane now. were they even called on it in the 60's? i don't remember...too young.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. That was the Birmingham Police

they also used fire hoses

Those films, carried in the evening news, were very important
during that critical summer of '64 to convince most Americans
that the Civil Rights Legislation was needed.

I do recomend you read a good history of the period, there are
SOME parallels, but back then, the Army were the good guys, as
well as the Federal Marshalls.

No I was not conscious at the time, but I am familiar with
the history

[Hekate]

4. Americans were shocked and disgusted by the use of dogs and firehoses

against Civil Rights protestors. (Fire hoses, btw, can blow an adult clear across the street.) I was a young kid, and I vividly remember the evening news carried it in black and white (literally and metaphorically) -- Life magazine also carried photo essays. It really brought home to the rest of America that this was just not right, and it could absolutely not be ignored as if we hadn't seen it ourselves.

President Eisenhower sent the National Guard down south to assist in the integration of public schools -- essentially to protect black children and their parents from physical harm, and to force the local authorities to let them register and enter the schools. So yes, a lot of us thought that entities like the federal government and the National Guard were on the side of "truth, justice, and the American Way."

The photos from Abu Ghraib are from a very different milieu, but the shock and disgust have a similar power in this widening scandal. They confront us with something we ignore at our peril, as much as we want to say that this is not us.

As a child, I could look at the photos of spitting whites and say that I didn't live among such people, my community and state were integrated and my classmates were the products of much interracial mixing.

As an older and sadder adult, I look at Abu Ghraib and I want to weep for everyone in those photos: the Iraqis in their pain and humiliation, and the very young soldiers who have been corrupted into this mess.

They are our kids, you know. We sent them there. And they are us.

Someone should hang for this, and I don't mean a couple of sergeants and privates.

Hekate

[Erika]

2. This is Sick

We invade and occupy another country, detain the citizens on whim and then use dogs against them?