New Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union today reveal that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered interrogators to "go to the outer limits" to get information from detainees. The documents also show that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Shocking
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4 comments:
I feel like I've just touched a nine volt battery.
When I read this news, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.
You thought better of Sanchez? Or is it that we have been thinking prisoner abuse was some kind of covert parallel operation not proceeding through the normal chain of command? Who got his orders? They might not have been general, and might have been "eyes-only" for the covert parallels. The only difference that would make to the story is that program involved the top officer in Iraq and not just Rummy insiders in the Pentagon. But wouldn't you want and need the top general in Iraq to be "in" on an operation in Iraq? And once he's "in," given his general duties mightn't you just add this one to the list? How many extra memos would that put on his to-do list?
OK, so I'm not really shocked. But this latest information did send a jolt to my testicles.
Frankly, it's getting pretty difficult for the US to keep up the illusion that there are no direct lines between administration policy and the lackeys who directly committed torture. At some point, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo will not seem like wild coincidences.
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