NYT,pg1: Detainee Policy Sharply Divides Bush Officials

[DeepModem Mom]

Detainee Policy Sharply Divides Bush Officials
By TIM GOLDEN and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: November 2, 2005


WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - The Bush administration is embroiled in a sharp internal debate over whether a new set of Defense Department standards for handling terror suspects should adopt language from the Geneva Conventions prohibiting "cruel," "humiliating" and "degrading" treatment, administration officials say.

Advocates of that approach, who include some Defense and State Department officials and senior military lawyers, contend that moving the military's detention policies closer to international law would prevent further abuses and build support overseas for the fight against Islamic extremists, officials said.

Their opponents, who include aides to Vice President Dick Cheney and some senior Pentagon officials, have argued strongly that the proposed language is vague, would tie the government's hands in combating terrorists and still would not satisfy America's critics, officials said.

The debate has delayed the publication of a second major Pentagon directive on interrogations, along with a new Army interrogations manual that was largely completed months ago, military officials said. It also underscores a broader struggle among senior officials over whether to scale back detention policies that have drawn strong opposition even from close American allies....

***

A central player in the fight over the directive is David S. Addington, who was the vice president's counsel until he was named on Monday to succeed I. Lewis Libby Jr. as Mr. Cheney's chief of staff. According to several officials, Mr. Addington verbally assailed a Pentagon aide who was called to brief him and Mr. Libby on the draft, objecting to its use of language drawn from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/politics/02detain.html

[Jacobin]

1. the re-popularization of racism by Limpballs, Savage,

and their ilk has lead us to this point, because no one in this country would support torturing any enemy who is white.

My country is sick

[Mark E. Smith]

2. Team Torture is having debate?

That these people even need to discuss whether or not torturing prisoners is wrong goes to show just what a degenerate bunch of creeps they really are.

[struggle4progress]

3. "We're moderates" fluff to support the 2006 Republican campaign. eom