Gitmo general told Iraq WMD search team to torture

[kpete]

Source: Salon

Friday, May 15, 2009 16:05 EDT
Gitmo general told Iraq WMD search team to torture
News

Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, deputy commander of prison operations in Iraq, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill about Iraqi prisoner abuse, May 19, 2004.

It’s one thing if, as former Vice President Dick Cheney keeps saying, the United States brutally interrogated people to keep our kids safe from another strike by Osama bin Laden. If folks got tortured to provide a rationale for going to war with Iraq, though, that's a whole different story.

Recent news reports have suggested the possibility that the Bush administration might have endorsed torture to prove an Iraq-al Qaida link. And a recent report from the Senate Armed Services Committee shows that months after then-President Bush had declared Mission Accomplished in Iraq, an Army general working hand in glove with top administration officials tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to convince a unit charged with finding weapons of mass destruction to get tough on its prisoners.

In August and early September of 2003, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the man in charge of the Pentagon’s torture laboratory at Guantanamo Bay, was dispatched to Iraq, allegedly to Gitmoize operations there.

It seems to have worked, at least in one place. Soon after Miller visited with officials in charge of Abu Ghraib, guards there began to use working dogs, stress positions, extremely lengthy interrogations, isolation, yelling and nudity in order to try to wring information from prisoners -- all techniques that had been used at Guantanamo and that the world would later see in photos released from an investigation in to what had gone on at the prison.



Read more: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/05/15/miller/

[Robb]

1. Seriously. Torture laboratory.

This will go down as having been our darkest hour. And it must not go unpunished, no matter what.

[saigon68]

2. Holder and his Gang will do nothing about War Criminal Miller

As a matter of fact his boss will probably give him a medal

Like fellow war criminal Franks

Edited to get rid of the expletives.

[Enrique]

3. they REALLY wanted to find WMDs

and no one thought any Iraqi had a "ticking time bomb." So what were they interrogating the Iraqis about?

[No Elephants]

21. Precisely because torture yields unreliable information. Bushco knew there were

no WMD's. The only hope they had of getting Iraqis--or anyone--to say there were WMD's would be to either (a) pay someone to lie; or (b) use a method known throughout history to yield unreliable info.

Besides, I think they were on a power trip. Bin Laden succeeded on their watch and they looked like such morans, what with Bring it on, Wanted Dead or Alive, Mission Accomplished and all their missed opportunities to warn of an impending attack and/or mitigate it. They had to take out all that embarrassment on someone. Why not the Iraqis? After all, they were such docile people then. Not now, of course, but then.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. USA Nomba Wan??

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.
.

The electorate buys all the propaganda, just like Germany - anything goes to "protect the homeland"

gee

I wish the American electorate would wake up and get some balls

NOPE

just let their government keep on wandering the globe with their genocidal War-Machine

USA Nomba One

yup

- - when it comes to invasion, occupation and genocide

That's true

USA IS Nomba One . .

[frogcycle]

5. gfy

[ConcernedCanuk]

20. I always appreciate constructive thoughtful responses

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Thank you for your input.

[LynnTheDem]

6. NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

It is NOT "one thing if... the United States brutally interrogated people to keep our kids safe from another strike"

TORTURE for ANY reason whatsoever is ILLEGAL; a WAR CRIME; and WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Bloody fucking PERIOD.

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. USA is modeling Hitler's Germany - Bush Family and all that

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.
.

It's not gonna have a happy ending

The USA's empirical adventure is going to kill billions I fear -

Not only did the USA develop nuclear weapons,

they spread them around the globe.

No accident methinks

(sigh)

[EFerrari]

9. They're offering Miller as the sacrificial lamb. n/t

[jimshoes]

11. That would be a good start

but just as a start. If the General starts to sing a bit, then things could get interesting, ... if he doesn't off himself, cough, cough.

[EFerrari]

12. A bully like Miller couldn't go to traffic court on his own.

He will sing in any key, I bet.

[Iowa]

17. Exactly right. I had the same reaction to that line. nt

[Senator]

18. K&R

[edc]

8. In a republic

even the wealthy and those who govern are not above the law. If anything, they are held to a higher standard. In an oligarchy the ruling class is a law unto itself. Where do you live?

[Vidar]

19. Oligarchy, obviously.

[Mari333]

10. will the war criminals ever see the inside of a prison?

I have been alive 58 yrs and I have yet to see the powerful who run the military industrial complex do prison time in the United States .

[saigon68]

13. And you never will

[Solly Mack]

14. K&R

Yep

Been saying it for years now...Miller is as guilty as homemade sin. He carried water for Rumsfeld. He was over GTMO when Mohammed al-Kahtani was interrogated.

[pleah]

15. K&R Another criminal to add to the list, and, it is growing. n/t

[MasonJar]

16. Miller will join Bush and Cheney in the annals of history as an Atilla the Hun.

He was sent to Iraq to institute the same policies he had implemented for the Bushista in Guatanamo. Kudos to those who refused to follow his lead; they are the true heroes. Bless them for the honor and integrity.

[Kingofalldems]

22. So it was all about making Bush/Cheney along with their

neocon/Blue Dog allies look good? Wow.