General: Cuba Interrogation Methods OK'd (by Rummy)

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - Military intelligence officials at the naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, got permission to use intensive interrogation techniques on two prisoners deemed to be important al-Qaida figures, a senior general said Thursday.



Army Gen. James T. Hill, commander of the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, said the intelligence officials were allowed to choose from among four techniques.


He declined to identify those four techniques, saying terrorists would try to devise defenses against them if he did so. He said they did not involve using dogs to threaten prisoners.


Use of those techniques was at least tacitly approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In both cases, interrogators at Guantanamo informed the Pentagon (news - web sites) they wished to use these techniques; Rumsfeld had seven days to veto their use and did not.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=718&e=3&u=/ap/20040603/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_interrogation_rules

[neuvocat]

1. Oh my!

[mom cat]

3. We may get a clean sweep yet: Tenant, Rummy, and then the singing AG .

[ChompySnack]

5. I don't see it yet, but I'd love to get rid of Ashcroft

I can't stand his religion of hatred.

[KissMyAsscroft]

2. Whoops!

Looks like the wheels are coming off...grab the popcorn ladies and gents!

[oldhat]

4. Umm, yeeeeeahhh...

[maddezmom]

6. more: Hill acknowledged they were controversial within the military.

Hill said the techniques were consistent with the Geneva Conventions that govern treatment of wartime prisoners, but acknowledged they were controversial within the military. The general declined to say whether some requests to use the techniques were denied.


At issue is how far military interrogators have been authorized to go while questioning prisoners taken in the war on terror. Some critics consider various "stress-and-duress" techniques like long isolation and sleep and sensory deprivation as a form of torture.


At Guantanamo during fall 2002, one of the two prisoners was thought to have ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers, and Hill said he was not providing information to interrogators using standard questioning methods — which largely consist of mind games aimed at persuading someone to talk.

[oldhat]

7. Kick

[UpInArms]

8. related article: Methods Used on 2 at Guantanamo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14131-2004Jun3.html

Intensive interrogation techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were used to elicit information from two prisoners at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior Army general said yesterday.

Pentagon officials previously have said Rumsfeld helped approve a list of intense interrogation techniques for Guantanamo, but Army Gen. James T. Hill said for the first time yesterday that Rumsfeld had granted permission to use those techniques in two cases. Hill, who is in charge of the U.S. Southern Command based in Miami, told reporters at the Pentagon that both prisoners were considered "high- value" detainees that have since provided important intelligence information about al Qaeda.

Yesterday's briefing was one of a series of sessions designed to reconstruct the foundations of U.S. policy on interrogation of detainees in the war on terrorism after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. The documented abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred shortly after officials from Guantanamo Bay visited the prison outside of Baghdad, and several investigations are underway to determine the extent and origin of U.S. interrogation policies used there and their possible connection to abuses.

Hill said yesterday that the policies at Guantanamo arose out of discussions with the Pentagon, and a list of four intensive interrogation techniques were vetted by a group of lawyers and could be used only with Rumsfeld's approval on a case-by-case basis.

...more...

[daleo]

9. What defenses could they come up with?

Here is the secret "no need to sleep" technique.
Here is the secret "no need to breathe" technique.
Here is the secret "ignore the broomstick in your rectum" technique.
Here is the secret "ignore the truncheon beating" technique.

Given what we know about Iraq, doesn't it make sense that equal or worse treatment was used in Cuba.