December 08, 2004



Terrorists Evil, Liberators Good

Preliminary findings of a military inquiry suggest that some of the recently published photographs of Navy special forces capturing detainees in Iraq were taken for legitimate intelligence-gathering purposes and showed commandos using approved procedures, a Navy spokesman said yesterday. [...]

Navy Cmdr. Jeff Bender said some of the photos are "consistent with the use of tactics, techniques, and procedures in the apprehension of detainees."

He said a photo in which a uniformed man is holding the head of a prisoner to pose him for a picture was for "identification purposes", not a souvenir.

* * *

FBI agents observed U.S. soldiers mistreating terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as early as 2002, but the Pentagon has done little to investigate, a letter from a senior agency counterterrorism official said.

* * *

A former U.S. Marine staff sergeant testified at a hearing yesterday that his unit killed at least 30 unarmed civilians in Iraq during the war in 2003 and that Marines routinely shot wounded Iraqis and killed them.

* * *

One of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's closest advisers learned five months ago of allegations that a clandestine military task force in Iraq was beating detainees, ordering trained DIA debriefers out of the room during questioning, confiscating evidence of the abuse, and intimidating the debriefers when they complained.

* * *

Officials in the White House and the Defense Department are developing plans to increase public criticism of Iran's human-rights record...

posted by eddie


Comments