|
Bush team ‘knew of abuse’ at
Guantánamo
“I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva
apply to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout
the world.”
-- US President George W. Bush, in a February
2002 memo
Oliver Burkeman
Washington, DC, Sept. 13— Evidence of prisoner abuse and
possible war crimes at Guantánamo Bay reached the highest levels
of the Bush administration as early as autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld,
the defense secretary, chose to do nothing about it, according to a
new investigation published in the Guardian on Sept. 13.
The investigation, by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, quotes one former
marine at the camp recalling sessions in which guards would “fuck
with [detainees] as much as we could” by inflicting pain on them.
The Bush administration repeatedly assured critics that inmates were
granted recreation periods, but one Pentagon adviser told Hersh how,
for some prisoners, they consisted of being left in straitjackets in
intense sunlight with hoods over their heads.
Hersh provides details of how President George Bush signed off on the
establishment of a secret unit that was given advance approval to kill
or capture and interrogate “high-value” suspects — considered
by many to be in defiance of international law — an officially
“unacknowledged” program that was eventually transferred wholesale
from Guantánamo to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam war,
makes his revelations in a new book, Chain of Command, which leaves
senior figures in the Bush administration far more seriously implicated
in the torture scandal than had been previously apparent.
A CIA analyst visited Guantánamo in summer 2002 and returned
“convinced that we were committing war crimes” and that “more
than half the people there didn’t belong there. He found people
lying in their own feces,” a CIA source told Hersh.
The analyst submitted a report to General John Gordon, an aide to Condoleezza
Rice, Bush’s national security adviser.
Gordon was troubled, and, one former administration official told Hersh
“that if the actions at Guantánamo ever became public, it’d
be damaging to the president.”
Rice saw the document by autumn of the same year, and called a high-level
meeting at which she asked Rumsfeld to deal with the problem.
But after he vowed to act, “the Pentagon went into a full-court
stall,” a former White House official is quoted as saying. “Why
didn’t Condi do more? She made the same mistake I made. She got
the secretary of defense to say he’s going to take care of it.”
The investigation further suggests that CIA and FBI staff had already
witnessed incidents at Guantánamo just as extreme as those that
would subsequently be alleged by freed inmates.
A senior intelligence official told Hersh: “I was told [by FBI
agents] that the military guards were slapping prisoners, stripping
them, pouring cold water over them and making them stand until they
got hypothermia.”
The secret “special access program” facilitating much of the
mistreatment of prisoners, widely held to have contravened the Geneva
convention, was established following a direct order from the president.
Hersh reports that a secret document signed by Bush in February 2002
stated: “I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply
to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout
the world.”
Hersh’s book reports that an army officer communicated concerns
over abuses at Abu Ghraib both to General John Abizaid, the US central
command (Centcom) chief at the time, and his deputy, General Lance Smith.
The officer told Hersh: “I said there are systematic abuses going
on in the prisons. Abizaid didn’t say a thing. He looked at me
-- beyond me, as if to say, ‘Move on. I don’t want to touch
this.’” Centcom has disputed the allegation.
In an interview with the Guardian, Hersh provided evidence that the
administration sought to evade the issue: he said codenames of some
programs were changed within hours of his original story appearing,
presumably to maintain their secrecy.
In a statement, the Pentagon said Hersh’s investigation “apparently
contains many of the numerous unsubstantiated allegations and inaccuracies
which he has made in the past based upon unnamed sources ... Thus far
... investigations have determined that no responsible official of the
Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have
authorized or condoned the abuses seen at Abu Ghraib. If any of Hersh’s
anonymous sources wish to come forward and offer evidence to the contrary,
the department welcomes them to do so.”
Pressure has been building on the Pentagon over its detention policies
after it emerged at a Congressional hearing last week that the administration
is being accused of concealing up to 100 “ghost detainees”
from the Red Cross, which must be granted access to prisoners of war
and other detainees under the Geneva convention.
Rumsfeld told reporters Sept. 10 he had approved the use of harsh interrogation
measures, but that they had only been meant for Guantánamo. He
said the measures ought to be contrasted with those of terrorists. “Does
it rank up there with chopping someone’s head off on television?”
he asked. “It doesn’t.”
Source: Guardian (UK)
US parents sue GSK over Paxil
By Heather Tomlinson
Sept. 6— A lawsuit has been filed against GlaxoSmithKline
in the United States seeking refunds for children and adolescents given
the antidepressant, Paxil, following claims that the firm suppressed
data showing the drug did not work and increased suicidal tendencies
in young people.
The class action suit follows an inquiry by New York state attorney
general Eliot Spitzer that made similar accusations.
Last month GSK settled with Spitzer for $2.5 million, without admitting
liability.
The amount surprised the industry because Spitzer had originally said
he wanted to recover all the money GSK had made from selling Seroxat
— named Paxil in the US — which analysts have estimated at
about $ 355 million.
British regulators have advised doctors not to prescribe drugs like
Seroxat for children and adolescents.
There are already several class actions against GSK regarding the withdrawal
side-effects from Paxil.
Paul Dahlberg, however, who is leading the case at law firm Meshbesher
& Spence, said the lawsuit was the first class action intended to
reclaim the money paid for the drug based on the alleged suppression
of clinical trial data.
Dahlberg is now representing at least 24 people who bought the drug
for their children and is seeking to recruit the thousands of other
Americans who have done so for the class action.
The writ alleges GSK hid the results of two clinical trials that showed
the drug was no more effective than a placebo in treating depression.
In one case, it says, the placebo was more effective than Paxil. Instead,
the lawsuit states, the mixed results from a separate study were published
in a scientific journal and used to promote the drug.
GSK has defended its process and Alastair Benbow, the firm’s European
medical director, wrote to the Lancet medical journal this year, giving
details of presentations at scientific congresses at which the data
was discussed.
“We have made this data available in various forms as is normal
practice, that would be via articles in journals, presentations at scientific
congresses and letters to doctors,” a spokesman said. “We
also went to regulatory authorities in May 2003 with all of the pediatric
trial result data.”
Additional information in the writ is an internal GSK memo, revealed
this year, which said negative trial data should not be given to regulators
and its dissemination should be managed “in order to minimize any
potential negative commercial impact.”
A spokesman for GSK said the individual’s memo did not reflect
company policy — as evidenced by the information it had published
in the scientific community.
The drug was not officially sanctioned by US regulator the food and
drug administration for use in children under 18. But doctors were allowed
to use their own judgment, based on information letters sent by GSK.
The lawsuit claims some of these letters omitted the negative information
about the drug.
The class action lawsuit was filed in a Minnesota district court last
month and is a federal case. The lead plaintiff, Nancy Gerdts, bought
the drug for her 12-year-old son in August 2002 and is attempting to
get her money back.
Because the law firm is still targeting the thousands of people who
bought the drug, the amount the class action is seeking to recover is
not yet known. Dahlberg said he estimated the claim could be worth as
much as $600 million.
Class action lawsuits relating to drugs have been increasingly common
in the US, particularly those involving serotonin reuptake inhibitors,
which include Prozac and Paxil.
Source: Guardian (UK)
|
