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No change in US torture policy –
Amnesty International
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Oct. 27 (IPS) — The US has failed to meaningfully
change its policies on the treatment of prisoners, opening the door
to repeats of abuses like those at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and
making an independent probe into torture by the US military essential,
says a leading human rights group.
In a 200-page report released Oct. 27, London-based Amnesty International
(AI) stressed that without such an investigation and the clear, unequivocal
rejection of torture and ill-treatment by top US officials, “the
conditions remain for further abuses to occur.”
Six months after CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes” broadcast photos
of US soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison outside
Baghdad, AI welcomed a number of Pentagon-sponsored probes into the
torture and other abuse there but warned they alone are not sufficient.
“Many questions remain unanswered, responsible individuals are
beyond the scope of investigation, policies that facilitate torture
remain in place, and prisoners continue to be held in secret detention,”
said William Schulz, executive director of the US section of Amnesty
(AIUSA).
“The failure to substantially change policy and practice after
the scandal of Abu Ghraib leaves the US government completely lacking
in credibility when it asserts its opposition to torture,” he added
in a statement.
The report also calls on US President to make public and rescind any
measures or directives authorized by him or any other official that
could be interpreted as authorizing “disappearances,” torture,
or other inhuman treatment.
It was released amid almost daily revelations about how decades-old
US policies regarding the treatment of prisoners-of-war were either
circumvented or ignored by small groups of political appointees in the
Bush administration.
Investigative articles appearing over the past three days in the New
York Times have described how top lawyers in the Pentagon, Vice President
Dick Cheney’s office, the Justice Department and the White House
kept Bush’s own national security adviser, the State Department
and career military attorneys in the dark about their plans for “military
commissions” that deprived suspects in the “war on terrorism”
of basic rights under domestic and international law.
At the same time, the Washington Post reported that the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), with the Pentagon’s cooperation, had secretly transferred
dozens of non-Iraqi prisoners out of Iraq since the March 2003 invasion,
under an opinion by political appointees in the Justice Department’s
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in direct defiance of the 1949 Geneva
Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
The revelations come on top of disclosures after the Abu Ghraib scandal
last April of legal memoranda prepared by political appointees that
appeared to justify the use of torture and ill-treatment against detainees,
practices that were explicitly prohibited by US Armed Forces field manuals
over the past several decades.
All of these disclosures have contributed to calls by AI and other groups,
including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Human Rights First, dating back
to last April and May, for a comprehensive independent probe of torture
and abuses. In a resolution passed last summer, the American Bar Association
(ABA) also urged such a move.
Until now, the Bush administration ignored these calls, arguing that
the Pentagon’s own efforts to investigate and prosecute abuses
were adequate for dealing with the issue.
Earlier this month, for example, the US Army’s Criminal Investigation
Division recommended that 28 soldiers be charged in connection with
the beating deaths of two prisoners at a detention facility in Afghanistan
in December 2002, while some seven military police are being prosecuted
or have plead guilty to charges arising from the Abu Ghraib abuses.
Amnesty’s new report, “Human Dignity Denied: Torture and Accountability
in the ‘War on Terror,’” documents what it calls a pattern
of human rights violations running from Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib via
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (where prisoners in the “war on terror”
were taken to a specially-constructed detention facility that the Bush
administration maintained was outside the jurisdiction of US law) and
“secret” overseas detention facilities about which the administration
has said virtually nothing.
It argues that decisions linked to torture start at the very top, and
that no senior US officials have yet been held accountable. Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for example, explicitly authorized a number
of abuses — including stripping, isolation, hooding, stress positions,
sensory deprivation, the use of dogs in interrogations and secret detentions,
which amount to serious human rights violations and, in some cases,
torture.
“The denial of habeas corpus, the use of incommunicado and secret
detention — in some cases amounting to ‘disappearance’
— and the sanctioning of harsh interrogation techniques are classic
but flawed responses,” Amnesty said.
“By lowering safeguards, demonizing detainees, and displaying a
disregard for its international legal obligations, the administration
at best sowed confusion among interrogators and at worst gave the green
light to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
It said the sheer number of abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq that have
come to light through media leaks or official Pentagon investigations
has “punctured the administration’s assertions that torture
and ill-treatment were restricted to Abu Ghraib and a few aberrant soldiers.”
An independent commission of credible experts should be formed, and
call on the advice of international groups and agencies that specialize
in such investigations, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur
on Torture, the report recommends.
The comission should be empowered to investigate all levels and agencies
of the US government, and it should also include within its scope recommendations
for preventing future torture and ill treatment of detainees in US custody.
Deployment extended for 6500 US troops
in Iraq
Compiled by Greg White
Nov. 3 (AGR) -- The US Defense Department has said that 6,500
US troops have had their tours of duty in Iraq extended by two months.
The Pentagon claimed the move is being made in order to boost troop
numbers and capabilities ahead of Iraqi elections in January.
Up to 3,500 troops of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, and 3,000
from the 1st Infantry Division headquarters will stay in Iraq two months
longer than scheduled, said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
Pentagon officials say these units were chosen in part because they
were originally slated for tours of only 10 months, so extending them
will not break the 12-month limit the Pentagon has been aiming at for
the maximum length of missions in Iraq.
The key motivation, according to Pentagon officials, is to keep experienced
units in the country during what they claim will be a critical period.
A description of the forces extensions released by the Pentagon’s
Web site Saturday mentioned “the troops’ frustration”
over having their tours extended. It said that some of the troops had
been previously told that they would be leaving Iraq as early as November.
Instead they will stay through January.
According to the latest official Pentagon figures, there are currently
about 135,000 US troops in Iraq, as well as about 25,000 other coalition
forces. With the normal troop rotations that are going on, which allow
for some overlap of forces, Pentagon officials are suggesting that there
may be up to 142,000 US troops in Iraq by January.
Soldier who filed law suit not required to report
for duty
The US Army captain who filed an injunction to block his deployment
to Iraq did not have to report for duty, and the military has yet to
decide whether to approve his resignation.
Capt. Jay Ferriola, 31, appeared in court on Oct. 24 for an emergency
hearing to decide his case. Ferriola says he resigned from the Army
Reserve in June after eight years of service, including four years of
active duty.
Ferriola received orders to report for active duty with the 306th Military
Police Battalion in Uniondale, New York. The lawsuit says the unit will
serve in Iraq for a year and a half on a “dangerous mission in
Iraq.”
Ferriola filed a lawsuit against the government, claiming lack of due
process, involuntary servitude and breach of contract. According to
his lawyer, Barry Slotnick, Ferriola decided he did not want a career
in the military and wanted to pursue opportunities in civilian life.
The lawsuit acknowledges Ferriola never received a response from the
Army on his resignation, but he was told to turn in his equipment.
Ferriola is the fourth member of the armed forces to sue to block orders
under the federal stop-loss policy.
The stop-loss order was issued on Sept. 14, 2001, with the purpose of
granting the Department of Defense authority “to activate the Ready
Reserve to respond to the threat of future terrorist attacks against
the United States.” Critics of the Bush administration have called
it a “backdoor draft.”
Former Army Lt. Todd Parrish of North Carolina filed suit in July seeking
to rescind his ROTC contract on similar grounds.
After serving eight years on active and inactive duty, Parrish is on
his sixth administrative delay after winning a temporary injunction
against showing up for training and deployment to Iraq.
“The underlying principle here is this is an all-volunteer force,”
said Mark Waple, Parrish’s lawyer. “When the Defense Department
starts going to these extremes to recall people for active duty who
have no remaining service obligations, they bump into problems with
the due process clause of the US Constitution.”
Waple says Parrish signed an eight-year contract when he was a college
sophomore in exchange for three years of paid education. When the contract
expired on Dec. 30, 2003, Parrish received a discharge certificate.
The Army, however, claims Parrish did not officially resign his commission
and is therefore considered a volunteer.
“But the operative word on the discharge certificate is ‘discharge.’
There was no indication or phrase in the contract that would have told
him he had to resign,” Waple said.
Waple has been in contact with lawyers representing two other California
reservists identified only as ‘John Does’ in their suits against
the government seeking release from the stop-loss order.
“The former Iraqi regime has been removed from power, and Iraq
cannot be considered to present any threat of terrorism against the
United States, if it ever did,” the suit contends. “The stop-loss
order, accordingly, is invalid because it is unauthorized by, unrelated
to, and exceeds the scope and purpose of the Executive Order under which
the stop-loss order has been promulgated.”
Pentagon Halts Forced Anthrax Vaccinations
In an Oct. 27 ruling, a federal judge shut down the military’s
controversial anthrax vaccine program.
US District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan concluded that the Food and Drug
Administration had violated its own rules when it approved the vaccine
in 2003, saying the military’s mandatory vaccine program is “illegal.”
The ruling sent shockwaves through the US military, where more than
1.2 million troops have been forced to take the vaccine under threat
of court martial since 1998. Many soldiers have complained that the
vaccine has caused debilitating health problems.
Earlier this year, United Press International reported that at least
10 soldiers died after receiving the vaccination. UPI also reported
that some medical experts believe an outbreak of more than 100 mysterious
cases of pneumonia among soldiers was related to their receiving the
vaccine.
Sources: BBC, CNN, Court TV, Guerilla News
Network,Washington Post
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