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New Yorker: Rumsfeld 'approved' abuse<br><br>
Sunday 16 May 2004 6:44 AM GMT <br><br>
Rules were: 'Grab whom you must. Do what you want' <br><br>
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a secret programme that
encouraged interrogation methods used at Abu Ghraib prison, reports The
New Yorker magazine. <br><br>
<br>
Rumsfeld had approved "a highly secret operation" last year,
which "encouraged physical coercion and the sexual humiliation of
Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the
growing insurgency in Iraq," New Yorker investigative reporter
Seymour Hersh wrote, citing current and former intelligence
officials.<br><br>
Excerpts of Hersh's report have been released before publication this
week. <br><br>
The Pentagon said Hersh's report was "outlandish, conspiratorial,
and filled with error and anonymous conjecture." <br><br>
"No responsible official of the Department of Defence approved any
program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such
abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos," Pentagon
spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said in a statement. <br><br>
The New Yorker reported that the clandestine Defence Department operation
was known as a Special-Access Program (SAP). <br><br>
Its rules were: "Grab whom you must. Do what you want,"
according to one former intelligence official cited by Hersh. <br><br>
Rumsfeld's decision to import such techniques into Iraq, after their use
in Afghanistan, was opposed by members of US intelligence organisations,
the report said. <br><br>
Use in Afghanistan <br><br>
"They said, 'No way. We signed up for the core program in
Afghanistan, preapproved for operations against high-value terrorist
targets, and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and
people pulled off the streets,'" the former intelligence official
told Hersh. <br><br>
<br>
Pictures of naked, humiliated <br>
detainees have caused outrage <br>
The source said the CIA objected to the programme's use inside Abu
Ghraib, where a scandal involving the mistreatment of Iraqis has sparked
Democratic calls for Rumsfeld's resignation. The CIA ended its SAP
involvement in the jail. <br><br>
Leaked photos from Abu Ghraib have shown US soldiers abusing Iraqi
inmates, forcing them into sexually humiliating positions. <br><br>
Hersh writes that Rumsfeld left the detailed planning to Pentagon
intelligence chief Steve Cambone, but that the programme was ultimately
approved by Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Richard Myers. <br><br>
Tougher techniques<br><br>
The Pentagon wanted to use tougher interrogation techniques as the US
plan to occupy Iraq was hindered by a growing insurgency, Hersh
wrote.<br>
<br>
"As far as they're concerned, this is a covert operation, and it's
to be kept within the Defence Department channels," the former
intelligence official told Hersh. <br><br>
<br>
"No responsible official of the Department of Defence approved any
program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such
abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos"<br><br>
Lawrence Di Rita, <br>
Pentagon spokesman <br>
Hersh is an award-winning US journalist who broke the story of the 1968
My Lai massacre, when US soldiers executed Vietnamese civilians during
the war in Vietnam. <br><br>
Also on Saturday The New York Times reported that the mistreatment of
Iraqi inmates at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad airport, predates abuse of
Abu Ghraib prisoners by US soldiers. <br><br>
A prisoner told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that
he had been beaten by interrogators, hooded, handcuffed, threatened with
torture and murder, urinated on and kicked in the head, lower back and
groin, the daily said. <br><br>
He was also kept awake for four days and had a baseball tied into his
mouth with a scarf, it added. <br><br>
The ICRC lodged formal complaints with US officials in February, the
Times said, and eventually documented 50 cases of abuse. <br><br>
<br><br>
AFP<br><br>
<br>
You can find this article at:<br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8C6F160D-F87E-4739-941B-81E888C33E04.htm" eudora="autourl">http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8C6F160D-F87E-4739-941B-81E888C33E04.htm</a>
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