Reply #11: A couple of more tidbits about Larry DiRita [View All]

[Tom Rinaldo]

Here is one related to the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on prisoner abuse in Afghanixtan and Iraq:

"When the Taguba report (see March 9, 2004), which together with all its 106 annexes includes 6,000 pages, is delivered by the Pentagon to the Senate Armed Services Committee, some 2,000 pages are missing, withheld by the Defense Department. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita calls this an “oversight.” Nevertheless, the missing pages contain key documents, internal Army memos and e-mails, sworn statements by soldiers, officers, contractors, and prisoners. It also includes the final section of Taguba's interview with Col. Thomas M. Pappas. The missing annexes of the Taguba report hold evidence that the abuse was not conducted solely by a few MPs acting on their own, but instead at the instigation and with the involvement of military intelligence personnel."
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=1521846767-2906

And here we have him caught lying to the Press:

"GUANTANAMO BAY
Larry DiRita's Disgraceful Deception

Maybe it's not all Newsweek's fault after all. Yesterday, the administration admitted "that U.S. troops mishandled Qurans of Muslim prisoners five times at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." According to military officials, one soldier responsible for an incident of Quran mistreatment was subject to "unspecified disciplinary action ... some time ago." The admission comes just days after Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita not only denied that Qurans were mishandled but denied that there were any credible allegations to investigate. On May 17, DiRita said, "when a specific, credible allegation of this nature were to be received, we would take it quite seriously. But we've not seen specific, credible allegations." We know now that DiRita's statement was completely false. Not only have there been credible allegations, but those allegations were substantiated and an individual was punished."
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=712369

And this is the guy who is holding up Ed Shultz airing on Armed Forces Radio? After Limbaugh has already been there for 10 years?