Pentagon Seeks to Quash Iraq Abuse Report

[deek]

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon (news - web sites) on Sunday tried to quash a report that abuse of Iraqi prisoners grew out of a secret plan approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to toughen interrogation methods to fight a growing insurgency.

<snip>

Di Rita said: "Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture."

<snip>

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), said on CBS's "Face The Nation" the latest New Yorker report added a "very significant subject" to be investigated by the panel.

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican also on the Armed Services Committee, said he did not think the reservists accused of the abuse acted without being instructed. "We need to take this as far up as it goes and we need to do it quickly," he said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

MORE available for your rating at: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=nm/iraq_abuse_pentagon_dc

[fearnobush]

1. If for any other reason to not hate this man, Sen. McCain, it is this

statement:

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican also on the Armed Services Committee, said he did not think the reservists accused of the abuse acted without being instructed. "We need to take this as far up as it goes and we need to do it quickly," he said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

[NMDemDist2]

2. McCain won't desert the troops like Rummy and Bushit has n/t

[Skip Intro]

13. One of the few repubs who actually puts America's wellbeing above bushco's

You know the effin' gang and their drones don't.

Let the tower fall.

[DUreader]

8. "Hate?" WTF?

[Alerter_]

12. Rumsfeld says "conspiratorial" Conspiracy Theory!

Where have we heard that before?

[never cry wolf]

3. The repug non-lie of the day

This guy was actually truthful in this quote:

Di Rita said: "Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture."


"No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos," he added in the statement on the Pentagon's Web site.


I don't consider ANYONE in the admin to be very responsible.

[loftycity]

4. This statement from Gonzales....he is a total nazi

Newsweek on Sunday disclosed a memorandum by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales written in Jan. 25, 2002, that said "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war."

"In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," he said.
________________________________________
(nazi)

Di Rita said: "Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture."
---------------
(nazi)

[ex_jew]

10. Oh, how quaint ! Deserves a thread of its own !

[AZCat]

17. He's a real spooky guy. He is also on the short list of SCOTUS Noms...

Don't you remember all the blah-blah back before 9/11 about who would be nominated if any of the SCOTUS retired? Gonzales was on the short list for that, and some of the papers covered his history as a judge.

Here's his White House bio: http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/gonzales-bio.html


And this article from Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views/121800-105.htm

Published on Monday, December 18, 2000
Was the Fix In?
New White House Counsel Accused of Favoritism for Cheney's Halliburton
by Nathan Newman

This Sunday, December 17th, Bush nominated Alberto Gonzales, a man Bush put on the Texas Supreme Court in 1999, to be the new White House Counsel. Yet Justice Gonzales has been a focus of ethical controversy in Texas, with the organization Texans for Public Justice noting that Gonzales like other Texas Supreme Court Justices have taken large amounts of money from the Cheney-run Halliburton companies, then ruled in favor of the company in cases that came before the Court.

Cheney's Halliburton corporation, through its executives and its separate subsidiaries, was the second-largest corporate contributor to Texas Supreme Court races in the last three election cycles, contributing over $79,000 to the Justices. Five times in the past seven years, cases involving Halliburton have come before the Texas Supreme Court, and each time the Court has either ruled for the company or refused to hear an appeal of a favorable verdict for the firm from a lower court.

In 1999, a Halliburton employee had won a $2.6 million trial verdict due to allegations that a company supervisor framed him to test positive for cocaine, only to see the verdict overturned by a Texas Court of Appeals. Just before the Texas Supreme Court ruled on the case, Halliburton gave a number of contributions to the Justices, including $3000 to Alberto Gonzales. None of the Justices recused themselves from the case and the Court refused to hear the appeal against Halliburton.

Making the Gonzales conflict even more controversial is the fact that before being appointed to office, Gonzales had been a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins, L.L.P. in Houston which had Halliburton as a major client. And Gonzales worked in the section where Halliburton was represented where he had a strong relationship with the firm.
<snip>

more at the article...

[loftycity]

18. Thanks AZCat....

[progressivebydesign]

19. I'm sorry.. wasn't the the guy that got Bush off the DUI?

I seem to recall that this Gonzalez guy was small potatoes from Texas.. a family pal that bailed Bush out a few times? If I'm correct, then I find it so freakin' scary that this little insignificant person feels he can decide that the Geneva Convention needs to be changed.. What an outrage.

[AZCat]

21. Not quite, but close...

link is here: http://www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog/archive/2003_03_09_SCOTUSblog.cfm

You have to scroll down to the 4:14 post of Tuesday, March 11, 2003
- there are four sections on Gonzales and this quote is from the first (hence the lowest).

<snip>
As counselor to then-Gov. Bush, Gonzales was responsible for getting the governor out of jury duty in 1996, a matter that came to attention in the 2000 presidential campaign when it emerged that Bush would have had to declare a 1976 drunk-driving arrest on the jury form that he had endeavored to keep quiet.
</snip>

So Gonzales got him out of having to declare the DUI. I don't know if he actually was involved in the original DUI case.

See my post above for more info on Alberto Gonzales.

Edit to clarify position of quote

[tedzbear]

5. McCain must be planning to run for Pres. in 2008.

He is breaking away from the GOP's Bush supporters and forging his own campaign.

This is good because it will help the Democrats in their investigation of the Pentagon's clandestine use of torture, which is the antithesis of our Bill of Rights:

Article 10:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

:kick:

[progressivebydesign]

20. McCain is a trip.. he's like.. a normal person. Rare in the Beltway.

He seems to be able to think independently. He knows what he believes in, and that the Democrats aren't in line with his beliefs. Fair enough. But, he also seems to be able to call bullshit on the GOP when it's necessary. He campaigns for Bush, but talks about it like a kid having to take piano practice while the rest of the kids go swimming. After what Bush & Rove did to him in 2000, I don't understand why he doesn't slap them silly.

[TahitiNut]

6. McCain may be to Bush what Howard Baker was to Nixon

While I firmly disagree with their political philosophies, I've never regarded either as overtly malicious ... but Bush is and Nixon was. Bush/Cheney makes Nixon/Agnew look like petty vandals.

[0007]

7. Seymour Hersh has it genuinely put together and it blows

these simple shits called the White House right out of the water. I love watching them squirm.

[jobendorfer]

9. classic non-denial denial

"Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article
on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of detainees are outlandish, and filled
with error and anonymous conjecture."

No specific enumerations of which assertions are faulty (indeed,
it sounds as if the spokesclod making this statement hasn't even
read Hersh' article yet.)

Just because something's outlandish doesn't mean it's not true.

No facts given to demonstrate the error of any assertions, or
to set the record straight.

If the Pentagon really rejected "anonymous conjecture" as a valid
argument, we wouldn't be in Iraq in the first place. The whole
case for going to war was a stinking manure mountain of anonymous
conjectures. So Hersh has confiential sources. Big deal.

On edit: I forgot the most important point of all. The non-
denial denial does not make any statement about Rumsfeld's role
at all, much less state that he was not involved in formulating
or approving the policy.

J.

[gratuitous]

14. Yup, almost feel like I'm watching "All the President's Men"

These guys are every bit as bad as the Nixon gang, and probably worse.

[pfitz59]

15. They ARE the Nixon gang!

Everyone of the main players, except perhaps Rice, were Nixon staffers at one time or another! Even Colon blows!

[nolabels]

23. Having a oil tanker named after you has its privileges

Below is a picture of the oil tanker before Chevron quietly renamed it the "Altair Voyager" and before President George Bush appointed Ms. Rice as National Security Advisor.



Do you get the picture?

http://aztlan.net/oiltanker.htm

[Rex]

11. outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture

That just about describes the Bush Administration to a capital T.

outlandish - Invading Iraq over a lie.

conspiratorial - stonewalling the 911 commission.

filled with error - take your pick.

anonymous conjecture - anything that comes out of the White House by "high ranking sources".

[TrogL]

16. The CBC was all over this story

on the 8 p.m. radio news.

[struggle4progress]

22. kick

:kick: