Rumsfeld aides sought torture how-to (Levin will question Haynes today)

[maddezmom]

Military provided techniques used on terror detainees, Levin hearing today to reveal.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
In July of 2002, a deputy to the Pentagon's top lawyer placed a call to an obscure military agency responsible for, among other things, training U.S. troops to resist torture while in captivity.

The lawyer, Richard Shiffrin, an assistant to Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, had an unusual request for officers at the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency: He asked for a list of harsh techniques the agency's trainers used to prepare special operations troops, pilots and others for possible abuse at enemy hands.

Days later, officials from the Fort Belvoir, Va., agency responded with a series of memos, including analysis of how those techniques might be used on the hundreds of terror suspects already in U.S. custody.

The previously unknown contacts between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top aides and the personnel recovery agency were unearthed during months of investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin. They place Pentagon officials at the beginning of events that led to the use of abusive techniques, widely considered torture, on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and in Afghanistan.

Today, Levin's panel is to question Haynes and other military officials.

more:

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/NATION/806170346


Ex-Pentagon Lawyers Face Inquiry on Interrogation Role
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: June 17, 2008
WASHINGTON — Senior Pentagon lawyers played a more active role than previously known in developing the aggressive interrogation techniques approved for use in 2002 at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to officials familiar with a Senate investigation.

Investigators with the Senate Armed Services Committee have found documents from July 2002 showing that Pentagon lawyers working for William J. Haynes II, then the Defense Department general counsel, gathered information about a program used to train American pilots to withstand captivity, according to the officials.

Some of the techniques used in the program were later approved for use on prisoners in American military custody.

It has been known for some time that Mr. Haynes played a role in recommending that Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was then the defense secretary, approve interrogation techniques beyond what military interrogators were normally authorized to use, which Mr. Rumsfeld did in December 2002.


more:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17detain.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin