Levin: DoD sought abusive interrogations

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Levin: DoD sought abusive interrogations
By Anne Flaherty - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Jun 18, 2008 6:30:59 EDT

WASHINGTON — Military officials tasked with training U.S. troops to evade enemy interrogations helped Pentagon lawyers devise a list of abusive tactics that could be used in prisons like Guantanamo Bay, a top Senate Democrat said Tuesday.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the harsh techniques were pursued despite strong objections in November 2002 by the military’s uniformed lawyers.

“If we use those same techniques offensively against detainees, it says to the world that they have America’s stamp of approval,” said Levin, D-Mich. “That puts our troops at greater risk of being abused if they’re captured. It also weakens our moral authority and harms our efforts to attract allies to our side in the fight against terrorism.”

The hearing is the committee’s first look at the origins of the harsher methods used in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq and how policy decisions on interrogations were vetted across the Defense Department. Its review fits into a broader picture of the government’s handling of detainees, which includes FBI and CIA interrogations in secret prisons.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the legal analysis from administration lawyers in 2002 will “go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation’s military and intelligence communities.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/06/ap_detainees_061708/