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Bush Condoned Torturing Prisoners

On 6/22/04 Bush said "We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being." Is that true?

The evidence below shows that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales are guilty of violating "Federal Torture Act" Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention by ordering and condoning the use of torture. Many prisoners have died as a result. Also, false information provided under torture was used to help justify the Iraq War with disastrous consequences.

  1. 1/25/02 - White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo advising the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute, for torturing prisoners. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality --declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions --which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales was later promoted to US Attorney General. [Nation]
  2. January 2002 - Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was secretly handed to Egypt and tortured. Al-Libi told his interrogators that Iraq was training Al Qaeda how to use explosives and chemical weapons. Bush used this "intelligence" as part of his justification to invade Iraq. In 2004 Al-Libi said he had fabricated these claims to escape the pain of torture. Or in the sanitized language of the Defense Intelligence Agency "Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may describing [sic] scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest." [NYTimes] [Wikipedia]
  3. 2/7/02 - Bush took Gonzales' advice and signed an order declaring that members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not covered by the Geneva Convention. The memo requires that "detainees be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva." While seeming to call for humane treatment, it is carefully worded to allow for violations of the Geneva Convention when necessary.
  4. Bush moves prisoners to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and holds them for years without charges, trials, or access to lawyers. This is ruled illegal by a Federal Judge on Jan 31, 2005.
  5. Bush sets up secret prisons run by the CIA in foreign countries to escape US laws against torture. Rice claims European countries supported this plan. [WashingtonPost] [CNN] [FindLaw]
  6. 9/26/02 - Canadian Maher Arar was arrested at JFK airport and sent to secret prison in Syria for torture under "extraordinary rendition" program. He was released a year later without charges. He sued the US government but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge David Trager on 2/17/06 citing the need for secrecy. He wrote, "One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria." Thus the reason for the secrecy is not for national security but simply to avoid embarrassing guilty parties in government. This sets a dangerous precedent that may allow Bush to kidnap and torture anyone he pleases. On 1/26/07 the Canadian government apologized and awarded Arar compensation. [Wikipedia]
  7. Dec '02 - Alberto J. Mora, the general counsel of the United States Navy, tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects. His 2004 memo details his unsuccessful struggle with the White House to stop the torture. [NewYorker]
  8. 12/30/04 - Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Lavin released a memo that called into question the administration's use of torture. Lavin had submitted to waterboarding while doing research for the memo and concluded that waterboarding was torture. Lavin was fired when Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General. [ABC]
  9. 12/31/03 - German national Khalid El-Masri says he was abducted by the CIA arrested in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan. He was then allegedly tortured for five months and released. CIA has admitted making a mistake by detaining the wrong person. They confused him with Khalid al-Masri who is a member of al-Qaeda. This illustrates the importance of allowing prisoners access to courts where mistakes such as these can be resolved.
  10. April 2004, photos of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison make headlines around the world. Low ranking soldiers are convicted of torture charges, falling on their swords for the White House. [Wikipedia] [NewYorker]
  11. 5/24/04 - Seymour Hersh releases article detailing how Rumsfeld's program encouraged torture. "President Bush was informed of the existence of the program, the former intelligence official said." [NewYorker]
  12. February 2005 - Newly appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a secret Justice Department opinion that "provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures". Its existence was revealed in October 2007. [NYTimes]
  13. October 2005, Senator McCain adds an amendment to a defense bill that would outlaw torture by the United States. Bush and Cheney fight tooth and nail to block this amendment but eventually give in after the McCain amendment is weakened by the Graham-Levin amendment. When Bush signs the bill he adds a signing statement that basically says he can ignore the prohibition against torture under his powers as "unitary executive" and "Commander in Chief ".
  14. 6/29/06 - Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.
  15. 10/26/07 - Rumsfeld charged with torture in French courts by a coalition of human rights groups. [RawStory] [CCR]
  16. 5/6/08 - Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild and Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee. She said torture laws are jus cogens. This means that "no country can ever pass a law that allows torture." She testified that Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, Ashcroft and Bush are liable for War Crimes and violation of the Torture Act. The Torture Act penalties include life in prison or death. [testimony]

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