Tuesday 24 January 2006
The International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity
Committed by the Bush Administration convened
last weekend in New York City's Riverside Church. Martin Luther King
Jr.'s portrait hangs in the foyer. Dr. King delivered his historic 1967
speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Place to Break the Silence," opposing the
war
and calling for the removal of all foreign troops from Vietnam, in that
same church.
Center for Constitutional Rights President Michael Ratner, who delivered
a keynote address to the commission of inquiry, invoked Dr. King's words
from 1967: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." The following
year,
the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal put the US government on trial
for "crimes without precedent" it was committing in Vietnam. In the
tradition of the Russell tribunal, the panel of judges at the commission
of inquiry heard evidence of George W. Bush's war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and
elsewhere.
Ratner said that Bush openly and notoriously "laid the plan for coup
d'état in America" with a small paragraph in his "signing statement"
attached to the McCain anti-torture amendment. Bush wrote that his
commander in chief power allows him to do anything he thinks is
necessary, including torture, notwithstanding the amendment passed by
Congress. Ratner called that a "historic, unprecedented grab for power"
that spells the end of checks and balances in our government. Bush,
according to Ratner, has declared that George Bush is the law.
Harry Belafonte gave the other keynote address. "When a government fails
to protect justice," Belafonte declared, "it is the responsibility
of
the people to rise up and change the guard, change the regime." In a
hoarse voice, the legendary singer charged, "Those who fail to answer
that call should be charged with patriotic treason."
T r u t h o u t writer Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1961 to 1990,
took the testimony of Scott Ritter, a senior United Nations weapons
inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. The allegation that Iraq possessed
weapons of mass destruction was the only justification on which George
W. Bush's war in Iraq was based, McGovern said. He cited statements by
Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice before September 11, 2001, that Saddam
Hussein had no WMDs and was unable to pose even a conventional threat to
his neighbors. After September 11, however, Donald Rumsfeld expressed
"no doubt" that Hussein had WMDs. "A trained ape knows that,"
Rumsfeld said.
Ritter noted that Rumsfeld knew Iraq had disarmed and had no ongoing
weapons program. By 1998, the weapons inspectors had accounted for 95 to
98 percent of Iraq's WMDs, Ritter said. "No nation had hard factual data
that Iraq retained or was reconstituting WMDs," Ritter added. "No
nation
had those facts."
The Bush administration willfully misled the American people about
Iraq's weapons programs, Ritter charged. When Dick Cheney said that Iraq
was constituting its nuclear program, he "was lying," Ritter said.
From 1991 to 2003, the United States policy in Iraq was regime change,
according to Ritter. The US and the United Kingdom sought to maintain
the public perception that Iraq was not complying with its obligations
to disarm, in order to justify regime change. The US never intended to
disarm Iraq; it would have had to lift the sanctions, which were aimed
at undermining Iraq's welfare, weakening the government, and
facilitating regime change.
"Intelligence" in the George W. Bush administration "was being
fixed
around the policy of regime change," Ritter maintained. "What passes
for
intelligence is nothing more than politically motivated propaganda." He
said, "There was no intelligence failure because the policy wasn't
disarmament; it was regime change."
Another witness, David Swanson, from www.afterdowningstreet.org,
detailed the Downing Street Minutes, which were prepared in March 2002
and July 2002, but were leaked to the public last spring. They disclosed
that Bush was determined to go to war and was building a case to
accomplish that goal. "Intelligence was being fixed around the policy,"
the minutes reveal. "Going to the UN was an attempt to legalize a war
that had already been decided upon," Swanson testified.
Dahr Jamal, who spent 8 months in occupied Iraq as an independent
journalist, also testified at the commission. He charged that the US
military carried out collective punishment in Fallujah in violation of
international law. Snipers engaged in targeted killings, and troops
prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded and prevented the wounded
from receiving medical attention, violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The United States decided that the entire city of Fallujah, with more
than 350,000 civilians, was "a free-fire-zone," Jamal said. In the
attack on Fallujah in November 2004, between 4,000 and 6,000 civilians
were killed. The US military employed illegal weapons, including cluster
bombs, depleted uranium, and white phosphorous.
Jamal accused the media, including CNN, Fox, Judith Miller, Thomas
Friedman, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh, of aiding and abetting the
Bush administration's war crimes and crimes against humanity in their
coverage of the US assault on Fallujah.
Another eyewitness to the occupation, journalist Jeremy Scahill,
testified about the targeted killing of independent journalists by the
US military. He cited the killing of an Al Jazeera reporter and the
bombing of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, both on April 8, 2004. More
than 100 unembedded journalists were in that hotel, and the US knew it,
Scahill contended. The attack killed two cameramen.
Scahill said the Pentagon warned unembedded journalists, "Baghdad is not
a safe place. You should not be there."
The Bush administration has consistently attempted to link Iraq with the
September 11 attacks. Scahill observed, "There is a connection between
Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. It's called Washington," he said.
Challenging the Democrats to end the war, Scahill alleged: "We can't be
vegetarians between meals. A loyal opposition is not going to end this war."
Craig Murray, the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, testified before the
commission. Murray charged that Uzbekistan practices torture on an
industrial scale. He cited a UN investigation that concluded torture was
widespread and systemic in that country. Thousands of people are
tortured every year, Murray said. This includes rape with objects like
broken bottles, smashing of limbs, pulling out of fingernails, and
immersing people into boiling liquid.
Uzbekistan, Murray said, is a US ally in the war on terror, a member of
the coalition of the willing. Murray displayed a letter on the big
screen. It was from Ken Lay, former chairman of Enron, to then Texas
Governor George W. Bush in April 1997. It began, "Dear George" ["Look
who's boss," Murray noted], and continued, "You will be meeting with"
the Uzbek ambassador to the United States to discuss Enron's $2 billion
oil and gas contract.
The real reason underlying the war in Iraq, Murray testified, was oil
and gas. So "they needed false intelligence from torture chambers,"
he
said, in order to justify the war on terror. Sir Michael Wood informed
Murray that the official position was that it's not illegal to get
information from torture provided they do not themselves torture or
direct that a specific individual be tortured.
"You can't build security on evil," Murray said. "I don't believe
torture works," he concluded. "But even it if did work, I'd rather
die
than have anyone tortured to save my life."
I presented the testimony of Janis Karpinski, a brigadier general who
was assigned to Iraq in July 2003 to oversee 17 prison facilities,
including Abu Ghraib. Karpinski described how General Geoffrey Miller
transferred the interrogation techniques he had instituted at the US
prison at Guantánamo Bay to Abu Ghraib.
Miller was specially selected by Rumsfeld and sent to Iraq to run the
interrogations operation, to work with the military intelligence
personnel and teach them new and improved interrogation techniques to
obtain more actionable intelligence from their interrogations.
When Miller arrived at Abu Ghraib, he said, "It's my opinion that you're
treating the prisoners too well. At Guantánamo, the prisoners know that
we are in charge, and they know that from the very beginning." He said,
"You have to treat the prisoners like dogs, and if you think or feel
differently, you've lost control."
Miller declared, "We're going to Gitmo-ize the operation" (referring
to
the techniques they used at Guantánamo Bay).
Karpinski thought Miller came with the authority of Rumsfeld because
General Ricardo Sanchez, who was a 3-star, deferred to Miller, although
he was only a 2-star. Even though Miller told Congress he was sent to
Abu Ghraib merely in an assisting capacity, Colonel Thomas Pappas
furnished Miller with a daily report detailing the results of
interrogations at Abu Ghraib.
Sanchez himself signed an 8-page memorandum with a laundry list of
harsher interrogation techniques, including the specific use of
unmuzzled dogs, Karpinski said.
Control of cellblocks 1-A and 1-B, "the hard sites," was transferred
to
military intelligence. Karpinski didn't learn of the torture and abuse
until January 12, 2004. In fact, she never attended any of the meetings
in which the progress of interrogations was discussed. Sanchez said, "We
scheduled them specifically when she would not be available to attend."
When Karpinski was told about the photographs and the abuse, she
prepared to hold a press conference and tell the Iraqis in Arabic that
there would be a full investigation. But Sanchez warned her off. "He
looked me dead in the eye and said, 'absolutely not. You are not to
discuss this with anyone. And that's an order.'"
Karpinski discovered that all personnel and documents relating to the
scandal had been removed from Abu Ghraib. The only thing that remained
was a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld. It was called, "Approval of Harsher
Interrogation Techniques," and listed sleep deprivation, stress
positions, playing loud music, insulting religious beliefs. In the
margin, there was a note in Rumsfeld's handwriting. It said, "Make sure
this happens."
Sanchez would not have implemented the techniques without the approval
of Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld would not have authorized them without the
approval of the vice president, Karpinski testified. "And so it filtered
down, and it never filtered down to me because I wasn't even responsible
for interrogations."
Ultimately, however, Karpinski and 7 low-ranking soldiers were made the
scapegoats. Karpinski was demoted to colonel. "I believe the Pentagon
wanted to put this into a nice little package, 7 so-called bad apples,
out of control on the night shift, and a female officer. They wanted to
put that in a package, tie it up in a bow, and sink it forever, to make
people believe we got it under control, we solved the problem."
Karpinski also testified that American female soldiers in Iraq were
assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women's latrines, and an
alarming number committed suicide. "Because the women were in fear of
getting up in the darkness [to go to the latrine], they were not
drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon," Karpinski said. "In
the 100 degree heat, they were dying of dehydration in their sleep.
Rather than making everyone aware - it was shocking - they told the
surgeon not to brief on the details, and don't say specifically that
they were women." Karpinski identified the commander who ordered that
the cause of death of the women not be listed on the death
certificates. It was General Sanchez, she said.
The commission heard testimony about the Bush administration's
criminal responsibility for indefinite detention, rendition for
torture, destruction of the global environment, attacks on global
public health and reproductive rights, and actions and inactions
leading up to and following Hurricane Katrina. The panel of judges
will consider the testimony and release its findings.
(Read my exclusive t r u t h o u t interview with Janis Karpinski: Abu
Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration.)
Marjorie Cohn
is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, President-elect of
the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive
committee of the American Association of Jurists. She writes a weekly
column for t r u t h o u t.
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