Statement from DoD Spokesperson Mr. Lawrence

Statement from DoD Spokesperson Mr. Lawrence Di Rita
"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.

"The abuse evidenced in the videos and photos, and any similar abuse that may come to light in any of the ongoing half dozen investigations into this matter, has no basis in any sanctioned program, training manual, instruction, or order in the Department of Defense.

"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.

"To correct one of the many errors in fact, Undersecretary Cambone has no responsibility, nor has he had any responsibility in the past, for detainee or interrogation programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world.

"This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the Department of Defense."

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20040515-0793.html

you know what....

I have never seen such a line of bull in all of my life.


READ THIS.........



PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122



After Congress began investigating reports of Central American atrocities in the mid 1980s, particularly in Honduras, the CIA's "Human Resource Exploitation" manual was hand edited to alter passages that appeared to advocate coercion and stress techniques to be used on prisoners. CIA officials attached a new prologue page on the manual stating: "The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults or exposure to inhumane treatment of any kind as an aid to interrogation is prohibited by law, both international and domestic; it is neither authorized nor condoned"-making it clear that authorities were well aware these abusive practices were illegal and immoral, even as they continued then and now.

Indeed, similar material had already been incorporated into seven Spanish- language training guides. More than a thousand copies of these manuals were distributed for use in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru, and at the School of the Americas between 1987 and 1991.


An inquiry was triggered in mid 1991 when the Southern Command evaluated the manuals for use in expanding military support programs in Colombia. In March 1992 Cheney received an investigative report on "Improper Material in Spanish-Language Intelligence Training Manuals." Classified SECRET, the report noted that five of the seven manuals "contained language and statements in violation of legal, regulatory or policy prohibitions" and recommended they be recalled.

The memo is stamped: "SECDEF HAS SEEN." = (CHENEY)


http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm


If we the people do not send this white house a earful we have each other to blame...

email and call the whitehouse.......



Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

FAX: 202-456-2461

TTY/TDD

Comments: 202-456-6213

Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

E-Mail

Traitor - President George W. Bush:

president@whitehouse.gov

Traitor - Vice President Richard Cheney:


vice.president@whitehouse.gov


http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact /

A statement already?

Panic. Flop Sweat. Stinking fear at the jig being up.

If it were all that absurd, he would have waited till tommorrow.

Back to Cambone ... The undersecretary of defense insisted that the abuses may be nothing more than a few misguided guards. "I still don't know that there is a significant issue here," he said. A Post editorial retorts:

The Bush administration still seeks to mislead Congress and the public about the policies that contributed to the criminal abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Yesterday's smoke screen was provided by Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Mr. Cambone assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that the administration's policy had always been to strictly observe the Geneva Conventions in Iraq; that all procedures for interrogations in Iraq were sanctioned under the conventions; and that the abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were consequently the isolated acts of individuals. These assertions are contradicted by International Red Cross and Army investigators, by U.S. generals overseeing the prisoners, and by Mr. Cambone himself <...>

If President Bush and his senior officials would acknowledge their complicity in playing fast and loose with international law and would pledge to change course, they might begin to find a way out of the mess. Instead, they hope to escape from this scandal without altering or even admitting the improper and illegal policies that lie at its core. It is a vain hope.


Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@hotmail.com.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2100380/

Good post.

bwa ha ha ha!

My my my they are squealing like pigs with their privates caught in a wire fence aren't they. Judging by his track record I expect Mr. Hersh to be able to back up everything he says.

the whole gang of traitors must be impeached NOW.

Linda Ronstadt wants Bush Impeached Now

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1605441

By the Republican convention, panicky congressmen may have forced George into swearing he won't run and releasing his delegates. Which gives the Republicans a brokered convention for which they are completely unprepared. McCain? Are they that frightened? Who else could they choose? The beloved catkiller Frist? Graham, who is coming off as resembling an honest man, or as close as the Republicans can come?

I don't want Bush out and the voters relaxing. I want George the Loathed on the November ballot. And I want the rage to destroy the Republican majority in Congress.

But if they're panicking now......everything's up for grabs.

You are also a lying hypocrit getting caught. Get over it.

Moreover, stop being so defensive. It only makes you appear more guilty.

Spin away, from this self-created trap you cannot escape!!!

Friday, November 21, 2003



Q: We are all very familiar now with the stresses on manpower on ground units in Iraq, Afghanistan and what that is doing to the force. It is hard to believe that intelligence assets aren't also stressed in the same way. And, in particular, not just trying to figure out what is going on in the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, but even moreso, trying to figure out what al Qaeda and its related organizations are doing in the 60-odd countries that they are based in. There have been concerns by members of Congress that in fact a lot of your assets are being diverted away from the larger fight against al Qaeda to Iraq, by necessity, because of what is going on in the ground there. I'm wondering if you can talk about the stresses that you are in fact under in terms of assets and personnel, addressing what is going on in Iraq, and then widening out to Afghanistan and then widening beyond that to the world at large and how much Iraq is detracting from the fight against al Qaeda?



Cambone: The war on terrorism is global. So the focus with respect to that war is global as well. And so the intelligence community writ large and the Department of Defense specifically continues to do the monitoring, the assessment and under take the appropriate actions to prosecute that war on a global scale. Whether it is the work being done at EUCOM or PACOM, obviously in CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM, all of the regional combatant commanders and their respective J2s, their intelligence shops and their joint intelligence centers are paying attention to the problem of terrorism in their area of responsibility in addition to the other things that they have to worry about -- narco-terrorism and all kinds of other things that might affect say, General Hill at SOUTHCOM. They work in a federated environment such that it is possible for them to exchange information and data very easily. They meet frequently on the video teleconferencing and so forth. At the level of the global war, there isn't a lack of focus and each of those JICs, the joint intelligence centers, are fairly robustly manned. They are not small organizations. Now, with respect then to any stress that their may be on the intelligence force, nearly by definition, since we have reduced the number of people we have for defense HUMINT for the human intelligence side of the equation, we are, as I said earlier, in the process of asking the services to increase the number of people who would be trained to operate as HUMINT teams in support of the units that are deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, by the way, to prosecute the current set of operations that are taking place. So yeah we are a little short on the human side; there is no denying that. Steps are in place to try to improve the numbers and the capability of the people who'd be involved.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20031121-0976.html





Cambone's defenders

Last week, we told how Lawrence DiRita, special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, came to the defense of Stephen Cambone, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. We had reported on Mr. Cambone's unpopularity in some Pentagon quarters for pushing budget cuts. Mr. DiRita, in a letter to The Washington Times, took us to task for understating Mr. Cambone's extensive defense experience.

This week, another Pentagon leader, Vice Adm. Mike Mullen, came to Mr. Cambone's defense. Adm. Mullen, who is deputy chief of naval operations for resources, requirements and assessments, said he wants to offer a different side of Mr. Cambone than the one we, and other writers, have presented.

"He has worked hard to be very collaborative in my experience with him," said Adm. Mullen. The admiral said he meets up to three times a week with Mr. Cambone on budget issues.

We have written that Mr. Cambone is combative and dismissive in some meetings with uniformed officers. Some resent his penchant to want to cut force structure, saying he fails to realize how it increases the risks of more casualties.

"I just haven't experienced any of those things," said Adm. Mullen, adding that he has not heard of complaints from other services.


http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/ring050302.html

Propaganda!

Like, 'pay no attention to this nattering nabob of negativism, full of anonymous conjecture'.

Bwahahahahahah! Spout it all the way to the jail, jokers!