anyone hear 1st hour of D Rehm show? - topic torture

Very good discussion - guests S Hersch, law professor, DC based reporter for ME paper, and reporter on phone for a while

Hersh main points....

...photos in New Yorker piece were entered into court martial trial - these are real, NOT fake photos

...there was one section of the prison with women prisoners and one with young boys - the info and photos of stuff done to (some of the) boys is horrific

...this whole thing goes at least to Rumsfeld with his 'Manhunter' project

...pentagon is furious with Rumsfeld, with the Iraq war - therefore he could get lots of info (much of this was said semi-indirectly)

...there have been internal investigations going back to late summer and early fall

...T....(name of general who did report Hersh talks about in his article) - whatever is said publicly, this guy is not popular now in the 'club'

...at least 40+ soldiers were involved

There was a surprising amount of discussion about the private contractors and the difficulty of charging them.

Hersh and others said that there were DOD investigations going on at least as far back as November; there is NO WAY the woman general could not have known what was going on.

One caller, whose relative is in military intelligence, said that Hersh's article, the program, the guests, etc, were stirring up trouble and making life much more dangerous for the Americans in Iraq.

Hersh and others pointed out stongly that it was the actions not the reporting that is causing the trouble.

Rehm made a very weird comment at one point - she said but 9-11 happened and all those people died horribly. But her tone of voice was odd - sort of like 'well, this is what a lot of people will say to excuse any US wrong doing.'

The guy from the ME said people there have known of major problems with US prisoners in Iraq since almost immediately after the 'fall of Baghdad.' He said the whole torture mess has been a major disaster for the US and will have extremely long-lasting negative results in ME.

Hersh implied and partially stated that what has come out is just a very minor part of a much, much larger story.

Anyone have link to transcript? If it's available on audio, listen. Tone of voice, pauses, etc, at times implied much more than was actually said.

http://www.wamu.org/dr/index.html

Scroll down a bit.