Pentagon: You can't take away our right to degrade prisoners!

Pentagon Resists Ban on "Degrading Treatment"
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2006-06-28 00:35. Evidence
By William Fisher, Inter Press Service

NEW YORK - As new reports detail further abuse by the U.S. military of its prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a behind-the-scenes battle is being fought between the U.S. departments of state and defence about whether a key section of the Geneva Conventions should be included in new rules governing Army interrogation techniques.

The Pentagon is pushing to omit from new detainee policies a central principle of the Geneva Conventions that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment". Critics say such a step that would mark a further shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

The State Department is opposing the decision to exclude Geneva Conventions protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider.

Meanwhile, in the face of growing criticism over U.S. treatment of detainees, Pentagon officials have decided to make public all of the military's interrogation techniques. Military leaders had previously argued that making all of the interrogation tactics public would allow enemy combatants to train and prepare for specific techniques.

The Pentagon's decision came as two previously secret Army investigative reports on prisoner abuse were released to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) under a freedom of information request.

The more than 1,000 pages turned over to the ACLU include one report by Army Brig. Gen. Richard Formica on special operations forces in Iraq and another by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby on Afghanistan detainees.

The rest of the article is at: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/12474

were brutally murdered died as a direct result of policies like this?