The paper trail that Bush wanted hidden

Last month The New York Review of Books published a lengthy article by Mark Danner in which he revealed the contents of a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), of which he had obtained a copy. The report gave detailed and corroborated accounts of prisoners who were tortured while in the custody of American forces in secret CIA prisons during the Bush administration's so-called 'war on terror'.

ICRC officials were granted exclusive access to the CIA's 'high-value' detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA secret prisons, "gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning".

The report offers "a harrowing view" of conditions at the secret CIA prisons. Prisoners were told "they were being taken to the verge of death and back". "During interrogations, the captives were routinely beaten, doused with cold water and slammed head-first into walls."

The Washington Post wrote that "Many of the details of alleged mistreatment at CIA prisons had been reported previously, but the ICRC report is the most authoritative account and the first to use the word 'torture' in a legal context".

Mark Danner concluded his examination of the ICRC secret report with the following assertion: "One fact, seemingly incontrovertible& is that officials of the United States, in interrogating prisoners& have tortured and done so systematically. From many other sources, including the former president himself, we know that the decision to do so was taken at the highest level of the American government".

Shortly after the publication of Danner's article, the Obama administration gave in to growing pressure from Democrats and human rights groups, and released four torture memos drafted by the Bush administration Justice Department lawyers purporting to provide legal cover for torturing suspects held by American forces.

On April 22 a newly declassified Congressional report was released. According to the New York Times, the report "outlined the most detailed evidence yet that the military's use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration".

In particular, the report rejected former secretary of defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's claim that the Pentagon policies played no role in harsh treatment of prisoners at US military facilities in Iraq and elsewhere.

"These [torture] memos," stated Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, "provide yet more incontrovertible evidence that Bush administration officials at the highest level of government authorised and gave legal blessings to acts of torture that violate domestic and international law."

"There can be no more excuses for putting off criminal investigations... No one is above the law," he added.

And that is the essence of democracy, which the Bush administration undermined by placing ideology and policy above the supremacy of the rule of law.

Adel Safty's new book, Might Over Right, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky, and published by Garnet, England, 2009.

i dont think that bush will go in trail, who will do this? who can dare? he can do whatever he wants, because we have given that power to him, he has done what he wants, now nobody will take action against him.
Bu Omar
Dubai,UAE
Posted: May 06, 2009, 15:52

Why don't they put G. W. Bush on trial in De Hage for crime against humans like they did with so many others?
Rodger Appollis
Abu Dhabi,UAE
Posted: May 06, 2009, 11:15