The Hindu : International : Rumsfeld approved of torture, says report

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 17, 2004

International

International

Rumsfeld approved of torture, says report

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, MAY 16. In a development that is bound to perk up the debate here and overseas on the gross abuses of Iraqi prisoners especially as it related to who in the Pentagon was in the know of things, it is now being said the U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and one of his top aides approved of the tactics.

According to a forthcoming article in The New Yorker, author Seymour Hersh says Mr. Rumsfeld and the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, approved tougher interrogation techniques in Iraq in 2003 to get better information from prisoners against the backdrop of a growing and intensive insurgency threat. Mr. Hersh makes the point that the "special access programme" was expanded to allow authorities at Abu Ghraib to engage in degrading and humiliating the prisoners "in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq."

The original programme started with growing frustrations in Afghanistan in the weeks after the start of American air operations. The plan apparently authorised by Mr. Rumsfeld with approval from the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice gave blanket authorisation to kill or capture and interrogate "high value" targets in the war on terror. The U.S. President, George Bush, was informed of the plan.

American commandos carried out the programme and were conducting instant interrogations at many of the CIA's detention centres around the world with information gleaned passed on to the Commanders at the Pentagon. Mr. Hersh says that last year Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cambone expanded the scope of the programme and brought its methods to Abu Ghraib.

Mr. Rumsfeld has apologised for what has taken place in Abu Ghraib saying lower level officials were involved and without the knowledge or approval of such tactics from senior military commanders. The essence of what Mr. Hersh is saying could mean that Mr. Rumsfeld is trying to shift the blame to lower level military officers. Seven soldiers are facing military charges related to the prisoner abuse but much of the focus has been on whether the soldiers were acting on their own or on instructions from senior military officials.

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, has called the claims of Mr. Hersh "outlandish, conspitorial and filled with error and anonymous conjecture" and has denied that Mr. Cambone was in any way involved in directing any covert programme .

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