Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday. (Photo: AFP / Getty Images)
There are known knowns but there are also known unknowns and one of those now known unknowns is Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration official's direct responsibility for detainee abuse at Quantanamo ~ which led to serious offenses in Iraq and elsewhere. The noose is tightening on the Bush/Cheney administration and it's about time: Allen L Roland
The Senate Armed Services Committee report, as revealed by Joby Warrick, The Washington Post, yesterday accused Rumsfeld and his deputies of being the principal architects of the plan to use harsh interrogation techniques on captured fighters and terrorism suspects, rejecting the Bush administration's contention that the policies originated lower down the command chain.
"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the panel concludes. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."
The report, released by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Michigan) and John McCain (R-Arizona) and based on a nearly two-year investigation, said that both the policies and resulting controversies tarnished the reputation of the United States and undermined national security. "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority," it said. http://www.truthout.org/121108S
The jig is up for perhaps the most criminal administration in our nation's history ~ but Rumsfeld is small potatoes compared to Dick Cheney. See America's most dangerous criminal / Dick Cheney ~ http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/07/18.html
But yesterdays Senate action is just the opening of Pandora's Box regarding the abuses of power by the Bush/Cheney administration ~ which will eventually lead to 9/11.
The damning 90-minute exposé clearly and brilliantly established, through more than 40 interviews with CIA veterans, journalists, politicians and others, that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were the ones who ignored, suppressed and manipulated intelligence after the 9/11 attacks to lead us into war with a country that had nothing to do with our attackers.
The noose is tightening on the Bush/Cheney administration and it's about time.
Allen L Roland
