Bush-Cheney administration/torture

Overview
There have been persistent reports, many of them documented, of official use of torture as a part of the War on Terror during George W. Bush's administration.

The first such incident to come to light was the Abu Ghraib abuses, but there have been others (e.g. Guant&aacute;namo).

Publicly, administration officials and spokespeople deny sanctioning or approving of torture, but certain of their legislative efforts appear to contradict this stance.

Quotes

 * "The United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values. I have not authorised it and I will not authorise it." -- George W. Bush

Law
Apparently Senator John McCain tried to add an amendment (to the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill) which would have banned "torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners"; VP Cheney has been campaigning hard to have the amendment modified to exempt the CIA from the ban. This article apparently describes what ultimately happened.

court decisions

 * Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees "violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions"
 * Rasul v. Bush (2004) established that the U.S. court system does have the authority to decide whether foreign nationals (non-U.S. citizens) held in Guantanamo Bay were rightfully imprisoned

Reference

 * Wikipedia: Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen falsely detained, flown to Afghanistan, and tortured by the CIA as part of the war on terror

News & Views

 * 2007-10-06 President Bush defends U.S. interrogation tactics
 * 2006-10-26 Cheney confirms waterboarding: "Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called waterboarding, which creates a sensation of drowning. .. Cheney indicated the Bush administration doesn't regard waterboarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said."
 * 2006-10-06 Marine Swears Gitmo Guards Bragged Of Abuse (Associated Press)
 * 2006-09-16 Bush's Fight with Congress over Torture Defines Our Character
 * 2006-08-10 The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr by Jeff Tietz, Rolling Stone
 * 2006-05-23 How Torture Became Mainstream by Alfred W. McCoy, Amnesty International
 * 2006-03-05 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq (item #7) by Dahr Jamail
 * 2005-11-07 Cheney Fights for Detainee Policy by Dana Priest and Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writers
 * 2005-11-02 CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons: "Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11" by Dana Priest

Blog Posts

 * "Body and Soul" blog:
 * 2005-11-07 14:55, 15:40
 * 2005-11-09
 * 2005-11-11