ABUSE CRISIS: Bush & Blair Knew Of Iraq & Afghanistan Detainee Abuse 'For Two Years'

And in the time since 9/11,it has yet to be proven beyond a 'shadow of a doubt' whether the government was involved or not.
If it was as 'matter of fact' as so many claim, this administration would have already been dangling from the nearest tree(s), but alas, doesn't seem that way, despite how many millions of people you and others may want to call 'sheep'.
If what has been claimed was even remotely true, severe action would have already been taken or seriously underway.....seen any yet?



seekerof

Yes, plenty. But you can't judge from any outcomes of the half-baked commission that has "grilled" the leaders on what they knew, can you?

The citizen-led Truth Commission yet to take place will yield better results.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
Yes, plenty. But you can't judge from any outcomes of the half-baked commission that has "grilled" the leaders on what they knew, can you?

Care to point out any of these civic actions that are taking place then?

The citizen-led Truth Commission yet to take place will yield better results.

Please, what makes you think they would say anything different to a civilian commision? What will you threaten them with if they don't talk? What evidence will you produce that proves their knowledge beyond reasonable doubt?

The issue of all the anomalies and unanswered questions arising from 9/11 has been quite exhaustively covered at ATS in the past 18 months, to the point where much of the evidence you seek will need an open cut mining technique to dig out.

These things are facts, not urban myths:

* Bush admin officials ceasing to take commercial flights from early September.

* Condoleezza Rice ringing her dear friend in local government in San Francisco to advise him not to fly on 9/11.

Seekerof posted a good summary of links discussing some of these interesting phenomena.

The material all around here on 9/11 is well worth a read. But you are right, if the correct questions are not posed by enquiries, then the most revealing answers will not ensue. It depends very much on who is asking who what questions in front of whom, doesn't it.

Originally posted by namehere
news articles like this make things worse and cause more trouble, sure the truth is good to know but at what cost? things like this should wait till we leave or atleast 20 years so our people dont all get killed, reporters and aid groups need to think of what the big picture is and what they might cause before spouting everything, yes these things are wrong but think of how islamic terrorist groups might act, these idiots will be responsible for how our people will be treated from now on and for a wave of suicide bombings that i know are going to come soon.

sometimes i understand why governments control their press when i see idiot reporters putting others at risk so they can look good, reveal truth, etc, they never think about how others react to what they report, some groups and reporters have good intentions but they forget how people react violently to most anything they hear about.

Originally posted by jsobecky
I agree. This is another case of stupid, headline-seeking, politically motivated activity meant to )1 make a name for someone and 2) make things worse for the coalition. It will have the negative effect of stifling future co-operation into prison inspections around the world.

What happened to the ICRC's strict policy of never publicly releasing its reports into prison conditions?

Idiots.

I absolutely CANNOT believe the both of you wrote that!

I am stunned to the point of....... words fail me.

go get a clue. And while you're finding that clue can you go find out what the geneva convention is and how it's been violated here?

[Edited on 10-5-2004 by mulberryblueshimmer]

Hmm... Apparently one of the reports by the ICRC has been leaked to the Wall St Journal, and is up on their website (subscription). It seems Tony Blair has changed his mind already and is due to publish one as well after all, though I can't find a link to that just now.

BBC -ICRC report leaked

Some allegations of the report include:
Prisoners were kept naked in cells, in darkness and without facilities. Prisoners were held for prolonged solitary confinement in cells with no daylight. The actions of coalition forces in arresting suspects appeared to go beyond any legitimate use of force.
Prisoners were beaten, in one case leading to death.
Soldiers fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers, killing some. The ill-treatment was widely tolerated, especially with regard to extracting information from Iraqis. Methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence to gain confessions.

I believe some of the British pictures are fake. The reason why i feel that is because the only paper in the UK that is printing them is the Daily mirror. The Daily Mirror was ,and still is, against the Iraq war. So it would make sense if an anti-war paper is trying to debunk the war.
An expert stated that the truck, which is in one of the pictures, wasn't used in Iraq. Even the rifles in the picture are believed to be the wrong ones. And here is another thing, how come only the American photo's show the troops faces, but the British pictures do not

Originally posted by mulberryblueshimmer

Originally posted by jsobecky
I agree. This is another case of stupid, headline-seeking, politically motivated activity meant to )1 make a name for someone and 2) make things worse for the coalition. It will have the negative effect of stifling future co-operation into prison inspections around the world.

What happened to the ICRC's strict policy of never publicly releasing its reports into prison conditions?

Idiots.

I absolutely CANNOT believe the both of you wrote that!

I am stunned to the point of....... words fail me.

go get a clue. And while you're finding that clue can you go find out what the geneva convention is and how it's been violated here?

[Edited on 10-5-2004 by mulberryblueshimmer]

You better believe I said it, sunshine. I said it before, and I'll say it again - it is going to cause more of our troops to be killed just so someone can get a byline or a scoop or better ratings, or for political gain. It's already beginning, in Iraq and other places.

The tone of your response seems to indicate that I condone torture of prisoners. If that is your conclusion, then you had better learn to read, and not put words where they didn't exist before.

Give the information to the Senate, and punish those responsible. Same objective is reached, without the troops being put in further danger. Photos have already been released; what purpose is served by releasing more of them?

You may not care if more of our troops are needlessly killed. I do. And I couldn't care less about the Iraqis.

And yes, I have read the Geneva Convention in regards to treatment of POWs.

Once again, I ask: What happened to the ICRC's strict policy of never publicly releasing its reports into prison conditions? Do you have any clue as to why that policy was adopted to begin with? Whoever leaked that information should be held accountable.

Originally posted by Hoaks
It's interesting, how some people suddenly are silent, when the relevance of the few "faked" (porn) images falls away, against the true magnitude of the tip of the iceberg we are seeing.

Originally posted by mOrbid
Well... where are all the people who are always praising HOW GOOOOOOOOOD is the current administration now?

I find them very silent suddenly.

First of I just have to laugh that some people seem to be glued to their computers waiting for something to argue about, its pathetic really.

Some of us don't use all our free time looking for something to argue about, but i decided to take up the challange after I saw this thread.

Second of all it appears that some people are actually exagerating the reports, or not reading well what the newspapers have said.

Lets take this one step at a time so you can understand it.

First this is what the BBC wrote;

"The government has confirmed it received the Red Cross report in February - weeks before claims surfaced in the press. "

Excerpt taken from.
news.bbc.co.uk...

It says the "government" knew it "weeks" before the claims surfaced in the press, not years, and who made the report public?

"But Mr Cook said it was important that the government did make the report public."

What? the government made the report public? hummm.....

We also know that the president is not the first person to read these reports, they go through different people until the papers reach the president, so he could have gotten these reports up to a week later if not later.
Anyone in here knows for sure and has some links as to how long it usually takes for the president to get such reports?

Lets continue. So why is it that people are believing that the Bush and UK administrations knew this for a year or more? Lets first see what the BBC reports..

"Spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin told Sky News on Sunday: "The concern we have been expressing for a year now deals with a general pattern of mistreatment of detainees.

"We were warning of the fact that the treatment given to prisoners and in particular the way they were prepared for interrogation is not acceptable from the point of view of the Geneva Convention." "

Okay, so they told someone about this a year ago, but who? As I continued to read the report i didn't see them mentioning to whom they reported this. So lets check the report from the Sunday Herald.

"Since April 2003, US authorities in Baghdad have got monthly reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

A senior source at the ICRC said: �It doesn�t matter which report it was, we had been telling the US and UK authorities in Baghdad for over a year about the scale of this [abuse and torture] problem. They had been given 10 or more reports. All detailed the same findings. They knew this had been going on for a year.� "

Excerpts taken from
www.sundayherald.com...

I wonder what they mean by saying, "it doesn't matter which report it was..."
For some reason they don't want to say what sort of report it was?.......

I think we can clearly see in here that the ones who received the "whatever report it was" were the authorities in Iraq, then in February of this year the government got the "whatever report it was," after it got to the white house, we know all the red tape that any papers go through, it finally reached the president a few weeks before "the government" made the report public.

One of the newspaper, "Sunday Herald" made the wrong assumption that the president knew this a year ago or so.

Of course part of this is my opinion, but it would be good to know "what kind of report was it" that the ICRC don't want to mention. Perhaps it wasn't as detailed as they purported it to be?

BTW, no administration is that "gooooood"

Tsk, Tsk....I wasted to much time in this.


[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Muaddib]

I agree that because of the prisoners abuse pictures being releast to the public has placed our troops in more danger, but who's fault is that ?? I place the blame on Bush and his administration and no one else. Right before 9/11 happened, Bush was given papers to read, instead he left them lay on his desk and went off to his ranch. On 9/11 , where was Mr. Bush ??? He was reading to a classroom of children when the planes hit the towers. So now he sends some of our troops out to get Bin Laden and his people, swearing that he'll get Bin Laden . Has Bin Laden been caught yet ??? NOPE !!! So now Bush decides to start a war with Saddam, using the WMD as the reason to go into Iraq and also to free the Iraqis from a dictatorship under Saddam, but , swearing that he KNOWS that the WMD are there and Saddam is a threat to all Iraqis and the world . So now we're in Iraq and there are NO WMD to be found, but, Saddam is finally caught ( Mr. Bush is happy, he's got the man that threatened his daddy ,..... never mind that hundreds of thousands of lives had been taken from both sides in "his" war, Bush got what HE was after, and the big companies that helped get him elected, got what they were after,... the oil ), but Bush needs to make hisself look even better and to let the world beleive that he is still after Bin Laden and the terrorist groups, so now hundreds of Iraqis are captured and held in prisons, our troops not knowing forsure if the people they have captured are terrorist or not, but being abused and tortured just the same , to get information.
HHHHUUUUUMMMMMMM !!! So I'd say, that Mr. Bush and his administration are at total fault for everything.
Our troops would not be there IF Bush had never lied to begin with, we wouldn't be burying our dead service-people if Bush had not lied and started this war. The Iraqis would not be detained in prisons where they are being abused by the MP's and others , if Bush had not lied,..................... and now Bush and his administration will not even be "men" enough to admit that they knew what was going on in those prisons and allowed it to go on, but are willing to put the blame on the ones in the prisons that were supposively following orders on how to abstract information from the Iraqis.

Heads should roll and it should be Bush and his administration that should be the ones charged for whats happened and I also beleive that the U.S. as a whole has the right to know what is going on and taking place, because, what goes on in Iraq while our trops are there effects the people of the U.S. too.

Just my opionion.

There are so many people here that are so outraged over the treatment of the Iraqi prisoners.

The ICRC and others have claimed that they have been reporting prisoner abuse for over a year. Well, we must have climbed right out of the planes and tanks and started abusing prisoners, since we've only been there about one year. Sounds a little fishy to me...

There is a thread going on in ATS about US prison inmates that save their money and buy flat screen TV's.
US citizens in US prisons, buying TV's by saving their meager little salaries. Fine by me; it's their money.

BUT YOU SHOULD SEE THE OUTRAGE IN THAT THREAD. PEOPLE ADVOCATING ANAL RAPE AND SHANKING OF THESE PRISONERS. PEOPLE SAYING THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO A TV, SINCE THE COMPLAINERS CAN'T AFFORD ONE.

Same people, by the way, who are so outraged at the way the Iraqi's are treated.

Same people who have said that our soldiers should be summarily executed, but the Iraqi's that threw people off of buildings should receive fair trials, prayer mats, and balanced meals.

I can't figure that one out.

Originally posted by nanna_of_6
never mind that hundreds of thousands of lives had been taken from both sides

Hundreds of thousands of lives taken by both sides?

Are you counting lives taken since WWII?

And about the president reading to som children when 9/11 happened....I doubt the president knew about 9/11 and did you expect him to have an m16 in hand patrolling the borders himself??

Another poster exagerating and not looking at any of the facts.

The WMD has been discussed before, perhaps you will find some posts about them informative.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Muaddib]

And AP is just reporting this:

Video Seems to Show Beheading of American

5 minutes ago


CAIRO, Egypt - A video posted Tuesday on an Islamic militant Web site appeared to show a group affiliated with al-Qaida beheading an American in Iraq (news - web sites), saying the death was revenge for the prisoner-abuse scandal.

The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit who identified himself as an American from Philadelphia.


After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and cutting off his head with a large knife. They then held the head out before the camera.

This from here
Here

But it cannot be true, of course. There is no link between Iraq and al Qaeda. And of course it is Bush's fault, right?

I knew more of this would happen.

By Muaddib
Tsk, Tsk....I wasted to much time in this.

Looks to me like you haven�t �wasted� enough.

By Muaddib
"The government has confirmed it received the Red Cross report in February - weeks before claims surfaced in the press. "

Excerpt taken from.
news.bbc.co.uk...

It says the "government" knew it "weeks" before the claims surfaced in the press, not years, and who made the report public?

Yes, the government says it received that report but funnily never read it. The M.O.D also confirmed they received reports related to Iraq last October and last May. Geoff Hoon is the defense secretary in charge of the M.O.D but claims he never saw it. A fact he�s getting ripped for over here at present. Amnesty met Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office officials last June, and the government responded two weeks later with a letter. Yet of course, between now and then everyone seems to have forgotten about the whole thing..

By Muaddib"But Mr Cook said it was important that the government did make the report public."

What? the government made the report public? hummm.....

Umm� you seem a little confused. Do you know who Mr Cook is? He is the Ex Foreign Secretary who resigned over the decision to go to war last year. The quote you gave was from him demanding the government release the report, not confirming they�d done so. He�s not in the government.

By Muaddib
We also know that the president is not the first person to read these reports, they go through different people until the papers reach the president, so he could have gotten these reports up to a week later if not later.
Anyone in here knows for sure and has some links as to how long it usually takes for the president to get such reports?

Do you seriously believe Rumsfeld, Bremer, and the M.O.D knew about it and Bush didn�t? Hell, even the Australian Government knew about it, and yet Bush didn�t. Right. Bush may not have known about it for as long as Rumsfeld, but even Rumsfeld admits he briefed him about it in January.

By Muaddib
Lets continue. So why is it that people are believing that the Bush and UK administrations knew this for a year or more? Lets first see what the BBC reports..

"Spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin told Sky News on Sunday: "The concern we have been expressing for a year now deals with a general pattern of mistreatment of detainees.

"We were warning of the fact that the treatment given to prisoners and in particular the way they were prepared for interrogation is not acceptable from the point of view of the Geneva Convention." "

Okay, so they told someone about this a year ago, but who? As I continued to read the report i didn't see them mentioning to whom they reported this. So lets check the report from the Sunday Herald.

The allegations of knowing about the abuse for more than a year are not solely about Iraq. Again you seem a little confused. The allegations of the U.S and U.K receiving reports on abuse in the last year are to do with Iraq. The allegations that they knew of abuse for two years are to do with abuse going back to the Afghanistan war.

From the same article:

Teresa Richardson, of Amnesty, said: �We have been delivering reports on these violations to the US authorities since the period between 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq war. The abuse and torture, in Afghanistan, goes back two years.�

But hey, forget the papers. Let�s go straight to the source of the allegations:

In an open letter to US President George W. Bush today, Amnesty International said that abuses allegedly committed by US agents in the Abu Ghraib facility in Baghdad were war crimes and called on the administration to fully investigate them to ensure that there is no impunity for anyone found responsible regardless of position or rank.

Amnesty International said that it has documented a pattern of abuse by US agents against detainees, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, stretching back over the past two years.

Despite claims this week by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to be "stunned" by abuses in Abu Ghraib, and that these were an "exception" and "not a pattern or practice", Amnesty International has presented consistent allegations of brutality and cruelty by US agents against detainees at the highest levels of the US Government, including the White House, the Department of Defense, and the State Department for the past two years.

news.amnesty.org...


But of course, you believe the government version. Always been the wise option, they�ve never got a reason to lie have they?



[Edited on 11-5-2004 by kegs]

The australian government knew "two months ago" about the same time the government of the U.S got the report, not two years ago, that's first.

"THE Australian Government was told at least two months ago that prisoners in Iraq were being tortured by US soldiers, human rights groups have revealed."

From the same link you posted.
www.thecouriermail.news.com.au...

About Mr Cook comment, yes at first i did misunderstand what he meant, but anyway, do you mean for the government to release the "it doesn't matter which report it was" document?

And once again, the people that Amnesty sent the letters to were the officials in Baghdag, not to the U.S.

BTW give links if you are going to quote anyone, links are important, and give out the facts too, the australian government says they knew it two months before it was on the news.

I would appreciate it if you could do me and the general population a favor by calling this torture instead of abuse in the future. I would ask you to change the subject line to torture, but since a mod or ATSNN editor has to do that... such a plea would fall on deaf ears, I believe. Rightly so; they're busy people, and I am sure you are quite busy, yourself.

refer to my thread on this matter, if you like:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Muaddib,

The australian government knew "two months ago" about the same time the government of the U.S got the report, not two years ago, that's first.

"THE Australian Government was told at least two months ago that prisoners in Iraq were being tortured by US soldiers, human rights groups have revealed."

From the same link you posted.
www.thecouriermail.news.com.au...

Right, true enough. Now try and relate that to the other points. This relates to the Iraq torture and what the governments are actually admitting to knowing. If you�ll remember at the start of this nobody seemed to know anything about it �until I seen it on the T.V�.

About Mr Cook comment, yes at first i did misunderstand what he meant, but anyway, do you mean for the government to release the "it doesn't matter which report it was" document?

The point is, the government can�t claim that one document had more terrible or damaging information in it than the other. The Red Cross is saying that it doesn�t matter if the government claim to have received one document and not the other, or if they release one document and not the other, every document says the same thing.

And once again, the people that Amnesty sent the letters to were the officials in Baghdag, not to the U.S.

Right. So Amnesty International is lying about what Amnesty International sent to U.S authorities. Makes perfect sense.

BTW give links if you are going to quote anyone, links are important,

What links? Every quote I gave that wasn�t referenced was given in an earlier link in this thread. And here�s me thinking you were paying attention.


AlnilamOmega, I agree with you but I�m calling it abuse at the moment for... �diplomatic� reasons I suppose. I don�t want a news thread turning into an argument on symantics. Sorry.

Hundreds of thousands of lives taken by both sides?

Are you counting lives taken since WWII?

And about the president reading to som children when 9/11 happened....I doubt the president knew about 9/11 and did you expect him to have an m16 in hand patrolling the borders himself??

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

700 troops have been killed in Iraq and thousands of Iraqi citizens have died there too, since we entered on to Iraq soil , without being asked for help by any of the Iraqi people.

I doubt very much if that Idiot Bush knows what a M16 is, let alone, how to use it. It is funny how "some" people forget, or want to wish-it-away, that Bush went AWOL for a year, the man (cough, cough ) wasn't brave enough to serve his country like the other veterans were and did , but boy or boy Bush sure wants to "play army" NOW, when he's safely tucked-away , and has no problem with send our family-members and children over there to fight his Vietnam and die because of a LIE GW Bush told . I hope to GOD that the families that have lost loved one thanks to Bush, helps to vote him out of office with the rest of us intelligent people that know's Bush is no good.