Thursday, June 19, 2008

...CONGRESS -- FEITH CHICKENS OUT OF CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON TORTURE, REFUSES TO APPEAR WITH WILKERSON: Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith withdrew from a scheduled appearance before a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on torture yesterday because he did not want to to appear with Colin Powell's former chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was also testifying. Feith was to speak about his role in helping the Bush administration evade the Geneva conventions, but informed the committee through his counsel that he "would not appear today because he is not willing to appear alongside one of our other witnesses," said Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

"Mr. Feith's unwillingness to attend voluntarily and provide the truth about this government's actions shows a fundamental disrespect for Congress and the American people," Nadler said.

Wilkerson, who left the Bush administration in protest over Bush policies, has criticized Feith's competence, saying "seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Seated next to Feith's empty chair, Wilkerson testified that Vice President Cheney probably knew that the U.S. was using torture at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. "At what level did American leadership fail?" Wilkerson asked. "I believe it failed at the highest levels of the Pentagon, in the Vice President's Office and perhaps even in the Oval Office."

TORTURE -- MEDICAL EXAMS BACK UP CLAIMS OF DETAINEE ABUSE UNDER U.S. CUSTODY: In an interview with the New York Times, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, military lawyer for a Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, said "the Bush administration's war crimes system 'is designed to get criminal convictions' with 'no real evidence.'" Military prosecutors "launder evidence derived from torture," Kuebler said, adding, "You put the whole package together and it stinks." At the same time, a report released yesterday by the Physicians for Human Rights gives credibility to Kuebler's claim of detainee abuse. "The first extensive medical examinations of former detainees in U.S. military jails offer corroboration for prisoners' claims of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of their American captors," the report found. "The assessments of 11 men formerly held in U.S. detention camps overseas revealed scars and other injuries consistent with their accounts of beatings, electric shocks, shackling and, in at least one case, sodomy." Physicians for Human Rights used "teams of medical specialists" to conduct the "physical and psychological tests, including exams intended to assess if the subjects were lying." In a statement, ret. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, "who led the Army's first official investigation on Abu Ghraib, said the new evidence suggested a 'systematic regime of torture ' inside U.S.-run detention camps."

In an interview with the New York Times, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, the military lawyer for Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, said "the Bush administration's war crimes system 'is designed to get criminal convictions' with 'no real evidence' and that military prosecutors "launder evidence derived from torture." "You put the whole package together and it stinks," Kuebler said.

Under a wiretapping bill set to be approved by the House, U.S. phone companies would receive immunity and "be shielded from potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits." As a "compromise," the bill would also "allow a federal district court to dismiss a suit if the company was provided written assurances that Bush authorized their participation in the spy program and that it was legal."...

Changing the long-accepted rules on interrogation required concerted action. From left: Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, then vice-presidential counsel David S. Addington, then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, President George W. Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney. Photo illustration by Chris Mueller.