Wash. Times editorial whitewashed Bush administration's role in detainee abuse

A January 23 Washington Times editorial asserted that "[j]ust as a few MPs at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq acted disgracefully ... there may be legal wrongs and/or morally questionable acts that interrogation personnel conducted at Gitmo or other sites." But in suggesting that responsibility for detainee abuse at those detention facilities was limited to "a few MPs" at Abu Ghraib and "interrogation personnel" at Guantánamo, the Times ignored the conclusions of a 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report released jointly by chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and ranking member John McCain (R-AZ). That report found: "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 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."

Indeed, as Media Matters for America has noted, while former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney have asserted that torture at Abu Ghraib was, in Cheney's words, "not policy," the Senate Armed Services Committee report found that the "abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own" and that "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody."

Moreover, the same report found that "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there."

From the Senate Armed Services Committee report:

(U) 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 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. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority. This report is a product of the Committee's inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about.

[...]

Conclusion 13: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there. Secretary Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 approval of [Department of Defense general counsel] Mr. [William] Haynes's recommendation that most of the techniques contained in GTMO's October 11, 2002 request be authorized, influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques, including military working dogs, forced nudity, and stress positions, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[...]

Conclusion 19: The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

From the January 23 Washington Times editorial:

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, or "Gitmo," as the swabs call it, has become a symbol. Just as a few MPs at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq acted disgracefully (seven were convicted by courts martial, sentenced to prison and given dishonorable discharges), there may be legal wrongs and/or morally questionable acts that interrogation personnel conducted at Gitmo or other sites. The Cuban naval base is not considered by the court system to be a part of the United States, and therefore detainees are denied rights granted to criminals under the U.S. Constitution.