Update: Added some quotes and links to the extension. Did the administration’s desperation to find a smoking gun create an environment where torture was condoned (or encouraged) because the WMD leads had run out? (BushCo’s hand-picked 1000+ WMD sniffers weren’t doing much beyond underwriting everything the UN team said.) Were prisoners punished for not coming through, and further, made scapegoats for the deplorable circumstances of over-deployed, over-extended, repeatedly misled troops?

An Al Jazeera cameraman recounts his experience at Abu Ghaibri prison to Salon’s Phillip Robertson:

Like many other prisoners of Abu Ghraib, al Baz was never charged with a crime and did not have the opportunity to defend himself before any court. … As a civilian in occupied Iraq, he should have been protected by the Geneva Conventions, but instead, al Baz became the victim of a war crime perpetrated by U.S. soldiers.

Torturers often keep careful records; that is one of the odd but persistent features of the trade. It is never enough to destroy the captive — there must also be proof of the victory over him, a souvenir. … [T]he Abu Ghraib prisoners were well aware that they were being photographed. “I first knew that they were taking pictures when I saw that one of the computers had a picture of some prisoners as its desktop background. (05/08/04 Salon/Robertson)

Please visit the Reporters without Borders web site for more stories, and drop something in the jar. (Just because we don’t have a free press doesn’t mean the rest of the world shouldn’t.)

From the S,N! archives. Who’s being naive, Kay? dealt with a stunning about-face by BushCo’s own WMD bloodhound, David Kay, coming on the heels of a CISSM study of how the media covered the WMD issue. (The complete study (PDF) is also available in summary form.)

The stories were largely ignored by domestic the media, understandable in the case of the media criticism, but odd considering Kay’s prominence as a star expert making the case for invading Iraq. For Kay to go from saying he personally didn’t believe the president lied to asking him to come clean about WMDs suggests there was much more going on than met the eye.

“It’s about confronting and coming clean with the American people. He should say we were mistaken and I am determined to find out why,” he said. A White House official said it was “too early to draw conclusions.”

Turns out one of the issues bothering Kay was the treatment of prisoners. The military ignored his concerns:

David Kay … says he repeatedly told people about problems with the interrogation of prisoners, but the military ignored him. “I was there and I kept saying the interrogation process is broken. The prison process is broken. And no one wanted to deal with it,” Kay said. “It was too, too distasteful. This is a known problem, and the military refuses to deal with it.”

Were interrogators ordered to harden the techniques on prisoners because Bush was having difficulties aw-shucksing his way around the mounting disasters in Iraq and if so, who gave the orders? Further, did any hard interrogation deteriorate into abuse and torture as punishment for not getting the anticipated smoking gun?

The Pentagon fortuitously approved tougher interrogaton techniques in time for an onslaught of Iraqi POWs:

In April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and “sensory assault,” including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials.

The classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and represents the first publicly known documentation of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and psychologically stressful methods during questioning. …

The United States has stated publicly that it does not engage in torture or cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Defense officials said yesterday that the techniques on the list are consistent with international law and contain appropriate safeguards such as legal and medical monitoring. …

But Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the tactics outlined in the U.S. document amount to cruel and in inhumane treatment. “The courts have ruled most of these techniques illegal,” he said. “If it’s illegal here under the U.S. Constitution, it’s illegal abroad. . . . This isn’t even close.” (05/09/04 WP/Priest-Stephens)

See also the various articles cited in the previous post (extension) for signposts that the entire administration — yes, Commander Codpiece included — had to be aware, at the very least, that their interrogators were committing abuses and torture at various US/UK controlled prisons. Bad enough to look the other way, but to what extent were abuses encouraged? Prisoners were sent to torture-friendly “friends of democracy” regimes on the coalition of the willing. Was it a simple matter of returning foreign nationals or was there an understanding that torture was being outscourced?

To quote a Nuremburg judge, who gave the orders?