Shedding Light on Torture

If you stumble upon the Baltimore Sun's online letters to the editor page today and scroll far enough down, you'll find this entry from Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita:

Abu Ghraib Abuses Not Part Of Policy

The Sun's article "Interrogation rules for Army held up" (Nov. 16) inaccurately portrayed both the interrogation policies of the Department of Defense and the timing of the release of the U.S. Army's new interrogation field manual.

First, the illegal abuses that "came to light in the Abu Ghraib scandal" had virtually nothing to do with interrogations. With one exception, the prisoners in the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs were criminal suspects with no assumed intelligence value.

In flagrant violation of regulations and policies, they were mistreated as a form of unlawful punishment or amusement by prison guards. Long prison sentences for some of those individuals have been meted out, and there may well be additional sentences for others.

In fact, many of the now-infamous images were from an appalling birthday bash held one night for a soldier who has since been court-martialed.

Second, there was no "planned release" of the Army interrogation manual scheduled for Nov. 17, as The Sun's article asserted, nor was the release delayed by the White House "buying more time."

From the beginning of this process the intention was that the new manual would be issued when it was ready and properly vetted by the appropriate civilian and military authorities, rather than according to any particular timetable.

Lawrence Di Rita, Arlington, Va.

Update: Anyone curious as to the results of Mapes and Hersh's attempts to portray the actions of a few sick individuals as "US government policy" might appreciate this interview with one of the victims of their scam:

You’ve also spent some time downrange. Where were you from January 2004 to January 2005?

Primarily, I was at the Abu Ghraib prison. I was part of the 53-person team — 53 give or take — that set up the first hospital there to treat the detainees. I was there until end of September. Then, I was involved with the travel nursing program of Iraq. I went to Camp Victory. I spent time at Baghdad in the international zone. I spent time at Balad at the Air Force hospital and then spent time at Mosul.

What was it like to be at Abu Ghraib amongst all the controversy, the photos, etc., with so much attention focused on the detainees and their treatment there?

In February, we started setting up at Abu Ghraib, and the stories broke in April, I believe. At that point of course, the frequency of attacks increased. It got bad. We had [mass casualties] of 120 and 109 patients. Mortars landed in the detainee camps. Our primary mission was to treat detainees. It was very frustrating because every news reporter that came through, every VIP that came through from all over these countries, the only thing they wanted to know was what we did with the abused prisoners. We’re like, “We haven’t even seen any abused prisoners since we’ve been here. There are none.” I never saw one the whole nine months I was there … It was very frustrating for my soldiers to have to witness all this, and the good didn’t get out about what we were doing.