Orders From The Top:
Retired General Dunlavey: Guantanamo Mission Came Straight From Bush, Rumsfeld
When military investigators questioned Erie County Judge Michael E. Dunlavey about reported prisoner abuse during his tenure at the Guantanamo Bay camp for suspected terrorists, Dunlavey told them he got his “marching orders” from President Bush, according to a new book about U.S. policies regarding torture.
The book, “Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond,” relies on government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to trace the development of what the authors claim was prisoner abuse and torture that emerged in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The book uses Dunlavey’s words to place him, a retired two-star general in the U.S. Army Reserve, at the advent of the development of what have become disputed interrogation policies.
In a statement Dunlavey provided to a U.S. Air Force lieutenant general investigating FBI reports of detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Dunlavey explains that as leader of interrogations at Guantanamo, he reported directly to President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
He acknowledged the use of loud music and dogs and shackling prisoners in the fetal position during interrogations, but stressed repeatedly that the standard was to treat detainees humanely. The military investigation into the claims of abuse at Guantanamo Bay found no reason to reprimand Dunlavey.
In the statement to U.S. Air Force Lt. General Randall Schmidt, as summarized and sworn to by Schmidt, Dunlavey said:
- Rumsfeld summoned him to a meeting on Feb. 21 or 22, 2002, attended by Rumsfeld, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and others. The date was two weeks after Bush had issued a directive denying al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners protections under the Geneva Conventions.
- Dunlavey said at the meeting, Rumsfeld told him that the Department of Defense had “accumulated a number of bad guys.”
Rumsfeld wanted these prisoners interrogated to identify senior Taliban leaders and other operatives and obtain information about future plans, Dunlavey said.
“Our mission was to stop Americans from being killed,” Dunlavey said, according to the report.
- Dunlavey, an intelligence specialist, said he had interrogation experience dating back to the Vietnam War and had conducted more than 3,000 interrogations. Rumsfeld needed a “common sense way to do business,” Dunlavey said.
“The SECDEF (Secretary of Defense) said he wanted a product and he wanted intelligence now. He told me what he wanted; not how to do it.”
- Dunlavey said he was first directed to report to military officials, but then ordered to work more closely with President Bush. “The directions changed and I got my marching orders from the President of the United States,” Dunlavey said. “I was told by the SECDEF that he wanted me back in Washington, D.C., every week to brief him.”
The new book also includes the now well-known October 2002 memo in which Dunlavey asked for permission to use more-aggressive interrogation tactics at the camp, including the use of dogs and extreme cold.
ACLU’s role in book
Authors Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union, seek to link official military and civilian policies to the emergence of alleged prisoner abuse, torture and death in places such as the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba, the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere.
They base their argument on documents the ACLU obtained from the government through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“The Bush administration has professed a commitment to democracy and human rights and claimed solidarity with those who struggle against tyranny. But these documents show unambiguously that the administration has adopted some of the methods of the most tyrannical regimes,” the authors write.
The Erie Times-News currently has an appeal pending over the Department of Defense’s refusal to release to the newspaper documents relating to Dunlavey’s tenure at Guantanamo.
The summary of Dunlavey’s statement about practices at Guantanamo in the new book provides the first detailed account from Dunlavey, who has repeatedly said policy prevented him from commenting.
Dunlavey, an Erie County Court judge, agreed Thursday through a spokesperson in his chambers to review questions about the book from the Erie Times-News and answer them if he felt they were “appropriate.”
He had not yet responded Thursday night.
He previously told the Erie Times-News that detainees at Guantanamo were “not prisoners of war the way we were trained for, or the (kind the) Geneva Conventions envisions.” However, he has said he believes the tactics developed for their interrogations were “consistent with the Geneva Conventions.”
‘I treated them as human beings’
Rumsfeld called Dunlavey from his seat on the Erie County Family Court bench in February 2002 and placed him in charge of interrogations at Guantanamo in March 2002. Dunlavey, 61, was elected judge in November 1999.
Portions of Dunlavey’s role in the development of interrogation practices after 9/11 have been well-publicized.
After the images of abuse and torture of prisoners emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the government released a series of documents to explain the development of interrogation policy in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The government maintained, and many refuted, that what happened at Abu Ghraib was not the result of government policy.
The Department of Defense released documents in June 2004 showing that while Dunlavey was commander at Guantanamo, he sought permission from Southern Command to use more extreme interrogation tactics, including convincing detainees that they and/or their families faced imminent death, scaring them with dogs, and exposing them to cold temperatures or water.
Most of Dunlavey’s proposed methods, excluding the most severe, were approved by Rumsfeld in late 2002, but then retracted in early 2003. Dunlavey stepped down from his post at Guantanamo in early November 2002.
For the first time in the new book, “Administration of Torture,” military documents that purport to show Dunlavey’s view of the mission at Guantanamo have been released.
In the statement, as summarized by Schmidt, Dunlavey said the camp was in disarray when he arrived.
“The facility consisted of literally a dangling fence,” he said.
The detainees were not in control, he said.
“They were shaking out their blankets and throwing food,” he said.
Some threw feces on guards, fashioned weapons, even urinated on female interrogators, he said.
The guards, he said, were living no better than the detainees were.
Dunlavey also said most of the interrogators had little experience.
“The linguists were worthless. They came out of school and could order coffee, but they were getting smoked by the detainees,” he said.
Dunlavey acknowledged loud music, shouting, dogs, and shackling were used to intimidate or control detainees. But he denied they denied the prisoners food or water or allowed female interrogators to taunt the detainees with their bodies.
He said he clearly communicated his task force rules.
“The Geneva Conventions applied. I treated them as human beings, but not like soldiers. They had significant culture. The rugs and beads were significant to me. I let them practice religion,” he said.
The Book
“Administration of Torture” (2007, Columbia University Press), is not available in local bookstores.
What Dunlavey said
Excerpts from a summarized witness statement Erie County Judge Michael E. Dunlavey provided on March 17, 2005, to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, who was investigating FBI complaints about abuse at Guantanamo.
The document is published in the new book “Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond,” by Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh.
“The SECDEF said he wanted a product and he wanted intelligence now. He told me what he wanted; not how to do it.”
“Initially, I was told that I would answer to the SECDEF and USSOUTHCOM … The directions changed and I got my marching orders from the President of the United States.”
“The mission was to get intelligence to prevent another 9/11.”
“Virtually no one had a degree of expertise to deal with these people. They do not subscribe to our values legally and morally.”
“The detainees were treated humanely. They had a high status of care. … Humane is who we are as the American military.”
“My first lesson was in Vietnam. I went out in the field and the South Vietnamese had two POWs. They got screamed at and kicked around. I watched what was going on. … There was a big plate of boiled rice with flies on it. I asked one of the POWs when he had last eaten. He said, ‘Four days ago and water two days ago.’ … I had a canteen. I drank and gave him a drink. It worked. I got his name.”
“Keep in mind, they don’t like dogs. Unless dogs are on patrol, they would be in an interrogation room. Using dogs is equal to the Fear Up technique. It breaks their concentration in their response to the interrogation techniques. They would be thinking about that dog. Is that dog a real threat? Absolutely not.”
“We physically removed an FBI agent when he went across the desk at a detainee.”
© 2007 Erie Times-News
What is despicable about people like Dunlavey is: why did he follow “The orders”, if he considered them as inhuman and violation of international laws? Didn’t he know that “following those orders” amount to torture. Why is he speaking about them now after HIS RETIREMENT? What happened to his conscience THEN? Was it dead? What is the difference between him and a contract killer? He “followed the orders” in order to save his skin and job. That means he does not mind killing and torturing innocent people if it is “beneficial” for him.
This has become a trend in America: those in responsible positions start speaking against the government policies after THEIR RETIREMENT. Shameless!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Probably the first fatal flaw with the entire episode of torture is the fact that a HUGE percentage of detainees were simply dragged in off the streets for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The innocent were thrown in with the truly bad guys, then they were ALL presumed to be terrorists….. so the interrogators had no way of sorting it all out, so they relied on the one SURE method of getting confessions for their reports!!
Someday there will be an international tribune to bring the TRUTH to light and the GUILTY to justice!!! One can only hope the TRUTH will come to light and the ORIGINAL ARCHITECTS OF TORTURE will be PUNISHED!!
This guy Dunlavey, is a Family Court Judge!?!? God help us! This man is Criminal Scum. No different than the Nazi Death Camp Commandant that gives the daily order to Gas another load of Jews & Gypsies, then goes back to his comfy Home, sits by the fire, and gives his daughter a trinket for her birthday. Sick and Disgusting…
Wilhelm Keitel
Conspiracy to wage aggressive war: Guilty
Crimes Against Peace: Guilty
War Crimes: Guilty
Cimes Against Humanity: Guilty
Sentenced to: Death by hanging
Keitel was the Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces while Hitler was in power. He attended all of the conferences that discussed the plans for war.
Although he testified he was opposed to the invasion of the U.S.S.R., he ultimately helped plan the invasion. Evidence also showed Keitel was aware of the plans to rid Poland of Jewish people. He also issued orders to kill Communists.
There was no mitigation evidence to be heard, and his defense that he was just following orders as a soldier is not valid under the Charter.
This man was tried, sentenced, and executed for following orders. Just because you “follow orders” doesn’t relieve you from the moral responsiblity to refrain from committing atrocities. His admission of the torture and maltreatment of the detainees under his command makes Mr. Dunlavey a war criminal and he should be tried in the same manner as Mr. Keitel was.
Leave it to Americans to damage people and planet with their cars, houses, music and dogs.
bush is a nazi. his family always talks about eugenics and how their rich, soft muscled, pale breed is the only one that deserves to survive. the bushes invented the nazis to this end. what we are seeing now is the nazi victory lap re wwII, now that bush power has killed jfk, rfk, mlk and john lennon ( add harrison and wellstone ).
gitmo is purely for boy bush’s sadistic entertainment. we all know this, and are obligated to bring his pathetic ass to justice on it.
That is usually when abuse occurs…when emotions run high as they did after 9/11 and exactly why you need to stop and think before acting.
But, this does not excuse the continued use of torture tactics, “renditioning” and secret prisons in countries where torture is considered normal behavior.
Great article by Naomi Wolf, from her book; The End of America: A
Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html
Time is running out… Time to stop the Fascist take over of America.
The neocons are following a blueprint, a ten step process to undermine democracy and impose a dictatorship. Read what Ms.Wolf lays out.
Its not too late to stop these sadistic bastards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc
How democratic societies are closed down:
The Blueprint for Dictatorship in the US — the 10 Steps.
1.invoke an internal and external threat;
2. create a secret prison system outside the rule of law where people are tortured;
3. create a paramilitary force; (Blackwater operated in New Orleans & just got a $1 billion contract to operate in the US. The president can declare martial for any reason he now sees fit;)
4.create a surveillance apparatus to oversee and intimidate the entire population;
5. arbitrarily detain and release citizens; infiltrate citizen’s groups, break down trust between individuals;
6. military-industrial-media complex profits off the creation of an enemy external and internal;
7. make up lists of critics and dissidents; restrict travel
8. restrict the press, e.g., invocation of the espionage act; vocabulary of demonization expands;
9. recast dissent as treason;
10. declare martial law; the use of crony federal attorneys in the rigging of elections; electoral fraud—but elections continue to exist, merely corrupt. Judiciary still exists, but becomes corrupt; there are still academics, but they learn to be quiet; there are still newspapers, but they know what is allowable.
“We need a democracy movement now, rising up…. No time to waste, millions of people… When people start to wake up, that’s when they crack down harder… A national uprising to restore democracy… Not enough to impeach… Criminals must be put behind bars… Ordinary people must … take on the role to restore democracy…the time to stand up is now”
Talk by Naomi Wolf author of “The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot” given October 11, 2007 at Kane Hall on the University of Washington.
The enlisted personnel serving time for torture should be released immediately. What kind of commander-in-chief or any leader for that matter would let somebody under his command be punished for doing as she was told? George Bush’s moral code is something he should examine the next time he is sitting in church demonstrating his piety.
He has the morals of an alley cat.
Too bad these two NeoCon war criminals will never see the noose that took ‘uncle’ Saddam from us.
TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
orders from bush and rumsfeld? my god, what a shocker!
Sad part in all this? You drones will demmand he be impeached, period. He’ll coo coo and poo poo,….while rat-holing the billions he and his minions made off of suckering you fools into mass murder. AND laugh for years reliving the “glory days” with his key minions. All the while, YOU should have demmanded he be taken into custody, handed over to the world court, tried, convicted and hung. Just like they did to another murderer who, (although Hussein didn’t murder NEAR the humans your sweet president did/does), finally got what HE deserved. A nation of sheep, led by a cartel of whores controlled by Israel/big business. Welcome, to the REAL Evil Empire.
You heard of the Milgram experiments? Seems like those who resist the orders are the exception rather than the rule.
Watch the Town Hall:
http://www.cbc.ca/bigpicture/human.html
SPECIAL GUESTS:
Ret. Colonel Chris Corrigan, Trained Canadian officers leading Afghanistan mission
Sherene Razack, Author, Dark Threats and White Knights
Alex Gibney, Filmmaker, The Human Behavior Experiments
Chris Hedges, Author, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
Aidan Delgado, Former Soldier at Abu Ghraib prison
Janis Karpinski, Former Brigadier General in charge of Abu Ghraib prison
Barbara Coloroso, Author, Just Because It’s Not Wrong Doesn’t Make It Right
Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Omar Samad, Afghanistan Ambassador to Canada
Avi Lewis: “When the infamous Abu Ghraib photos first came out, I had a wicked case of déja vu. We had seen gruesome trophy photos of soldiers posing with tortured corpses before: Canadian soldiers in the Somalia Affair of 1993. Watching Alex Gibney’s latest film, I realized that this pattern keeps repeating. We put ordinary people in what are called “atrocity-producing situations”, and they are capable of things they would never have thought possible. But there is also a fierce debate about just how much the situation - or the system - determines our actions, and how much individual personalities are to blame.
This is a critical debate in a time of war. From the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to the slaughter of civilians by U.S. troops in Haditha, Iraq, to the uncertain fate faced by prisoners captured by Canadian troops in Afghanistan, this topic is begging for deeper discussion. Wherever you land in the debate afterwards, the film will challenge you to ask yourself what you would do if you were put in a situation where enormous moral courage was required to avert horrific acts. And in keeping with The Big Picture’s perpetual focus on solutions, we’ll also grapple with how we educate people to give them the moral strength to step up, or speak out, when life and death are on the line.”
Despite Congress’s support for torture, expressed through immunity granted to human rights violators, torture remains illegal under both US and international law. Under the jus cogens and ergo omnes doctrines, all governments have both the right and the duty to punish wrongdoers, no matter what their nationality, where the offenses occurred, whether they are “following orders” and no what offices they hold. If Congress is to redeem itself and restore a modicum of credibility to the US government, both domestically and internationally, it must hold hearings and repeal immunity. To do otherwise merely recruits terrorists and fuels rage in the Muslim world, consequences which cannot be overcome militarily no matter how much money and how many lives we squander. If the Democratic candidates are serious, they will introduce legislation to this end immediately.
Read the Wolf article and saw the Wolf video. The problem is that they do this in baby steps, for the most part, and only bigger steps right after a disaster.
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
The US has always done that - whether it is to keep voters minds off of the effects or reganomics or for the purposes Bush and Hitler put it to.
Remember that it wasn’t Regan who won the cold war it was Paul Henderson who scored the winning goal in the dying seconds of the eighth game of the Canada - Russia series of 1972. If Russia was so big bad and scary, what was Canada doing playing hockey with them - even to the point of going to Russia to cheer the team on.
8. Control the press
The baby step is to control the press’s access to the president. Those who ask the President tough questions get blackballed (Bush rewards reporters who ask him easier questions by calling on them again, and punishes those who ask harder questions by not calling on them).
A person on another board said that they just removed MSNBC from his basic package but kept FOX News in the basic package. One is not technically being denied alternative coverage, but this policy does mean that one either has to pay more or employ more effort to get news other than what they have on FOX News. I can offer you to watch The National (which is on line for 24 hours after broadcast) but it takes effort to go on the computer and watch a news show on line every day. It is so much easier to lie down on the chesterfield and watch FOX on TV.
9. Dissent equals treason
This is harder under a parliamentary system than a Presidential one. Dissent has been encorporated into the system with Question Period (Canada), Question Time (Australia) or Prime Minister’s Questions (UK). The only thing that one can do to limit dissent is limit the amount of time that the House is in session.
5. Harass citizens’ groups
7. Target key individuals
One thing Wolf talks about in (5) is the definition of terrorist being very vague and that it could be used to describe peaceful protesters. The NDP brought that point up to the Liberals at the time that Bill C-36 (Canada’s Patriot Act) was passed, and the Liberals are on record saying that it would never happen.
I think that it may have happened in the case of Benjamin and Wright. But, then again, they could have been specifically targeted. We won’t know until they get the documents from the “Freedom of Information” Inquiry. And if that doesn’t clear it up, then we will know that the US censors more than it used to - which is also important information.
One thing that makes all this stuff happening more invisible is if it is due to a change in regulation or Ministerial direction (rather than legislation). That is why what Wright and Benjamin find out is so important - it makes the invisible visible - and the visible is easier to fight.
2. Create a gulag (secret prisons)
3. Develop a thug caste (Blackwater)
Seems that the US wanted immunity from war crime persecution even before 911. Clinton only signed it reluctantly, after opposing it’s creation. Bush passed something called “The Armed Services Members Protection Act” in 2001 and then used it as reason enough to revoke the signature. The next step that the US took was to threaten to block all further peacekeeping missions unless it obtained an exemption from the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the same time, the US signed treaties with other countries not to charge any American with war crimes. At the time Canada was quite concerned with the US’s position. Do you remember hearing about all that?
These dates are from articles on the CBC.
The International Criminal Court
PART TWO: CANADA AND THE U.S
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/warcrimes/icc2.html
U.S. vetoes extended UN Bosnian mandate (July 1, 2002)
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2002/06/30/un_bosnia020630.html
War crimes court born in spite of U.S. objections (July 2, 2002)
Canada ‘concerned’ about U.S. stance on criminal court (July 2, 2002)
Canadian ambassador attacks ICC exemption for U.S. (July 13, 2002)
U.S. drops demand to exempt troops from war crimes (June 23, 2004),
*(because of a crash the video still works for the articles provided but not the links contained within the articles don’t)
*(would have provided links for all of them, but my posts tend to get deleted if I put in too many links)
I am not remotely surprised by any of this revelation! I always knew who was responsible for giving the order to torture. I can understand a lot of people outrage that this man indulged in it without questioning then came out of the closet after he retired. To an extent I am to. But, one has to stop and think it’s easy to condemn when you haven’t been in those shoes. Military personnel have it beaten in their heads from day one they always obey orders regardless. You do as you are told, you don’t question your commanders motives. In the field you can’t always question your superiors or discipline breaks down. The same reason a lot of German’s wound up being tried for war crimes after WWII. Unless you are willing to place your life and career in jeopardy for your belief’s you wind up at some point being a part of it whether you like it or not. I would imagine that it’s easy to do. You have to trust your superior officers if you are in the military. That they are not going to do something that is detrimental to your country. But, I personally tend not to blame him as much as I do the sinister people who put the order in place to torture to begin with. They are the ones that everyone needs to go after! But, as yet, no one has gotten revolted enough by the corruption in the White House to do something about it. Bush should have been impeached the first term. In fact, it speaks a lot about American’s apathy for moral’s that he wasn’t brought to task for starting a totally unnecessary war!
Saddamize Bush - send him to the Hague for trial for war crimes or even better - to Baghdad to face a court of friendly Iraquis he liberated from Saddam.
“(Dunlavey) acknowledged the use of loud music and dogs and shackling prisoners in the fetal position during interrogations, but stressed repeatedly that the standard was to treat detainees humanely.
By the same token, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz deserve equally humane treatment when interrogated on their alleged war crimes.
peacemaker: Unless you are willing to place your life and career in jeopardy for your belief’s you wind up at some point being a part of it whether you like it or not.
So true.
For the record, not everyone who was conscripted into the German military were charged with war crimes - only those seen to have committed the attrocities most enthusiastically.
The Canadian argument before Abu Ghraib was that no one not planning to commit attrocities had anything to fear from the ICC.
The Red Cross said originally that 70 to 90% of all prisoners in Abu Ghraib were innocent of any crime. Others were found guilty of minor things, such as shop lifting.
That is one thing that the right tends to conveniently forget - that we were doing this to innocent people!
What would you do if your grandmother, mother or sister was in there? What about your grandfather, father or son?
WmC says: By the same token, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz deserve equally humane treatment when interrogated on their alleged war crimes.
Yet what would that make us if we were to treat them in that way? I would be satisfied with life in prison in an American prison - especially for Cheney.
Shouldn’t this judge be removed from office, and and he and lawyers such as John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales be disbarred for their advocacy of torture in clear defiance of international and domestic law? It’s more than just waterboarding; there have been a number of deaths under torture by US officials, and kidnapping, false imprisonment and disappearances lie at the heart of “extraordinary rendition” and “black sites”. These people, sworn to uphold the laws, are complicit in serious crimes that have rightly outraged the world, friends and foes alike, and added fuel to the Salafist terrorist movement.
I’m tired of eveybody saying its the apathy of the American people that this war goes on. The majority want Bush Impeached! The majority want this insane war to end! Its just that were SHUT OUT OF THE PROCESS! So put the blame where it belongs!