A new book reveals the US’ most senior general was hoodwinked by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantanamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva Conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.
The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva Conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role.
In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London, reveals that senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantanamo and that Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the Department of Justice, the office of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Department of Defense under the secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Sands also says the Guantanamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the US TV series 24 and that Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s Field Manual.
The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith — Rumsfeld’s under-secretary for policy-- and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.
The revelations have sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book.
The Bush administration has tried to explain away the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by blaming junior officials. Sands’ book establishes that pressure for aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the top and was sanctioned by the top lawyers.
Myers and his closest advisers were cut out of the decision-making process. He did not know that Bush officials were changing the rules allowing interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, amounting to torture.
“We never authorized torture, we just didn’t, not what we would do,” Myers said.
Sands comments: “He really had taken his eye off the ball ... he didn’t ask too many questions ... and kept his distance from the decision-making process.”
Larry Wilkerson, a former Army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, said: “I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralized [Myers] ... by cutting [him] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.”
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