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was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva Conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role.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.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion