Rumsfeld authorized torture

While the Obama administration demurs on whether or not war crimes and violation of torture statues by Bush administration officials will beinvestigated, more and more evidence will bubble to the surface and the pressure to act will grow.

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

From Michael Scherer's blog today.

Previously an Army investigation found that the treatment of Qahtani was "abusive and degrading," but not quite "torture." As I reported with Mark Benjamin back in 2006, Qahtani was also "forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform 'dog tricks' on a leash. He received 18-to-20-hour interrogations during 48 of 54 days."

As Benjamin and I also reported, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was closely monitoring the interrogation, according to Army investigator Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt. Rumsfeld was "talking weekly" with Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was in charge at Guantanamo. "The secretary of defense is personally involved in the interrogation of one person [Qahtani], and the entire General Counsel system of all the departments of the military," Schmidt said, in a statement that Benjamin and I obtained. Of Miller's claim that he did not know all the grisly details of the Qahtani interrogation, Schmidt added, "There is just not a too-busy alibi there for that."

Whatever you think of the effectiveness of torture in gaining information, it is against U.S. law and evidence from it is inadmissible in U.S. courts. Because of the Bush administration's penchant for torturing suspects, it's unlikely a single person responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001 will face American justice. Maybe, at least, those responsible for that, will.