Bush-Cheney administration/torture

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Overview

There have been persistent reports, many of them documented, of official use of torture as a part of the War on Terror during George W. Bush's administration.

The first such incident to come to light was the Abu Ghraib abuses, but there have been others (e.g. Guantánamo).

Publicly, administration officials and spokespeople deny sanctioning or approving of torture, but certain of their legislative efforts appear to contradict this stance.

Quotes

• "The United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values. I have not authorised it and I will not authorise it." -- George W. Bush [1]

Law

Apparently Senator John McCain tried to add an amendment (to the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill) which would have banned "torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners"; VP Cheney has been campaigning hard to have the amendment modified to exempt the CIA from the ban. This article apparently describes what ultimately happened.

court decisions

• Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees "violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions"
• Rasul v. Bush (2004) established that the U.S. court system does have the authority to decide whether foreign nationals (non-U.S. citizens) held in Guantanamo Bay were rightfully imprisoned

News

• 2006-09-16 Bush's Fight with Congress over Torture Defines Our Character
• 2006-05-23 How Torture Became Mainstream by Alfred W. McCoy, Amnesty International
• 2005-11-07 Cheney Fights for Detainee Policy by Dana Priest and Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writers

Blog Posts

• "Body and Soul" blog:
  • 2005-11-07 14:55, 15:40
  • 2005-11-09
  • 2005-11-11