Ghost Detainees

The real stories keep getting lost in all this campaign garbage. The NYTimes tells us:

Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the Central Intelligence Agency's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday. The total is far more than had been previously reported.

An Army inquiry completed last month found eight documented cases of so-called ghost detainees, but two of the investigating generals said in testimony before two Congressional committees and in interviews on Thursday that depositions from military personnel who served at the prison indicated that the real total was many times higher.

"The number is in the dozens, to perhaps up to 100," Gen. Paul J. Kern, the senior officer who oversaw the Army inquiry, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Another investigator, Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, put the figure at "two dozen or so," but both officers said they could not give a precise number because no records were kept on most of the C.I.A. detainees.

Why does the Bush administration hate international law?

C'mon people, really. Seriously. Don't hide detainees from the Red Cross. Don't torture them. Let them have tribunals to determine whether they're POWs or illegal combatants, as the Geneva Conventions require. Is this too much to ask from the greatest superpower in human history, that prides itself on cherishing human rights, that claims to fight wars for the good of the Iraqi people?

-- Michael

Comments

[Michael Miller]

"International law? I better call my lawyer!" -- George W. Bush, America-hater, freedom-hater, anti-lifer.