One of Ours

New York Times

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and one of his top aides authorized the expansion of a secret program that permitted harsh interrogations of detained members of Al Qaeda, allowing these methods to be used against prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to an article in The New Yorker.

The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reported that Mr. Rumsfeld and Stephen A. Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, approved the use of the tougher interrogation techniques in Iraq in 2003 to extract better information from Iraqi prisoners to counter the growing insurgency threat in the country.

Mr. Hersh's account, to be published in the May 24 issue of the magazine, said that the expansion of the "special access program" allowed authorities in charge of Abu Ghraib to engage in degrading and sexually humiliating practices...

[...]

A military official who worked in Iraq on detention issues said on Saturday that a covert task force of military and intelligence officers had operated in Iraq, but that it had appeared to limit its contact with the jailers at Abu Ghraib.

The official said that the covert operators worked out of their own highly secret and well-guarded compound in Baghdad, where they held captives incommunicado and questioned them for relatively short periods of time before turning them over to the jailers at Abu Ghraib.

"They had their own mission," the official said. "They picked up their own people. They were operating under their own rules. So we had nothing to do with that. It would have been a huge security violation for anyone else to be in there."

The official said the group was no longer working in Iraq.

The official said the Baghdad compound where the team worked was so closely controlled that other military and intelligence personnel could not enter it without having clearance or the authorization of the commander of American forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez. The official declined to discuss what interrogation techniques the covert team used, but said it generally turned over prisoners to Abu Ghraib after 72 hours.

[...]

Mr. Hersh wrote, [the solution to the insrugent problem] "was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents." Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cambone went a step further, the article said, expanding the scope of a secret program by "bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan."

[...]

At the Pentagon, the chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, vigorously denied the allegations that Mr. Cambone directed a covert program to encourage the coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners.

"It's pure, unadulterated fantasy," Mr. Di Rita said in a telephone interview. "We don't discuss covert programs, but nothing in any covert program would have led anyone to sanction activity like what was seen on those videos."

"No responsible official in this department, including Secretary Rumsfeld, would or could have been involved in sanctioning the physical coercion or sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners," Mr. Di Rita said.

Some elements of the New Yorker article have been previously reported, including the special interrogation program for Qaeda prisoners captured in Afghanistan. That program, authorized by government legal opinions that said that Qaeda prisoners were "illegal combatants" not protected by the Geneva Conventions...

For Hersh's accusation to be true, Rumsfeld and Cambrone would have had to have perjured themselves in front of the Senate last week.

They certainly might dissemble, equivocate, avoid or refuse to answer. But it was clear at that point that it all was going to come out. Classified documents had already been released to the press on this issue. Lying would serve no purpose except to ensure Rumsfeld's arrest.

While I am no a big fan of Rumsfeld, I will have to see some real evidence before I believe they committed a felony by lying under oath.

UPDATE: The Pentagon just issued a press released titled "Statement from DoD Spokesperson Mr. Lawrence Di Rita" in direct respose to the Hersh piece:

"Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture.

"The abuse evidenced in the videos and photos, and any similar abuse that may come to light in any of the ongoing half dozen investigations into this matter, has no basis in any sanctioned program, training manual, instruction, or order in the Department of Defense.

"No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos.

"To correct one of the many errors in fact, Undersecretary Cambone has no responsibility, nor has he had any responsibility in the past, for detainee or interrogation programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world.

"This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the Department of Defense."

That is as unequivocal a denial as it is possible to make.

Or to put it in French -- somebody is full of shit.

Since the DoD people are on record and Hersh's sources are all anonymous, and unless there is some more evidence that comes to light at a later time, I would have to say that I believe the DoD in this instance.

I must return to my original position. Based on the evidence provided so far, I just do not believe that Rumsfeld would perjure himself under oath.