Top US general hoodwinked over interrogation

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Top US general 'hoodwinked' over aggressive interrogation

# Richard Norton-Taylor

# guardian.co.uk,

# Friday April 18 2008

The US's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian can reveal.

The development led to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo 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was duped by senior officials in Washington - who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date - is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts from which will be published in tomorrow's Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, a professor of law at University College London, reveals:

• Senior figures in the Bush administration pushed through previously outlawed measures with the help of unqualified and inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

• Myers believes he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of the vice president, Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.

• Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army's field manual.

The lawyers who pushed through the interrogation techniques - all political appointees - were Alberto Gonzales, David Addingon and William Haynes.

Others involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's undersecretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

The revelations have already sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book.

They are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.

The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo and the Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad, by blaming junior officials.

Sands's book establishes that pressure for the aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the very top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.

Myers, the most senior military officer of the most powerful country in the world, was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done.

Full story, source: The Guardian