CIA turns against Bush administration

One of the recurring themes in the news of American maltreatment of Iraqi POWs is that the M.P.'s were acting under the direction of 'civilian intelligence programs.'

I worked for a number of years in jail/law enforcement in a large southern state. Several things stand out in the news stories I have seen.

1) The soldiers originally claimed that they were asked by civilian agents (CIA/NSA) to work the POW's over, to "fear them up." No experienced jailer would ever agree to play 'bad cop' for another agency. Such a request is an invitation to be framed for someone else's crime. I occasionally had other agencies ask me or others to do this in a civilian jail, and the request was always laughed at, and refused point blank.

2) M.P.'s, like civilian jailers, are not allowed to participate in the interrogation of prisoners. The soldier currently up on charges was referred to by a national guard/reservist buddy as a "damn fine mechanic." (!) Did any of these M.P.'s have ANY jail experience? In a force of 100,000 Americans, you will simply by statistical probability, find some people with jail experience. So who puts inexperienced guards over problem inmates? Further, why would the CIA, etc., use inexperienced guards? Obviously, because greenhorns would be ignorant of jail policy, and thus easier to dupe.

3) The American soldiers claim they were told that by participating in this 'hazing,' they would be helping to extract valuable info. But look at the pictures. They have zero intelligence or intimidation value. In most of them, the prisoners are masked, hooded, or looking away. The pictures don't demean anyone but U.S. soldiers. The average P.O.W. can tell his family he was in another part of the jail, and so was not abused. But the Americans are smiling and waving at the camera. I helped conduct numerous investigations in civilian jails, and never once wittingly posed for a photo (out of fear of inmate reprisal.) I also made sure my co-workers didn't appear on film, unless we were videoing evidence we PLANNED TO PRESENT IN COURT! Notice that not one "Civilian intelligence operative" appears in the photos. Were they holding the camera?

4) The pictures frequently show petite women in control of naked males; utterly unthinkable in Semitic cultures. In these particular photos, the males face is covered. Such pix have no intel or intimidation value, but are the most inflammatory scenes imaginable to Arab (and Israeli . . ?) eyes.

5) The family of one of the soldiers sent letters to 17 different Senators, as far back as Feb 2004, but got absolutely no response. Then suddenly, a week ago, the story gets the greenlight in both congress and the media. This story has totally overwhelmed the real intelligence earthquake: U.S. forces have found evidence that three nations made hundred-billion dollar under-the-table deals with Saddam in the U.N.'s "Food for Oil" program. Those three nations are China, Russia, and France. Each of them holds a seat on the U.N. security council, and claims to be a U.S. ally, although each opposed the invasion vehemently.

So, Why was civilian Intel running an operation in this prison? Were these P.O.W.'s officers, or in charge of WMD? What was the objective, for which Iraqi civil rights, and U.S. army careers finally sacrificed?
Why wouldn't the civilian intel use civilians to "extract" information from prisoners? If they had high level or sensitive intel to yield, why weren't they held in a CIA/civilian facility? Don't tell me that the new "Iraqi Police" couldn't have feared up these prisoners even more professionally than bumbling Americans.
Why is this story breaking NOW? Why are Senators acting so shocked NOW, when some of them were mailed this evidence 3 months ago, and possibly briefed in the NSC 2 weeks ago?
Why are Iraqi clerics, even anti-U.S. clerics, questioning the validity of the photos in Arab newspapers?????


[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Seekerof]

Great Post, it makes a lot of sense. Is this the start of WWIII

No Ycon, this is not WWIII.....

dr_strangecraft
Any thoughts why those soldiers within this prison system at Abu Ghriab (sp) had digital camera's and were taking pictures, though it was specifically forbidden to have such camera's and to take such pictures?



seekerof

...Bush have made too many personnal errors, and each time, denied his responsability to the CIA agents. These guy do a hard job for a few satisfactions, in fact, they don't like to be threated like that. It was sure they would take a revenge.

I've read this morning in a french newspaper (liberation) that the Washigton post claim to have more than 1000 pics ! This is a proof that the Bush administration and the military hierarchy knew about torture in Iraq military prisons. And they let them do, if they didn't encourage them to do it, until one man talked about it...

And why were they smoking indoors? It's fifty feet (or is it 100?) from any building's entrance. It's forbidden to smoke inside any military building.

as far as seekerof wondering about the cameras:

I have no idea who brought the cameras. Digital cameras are so tiny and pervasive nowadays that I think it'd be impossible to really keep them out.

The reasons I started wondering down this thread are that I thought it was really odd how the State dept. and the CIA both blamed each other for the whole 'weapons of mass destruction' presentation. It looked (to me at least) like bush was letting the CIA take the hit on that PR fiasco.

More telling was the administration's "outing" of an active CIA opperative in a U.S. embassy abroad. I've never dealt with the CIA or state dept. in any capacity, but I have seen how beaurocracies harbor people from prior administrations. I wonder how any president can trust the CIA and State dept., knowing that 90% of the workers in each institution were hired by the preceeding administration.

Examples like the Bay of Pigs, the Iran hostages rescue mission, and the 'forced landing' of a NSA spyplane in China in 2001 are just a few examples.

Colin Powell, rightly or wrongly, was against the first gulf war, as well as this one. I'm just thinking that it can compromise the mission when key leaders are not on board.

As much as everyone is blaming Rumsfeld (as they should), I'd be interested to hear from CIA and NSA station chiefs. They too had a responsibility to report torture and misconduct, a responsibility that the CIA at one time took seriously, in Croatia and Sudan. The CIA and NSA are expected to be familiar with the Geneva convention's Law of Land Warfare. Why didn't they intervene? They certainly had contact with both Senate and State dept., as well as the Army chain of command.

It seems odd that a battalion of MP reservists are supposed to be guarding important prisoners, in the presence of intelligence units. That just doesn't sound right.

Originally posted by curme
And why were they smoking indoors? It's fifty feet (or is it 100?) from any building's entrance. It's forbidden to smoke inside any military building.

Do you really think that people doing these kind of thing give a f**k about the rules ?

Does seem like this was a setup. I guess it's payback time for the Bush Administration....good post.

And why were they smoking indoors? It's fifty feet (or is it 100?) from any building's entrance. It's forbidden to smoke inside any military building.

my my, what a nice sense of priorities you have there!

screw the fact they were smoking! i could care less to be honest.

i guess the abuse issue is superceded now by your hatred of smoking and anger over the lack of enforcement of military smoking policy?'

i'm actually surprised by this...seriously.