The Dogs Of War

‘IT is inconceivable that Saddam Hussein has been tortured while in captivity – because that is not the American way.

‘Donald, where’s your trousers?’

President George Dubya will tell you so, and insist that he has never, will never and whatever that other tense is never authorise torture.

Of course, there is torture and there is interrogation appropriate and consistent with military necessity.

And what may have looked like torture to you and us – using dogs, forcing detainees to adopt stress positions, isolation for up to 30 days, forced shaving, stripping, hooding and 20-hour interrogations – is nothing of the sort.

They are just, as the Independent explains, interrogation methods authorised by the Pentagon in general and by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in particular.

The paper says Rumsfeld complained in November 2002 that existing interrogation techniques were too soft.

‘I stand for 8-10 hours a day,’ he scribbled on one page. ‘Why is standing limited to 4 hours?’

At the end of a hard day, Rumsfeld also likes to strip naked, put a hood over his head and whistle for his neighbour’s Alsatian dogs…’

Posted: 24th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink