# Rumsfeld: Don’t tell Junior! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 7, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022 "2004-05-07T15:44:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/41 "2004-05-09T11:49:20Z")
If Bush approved of the torture, why did Centcom launch its investigation against his wishes and charge the torturers with crimes? Also, who were the 12-year-old boys who were fucked up the ass? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/42 "2004-05-09T12:40:43Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > If Bush approved of the torture, why did Centcom launch its investigation against his wishes and charge the torturers with crimes? His approval or acquiescence is evident in his lack of any attempt, _even now_, to do anything at all that might be even vaguely interpreted as being aimed at preventing a recurrence. > [@Libertarian](#): > > Also, who were the 12-year-old boys who were fucked up the ass? > [@](#): > > [U.S. says no plans yet to close Abu Ghraib > Rumsfeld warns that worse images of prison abuse still to come > NBC, MSNBC and news services > Updated: 11:09 p.m. ET May 08, 2004](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/) > > But Rumsfeld warned the committee that the worst was yet to come. He said he had looked at the full array of unedited photographs of the situation at Abu Ghraib for the first time Thursday night and found them “hard to believe.” > > “There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he said. “… It’s going to get a good deal more terrible, I’m afraid.” > > Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/43 "2004-05-09T13:20:17Z")
I think charging Bush with approving of the torture really does take it one step too far. He does still seem to buy the idea that he was given this mission by God and that we are always the good guys. While I highly doubt he wasn’t told, I suspect they did keep the pictures from him. Without the graphic evidence it is pretty easy to convince oneself that the abuse was exagerated, or missinterpereted, especially if that is what you want to believe. I know that this kind of thing happens in all wars, but i wonder if this has an added edge because of how unprepared our troops were were for the reality of the situation. These were people who were told they were going in to liberate the people. They were told that they would be welcomed as heros. They believe they are risking their lives for the benifit of the Iraqis. That perception of ingratitude may be a contributing factor. Any study of the region’s history should have told someone the Iraqis would just let someone inhabit their country, no matter how good the intentions, but then again no one seems to have studied much about the region besides its oil deposits. They walked into this war with lots of petrolium engineers contracted to help and almost no translaters. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/44 "2004-05-09T13:31:14Z")
> [@furlibusea](#): > > I know that this kind of thing happens in all wars, but i wonder if this has an added edge because of how unprepared our troops were were for the reality of the situation. These were people who were told they were going in to liberate the people. They were told that they would be welcomed as heros. They believe they are risking their lives for the benifit of the Iraqis. That perception of ingratitude may be a contributing factor. A very good point. Makes a lot of sense. The _Boston Globe_ newspaper carried a story recently on the death of a local soldier in Iraq. The young man’s grief-stricken mother was quoted as having said of the Iraqis “How can they be so ungrateful?” ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/45 "2004-05-09T13:32:08Z")
I can see that you’re buying into the “isolated incident”, “few bad eggs” story, **furlibusea**. That just ain’t how it went down. > [@](#): > > [UK forces taught torture methods > David Leigh > Saturday May 8, 2004 > The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html) > > The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. > The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. > > One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: “It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn’t know what they were doing.” > > “The crucial difference from Iraq is that frontline soldiers who are made to experience R2I techniques themselves develop empathy. They realise the suffering they are causing. But people who haven’t undergone this don’t realise what they are doing to people. It’s a shambles in Iraq”. > > The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops. > > “The feeling among US soldiers I’ve spoken to in the last week is also that ‘the gloves are off’. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11”. > > When the interrogation techniques are used on British soldiers for training purposes, they are subject to a strict 48-hour time limit, and a supervisor and a psychologist are always present. It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/46 "2004-05-09T13:51:38Z")
I am not sure we are saying dissimilar things **Desmostylus**. It is systemic because the soldiers are unprepared, uneducated, undermanned, undersuppervised, and underequipped. The very lack of knowledge of the culture and the history of the country they are dealing compounds abuse that always happens in war anyways. Making it possible for ordinary men and women to go kill many other human beings seems to be a process of dehumanising the “targets,” and almost any interview you hear with returning soldiers seems to show this dissapointment that the Iraqis didn’t seen ti appriciate our effort. ---
**Author:** ![imthjckaz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/imthjckaz/32/3223_2.png) [@imthjckaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/imthjckaz)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/47 "2004-05-09T14:05:17Z")
> [@cornflakes](#): > > Furthermore, instead of handling things in private, Bush responded by loudly and publicly complaining that nobody tells him anything. From where I sit, the guy looks doubly clueless: they don’t trust him with the truth, and he can’t help but admit it. Well to be fair to the staff, when told that the President should be made aware of these developements, they did what they normally do, they informed Cheney. Easy mistake. > [@World Eater](#): > > We only have the stupid American public to blame for 4 more years of this. Only if the smart American public allows them too. And that worries me, because I meet stupid people everyday. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/48 "2004-05-09T14:05:34Z")
> [@furlibusea](#): > > I am not sure we are saying dissimilar things **Desmostylus**. It is systemic because the soldiers are unprepared, uneducated, undermanned, undersuppervised, and underequipped. We’re saying slightly different things. I don’t disagree with what you’ve said, but I’d go a step further and pin the blame a bit higher up. I’m of the opinion that the torture was a deliberate policy decision on the part of Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney. Look, the establishment of Guantanamo Bay was a major step. It wasn’t a minor thing that Rumsfeld did, that Bush and Cheney were unaware of. That _had_ to have been approved at the very highest level. Sending Miller, the guy in charge of Guantanamo Bay, over to Iraq last September to set up the interrogation process might have been something that Rumsfeld did on his own. But at this late stage, sending Miller _back_ to Iraq, ostensibly to sort out the problems at Abu Ghraib, is a firm stamp that the treatment of the prisoners there is being conducted according to _official policy_. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/49 "2004-05-09T15:26:44Z")
> [@cornflakes](#): > > I think it’s absurd that any top dog would want to claim cluelessness about anything that happens on his watch. The same sort of thing is happening here with the Liberal sponsorship scandal. Basically, the new Prime Minister is claiming that he didn’t know the teeniest little thing about major disbursements of funds, many of which happened while he was finance minister. So either 1) our prime minister is lying through his teeth, or 2) our prime minister used to be a finance minister who had no idea where hundreds of millions of dollars was going. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/50 "2004-05-09T16:14:36Z")
I wonder how much the high ups knew of this, > **[The Times & The Sunday Times](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/)** > > News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times Was this during Clintons reign or Bush ? All the same, you would have thought the FBI must have notified to senior levels, and surely if terrorists threats were to be takne seriously, someone would have tried to recruit the subject to gain some details as to how significant this threat was. It does give the lie to the idea that those whose role it was had no idea about 9/11 prior to those events. There does seem to be a policy of cluelessness, perhaps deliberate, or maybe incompetance. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/51 "2004-05-09T16:40:44Z")
Sorry **casdave** can you say what we need to get out of that link, I am afraid I can’t do another paid subscription this month. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/52 "2004-05-09T18:25:05Z")
Is the link not working ? What I’m trying to say is that not all information gets up the chain to the top, and sometimes it can be absolutely crucial stuff. When 9/11 took place, there was an inquiry into the affairs of counter-terrorist organisations, and I would have thought the FBI would be included in this. Somehow the information in the link I posted did not seem to get to that inquiry. I would have thought that this would appear to be a deliberate omission, or whatever purpose. Was Rumsey aware ? How did this not make the inquiry? Had this matter been raised at the inquiry, then surely the agency that did not investigate the matter further would have had to account for its behaviour. It may point to concealment of relevant facts, but on whose authority ? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/53 "2004-05-09T18:34:43Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > Is the link not working ? We non-Brits must pay in order to see much of the Time’s content. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/54 "2004-05-09T18:48:58Z")
I see, well I guess I’ll have to post some of that link. > [@](#): > > Briton trained as 9/11 hijacker > Christina Lamb > > A FORMER waiter in a Manchester curry house was recruited by Al-Qaeda and trained as a hijacker in preparation for the September 11 attacks. > The British Muslim was enlisted at a mosque in Oldham and attended terrorist training school in Pakistan. But he had second thoughts about his suicide mission as he flew to America and surrendered to the police after gambling away thousands of pounds given to him by Al-Qaeda. > > The FBI’s counter-terrorism taskforce questioned the 29-year-old man for three weeks at Newark, New Jersey, in the spring of 2000. There, agents refused to believe his claim that terrorists were planning to fly passenger jets into buildings, even though he passed lie detector tests. > > Other hijackers were entering the United States at about the same time and enrolling at flight schools to learn the skills they would need, only 18 months later, to carry out the world’s most audacious acts of terrorism. > > The failure to investigate the Briton’s claims was one of a startling series of missed opportunities that have emerged in inquiries by a US commission examining the September 11 attacks. His case has now been reopened amid wrangling between the FBI and British authorities. > > The man, whose name is being withheld by The Sunday Times because his life is under threat from militants, was brought back to Britain in 2000 by two FBI agents and handed to British security officials at Heathrow airport. > > He was then questioned by Special Branch and released. The FBI believes the British authorities failed to follow up the case or pass on any relevant intelligence. An urgent request to find the man after September 11 was ignored, although Special Branch officers have said they went back to him and took “appropriate action”. The FBI has now asked for him to become a witness in their investigation. I must point out that this publication is slightly right of cnetre in its worldview but is generally regarded as being accurate, if not slightly dull and unsensationalistic. It seems on rereading the article that an inquiry has indeed raised this issue, I am surprised it is not making as much headlines as perhaps it might, but then Sunday is often not the biggest news day of the week. ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022/55 "2004-05-09T20:13:30Z")
> [@Desmostylus](#): > > The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys. _Iraqi guards_ ? There say now that there were _Iraqi guards_ in that prison (or in others)? Since when do the occupyers employ (read: trust) _Iraqi guards_ for guarding the “dangerous Iraqis”? And _Iraqi guards_ were _raping_ young boys? Well, call me incurable sceptical, but unless the occupyers rounded up some Iraqi pedophiles or frustrated homosexuals or some ex-Sadam-torturers or some people belonging to the mini-mini minority of non Muslim population, I think I shall need to _see_ the evidence of such a claim before I can imagine myself that _Muslim Iraqi guards_ can be ordered by the foreign occupyers to rape young boys. If there were _Iraqi guards_ effectively doing this, I would vote for the ex saddam torturers. Seems very consistent to me with the US policy there. As for Bush and Rumsfeld being so stupid to openly declare that they did not see “any pictures” until a few hours before they said they didn’t see them: If they think that is a good PR show, they “ain’t seen nothing yet”. Making such a claim only adds to the impression that they by all means want to cover up the Cover Up. In addition they come across as extremely stupid in handling this covering up the Cover Up. If they were not in the least interested in seeing the pictures about the abuse they were informed about months ago, it means that the whole thing had not a shred of their interest and was considered as the normal procedure for “handling” prisoners. Transfer these feelings to Iraq and the rest of the region and you get an idea why those pictures keep showing up in the media, why Bush’s patethic arrogant paternalistic monologue had nobody’s interest and why his pictured is carried around with “Terrorist Die” as decoration. Salaam. A [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-don-t-tell-junior/244022.md?page=2)