Abu Ghraib Torture Claims Spook CACI, L-3 Communications

Will "outsourced" torture chickens finally come home to roost in American courts?

On June 30, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Burke O'Neil LLC, of Philadelphia and Akeel & Valentine, PLC, of Troy, Michigan filed a series of lawsuits in federal district courts in Maryland, Ohio, Michigan and Washington state against über-contractors CACI International, Inc., CACI Premier Technology and L-3 Services Inc., a division of L-3 Communications Corporation.

Monday's announcement by CCR follow close on the heels of a similar suit filed in May in federal district court in Los Angeles by Iraqi torture victim Emad al-Janabi, also against CACI International, Inc. and L-3 Communications. Named as a codefendant in the al-Janabi case is CACI interrogator, Steven Stefanowicz aka "Big Steve." Al-Janabi's attorneys claim that Stefanowicz directed some of the torture tactics deployed against their client, according to the Associated Press.

Al-Janabi told investigators that his "outsourced" interrogators punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame and kept him naked and handcuffed in "stress positions" in a filthy cell beginning in September 2003. Interviewed by The Associated Press in Istanbul, al-Janabi said:

"They (U.S. troops) did not tell me what was the reason behind my arrest ... during the interrogation, the American soldier told me I was a terrorist ... and I was preparing for an attack against the U.S. forces." (Greg Risling, "Iraqi Alleges Abu Ghraib Torture, Sues U.S. Contractor," The Associated Press, May 5, 2008)

Al-Janabi denied the allegations and told the Associated Press he was forced to give a false confession after "savage" intimidation by interrogators.

The latest suits, filed on behalf of four Iraqi civilians "wrongly imprisoned, tortured and later released without charge" from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and torture center according to CCR, were filed in four separate jurisdictions in which the individual contractor defendants reside. Alleged torture practitioners named in the suit include "Adel Nakhla, of Montgomery Village, Md., Timothy Dugan, of Pataskala, Ohio, and Daniel E. Johnson, of Seattle, Wash." The plaintiffs are:

Mohammed Abdwaihed Towfek Al-Taee, a 39-year-old taxi driver who was detained and horrifically abused for nine months before his May 2004 release. He later learned that he likely was the victim of a customer who presumably turned him over in exchange for American money for intelligence "tips."

Wissam Abdullateef Sa’eed Al-Quraishi, a 37-year-old married father of three, who was hung on a pole for seven days at the infamous Abu Ghraib "hard site" and subjected to beatings, forced nudity, electrical shocks, humiliating treatment, mock executions and other forms of torture during his incarceration at the prison.

Sa'adoon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, a 36-year-old Arabic teacher and shopkeeper and father of four, who was held for a year, caged, brutally abused at the prison "hard site," stripped and kept naked, and was a "ghost" detainee hidden for a time from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Suhail Najim Abdullah Al-Shimari, a farmer who was held for more than four years, including at the prison "hard site," was caged, threatened with dogs, and subjected to beatings and electrical shocks, and threatened with death and being sent to a "far away" place. ("CCR Files Four New Abu Ghraib Torture Lawsuits Targeting Military Contractors in U.S. Courts," Center for Constitutional Rights, Press Release, June 30, 2008)

According to Washington Technology, the complaints also allege that the defendants

...not only participated in physical and mental abuse of the detainees, but also destroyed documents, videos and photographs; prevented the reporting of the torture and abuse to the International Committee of the Red Cross; hid detainees and other prisoners from the Red Cross; and misled military and government officials about conditions at Iraqi prisons. (David Hubler, "CACI Calls Abu Ghraib Lawsuits Baseless," Washington Technology, July 2, 2008)

While an L-3 spokesperson had "no comment," CACI corporate communications executive vice president Jodi Brown told Washington Technology "CACI refuses to take these false accusations in these vexatious lawsuits lying down. We intend to set the record straight and will continue to fight the misguided and politically driven Center for Constitutional Rights to get the truth told and defend our good name."

Not so fast. Far from being "unsubstantiated" as CACI spokespeople assert, plaintiffs' attorneys were forced to file five separate lawsuits because in 2004, a federal District of Columbia judge refused to grant class-action certification for some 237 victims of alleged abuse by CACI and Titan employees, the Associated Press reports. The original complaint is still pending and charges made against defendants in that suit, Stefanowicz, Nakhla, Dugan and Johnson were dismissed by the court due to its alleged "lack of jurisdiction" not because they were "baseless allegations" as CACI claims.

However, it would appear that CACI and codefendant L-3 have their own "politically driven" motives for fighting off charges of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees by their employees: cold, hard cash--and lots of it.

According to Washington Technology's "Top 100 List" of high-flying corporations subsisting on U.S. government "national security" handouts, L-3 Communications clocked in at No. 8 with $3,944,840,524, while No. 17 CACI International Inc. "earned" some $1,337,472,153 as "federal government prime contractors."

Among L-3 "products" hawked to the federal government are C3ISR (command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems for the global intelligence and surveillance markets specializing in signals intelligence (SIGINT) and communications intelligence (COMINT). C3ISR "products" are used by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) for space-based spy satellite platforms as well as the National Security Agency (NSA). During 2007, according to Reuters, C3ISR "represented 17% of the Company's total net sales." Additionally L-3, "Government Services," raked in big bucks for shareholders, representing some 31% of total net sales. "Customers" include the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, as well as U.S. intelligence agencies. L-3's Aircraft Modernization and Maintenance division provides "upgrades and sustainment, maintenance and logistics support services for military and various government aircraft and other platforms." The AM&M division represents 18% of sales revenue.

CACI's "products" include Enterprise IT and network services, C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) platforms, information and "knowledge management" services, information operations and cyber security services. According to Reuters, CACI "is engaged in the simulation technology. The Company has diversified primarily within the information technology (IT) and communications industries." Amongst its "clients" can be found the "Justice Department, State Department, Defense Department, Housing and Urban Development Department, Navy, Army and Homeland Security Department," according to Washington Technology.

Vigorous proponents of the "free market," except that is, when it comes to the corporatist bottom-line, "accountability" is a rather fluid and dynamic concept better left to Wall Street analysts and upscale investors. According to CorpWatch investigative journalist Pratap Chatterjee,

Titan was bought by L-3 in June 2005 for approximately $2 billion in cash, specifically so that the company could expand its intelligence portfolio. "It elevates us a notch to be a prime contractor in intelligence" work, Frank Lanza, L-3's chairman and chief executive at the time told the Wall Street Journal. He noted that until then the company had been mainly a products company, making everything from night-vision goggles to sensors to luggage-scanning devices. Lanza noted that Titan had 9,000 employees with security clearance for classified work, of whom 5,000 had top-secret clearance, a classification that can take the government two years to process.

The buy-out was made on condition that the San Diego company settle outstanding federal charges of bribery as well as related shareholder lawsuits in California and Delaware for $67.4 million. In June 2006, Steven Lynwood Head, Titan's Africa president, pled guilty to making payments to support the 2001 reelection of President Mathieu Kerekou in the West African nation of Benin, where Titan was building a telecommunications system. The company paid $28.5 million to settle charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. ("Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq: A CorpWatch Report on L-3/Titan, CorpWatch, April 29, 2008)

CorpWatch discovered during its investigation that L-3's intelligence contract in Iraq requires the company to provide three kinds of personnel: analysts, interrogators and screeners. Chatterjee reports, "The company is required to provide a total of 306 people in 22 Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) at an average cost to the taxpayer of about $320,000 per person per year." While the L-3 Iraq contract was lucrative (after all $979 million is nothing to sneeze at), its still so-much chump change considering its other corporate "products" and total sales of $14 billion in 2007.

Meanwhile, between August 2003 to 2005, CACI provided up to 28 interrogators to the military in Iraq. According to The Washington Post, CACI's 2003 Iraq interrogation contract "was awarded in 1998, with the stated purpose of providing inventory control and other routine services to the U.S. Army." Post reporter Ellen McCarthy wrote,

The CACI contract with the Army is administered by the Interior Department, under an outsourcing agreement with the Army, which has made it even harder to track. (CACI Contract: From Supplies to Interrogation, The Washington Post, Monday, May 17, 2004; Page E01)

One "order" issued in August 2003, was worth $19.9 million dollars for a year-long stint of interrogation support. Additionally, in December 2003, CACI landed a $21.8 million "order" for Army "counter intelligence missions at secure and fixed locations," according to the Post.

Commenting on the cosy arrangement Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight told McCarthy, "'It's considered this fabulously successful streamlining of the system, but in the process you lose any accountability.' Brian said she described large, open contracts like the one given to CACI as 'hunting licenses'."

Speaking of the lack of contract transparency and enforcement, Chatterjee reports that according to the July 2004 Army investigation by "Lieutenant General Paul Mikolashek, on behalf of the Army Inspector General, found that a third of the interrogators supplied in Iraq by CACI had not been trained in military interrogation methods and policies." This despite the fact that CACI's contract "require[d] specific intelligence and technical expertise."

Indeed, Steven Stefanowicz (aka Big Steve) named as a codefendant in the al-Janabi complaint against CACI and L-3, had no formal training as a military interrogator or the Geneva Conventions on human rights. During the court-martial of Sergeant Michael J. Smith, an Army dog handler at Abu Ghraib, a military policeman testified that Stefanowicz directed the abuse "in one of the most infamous incidents photographed at Abu Ghraib: A prisoner in an orange jumpsuit being threatened by an menacing looking dog, a black Belgian shepherd named Marco," according to Salon investigative reporters Mark Benjamin and Michael Scherer.

Another of Abu Ghraib's infamous torture photographs released by Salon shows CACI interrogator Daniel Johnson placing an Iraqi prisoner in an "unauthorized stress position." Etaf Mheisen, a civilian translator with Titan Corp., was assisting Johnson during the interrogation. Army investigators concluded that there was "probable cause" that a crime had been committed, according to Mark Benjamin's 2006 Salon report. Corporal Charles Graner, convicted for his role in prisoner abuse told Army investigators,

...that Johnson told him to inflict pain by squeezing pressure points on the same prisoner's face and body and that he "roughed up" the prisoner at Johnson's instigation. Frederick told the investigators that Johnson twice personally interfered with the prisoner's breathing and that he copied him: "I would put my hand over his mouth and pinch his nose," so the prisoner could not breathe. (Mark Benjamin, "No Justice for All," Salon, April 14, 2006)

According to reporter Tara McKelvey, Titan Corporation translator Adel Nakhla (known as "Abu Hamid" at Abu Ghraib), and described as a "bully" by neighbors was named as a suspect in detainee abuse by Major General Antonio Taguba's investigative report. McKelvey reported,

In a January 18, 2004, statement in the Taguba report, detainee Kasim Mehaddi Hilas said he saw Nakhla sexually assault an Iraqi boy. Nakhla was "fucking a kid," said Hilas. "His age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw Abu Hamid who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass ... And the female soldier was taking pictures."

Taguba said he found the accounts "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses." He names Nakhla as a suspect in detainee abuse. But so far Nakhla has not been charged with any crime. ("The Unaccountables," The American Prospect, September 7, 2006)

Forced from the U.S. Army after uncovering the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, now retired Major General Antonio Taguba wrote in Broken Laws, Broken Lives published by Physicians for Human Rights,

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Despite posturing and bluster by CACI's Jodi Brown, justice for the victims of these heinous crimes may finally be served. Perhaps too, these well-connected corporate scofflaws and their war criminal friends in Washington just might be knocked off their privileged perches in the process.

One can only hope...

Total Information Awareness Finds its "Second Life" at IARPA

Like countless resurrections of Freddy Krueger, it appears that John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program has found a new, more accommodating home for its "mission" of "keeping America safe"--from the Constitution--at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA).

According to McClatchy investigative journalist Warren Strobel,

IARPA ... is the U.S. intelligence community's counterpart to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been in business for more than 35 years and is meant to be a small, flexible R&D agency that funds high-risk, but potentially high-payoff technologies. ("What's IARPA?", McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 30, 2008)

IARPA has been organized under the auspices of Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Mike McConnell, a former executive vice-president with spooky mega-contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. As Tim Shorrock reported in March,

As Booz Allen's chief intelligence liaison to the Pentagon, McConnell was at the center of action, both before and after the September 11 attacks. During the first six years of the Bush administration, Booz Allen's contracts with the U.S. government rose dramatically, from $626,000 in 2000 to $1.6 billion in 2006. McConnell and his staff at Booz Allen were deeply involved in some of the Bush administration's most controversial counterterrorism programs. They included the Pentagon's infamous Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme run by former Navy Admiral John Poindexter, which was an attempt to collect information on potential terrorists in America from phone records, credit card receipts and other databases. (Congress cancelled the program over civil liberties concerns, but much of the work was transferred to the NSA, where Booz Allen continued to receive the contracts.) ("Carlyle Group May Buy Major CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton, CorpWatch, March 8, 2008)

According to the agency's website, IARPA's brief is centered on three program areas:

Smart Collection, "The goal of the programs in this office is to dramatically improve the value of collected data from all sources."

Incisive Analysis, "The goal of the programs in this office is to maximize insight from the information we collect, in a timely fashion."

Safe & Secure Operations, "The goal of the programs in this office is to be able to counter new capabilities implemented by our adversaries that would threaten our ability to operate freely and effectively in a networked world."

There's no argument that preventing sociopaths--state-sponsored or otherwise--using malware to cause the meltdown of a nuclear power plant's uranium core or the sudden release of methyl isocyanate into the atmosphere should be a priority of any sane government. Certainly such laudatory goals would be optimized by writing better programs rather than through intrusive data-mining ops carried out by the state's outsourced and well-paid private "partners."

Unfortunately, we aren't dealing with a sane government here in the United States. According to Virtual Worlds News, one IARPA program seeks to "mine" information from virtual worlds and online gaming sites for its potential to "model" terrorist activity.

Reynard, a data-mining project from Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), is an exploratory effort to monitor activity in virtual worlds and online games and then model what terrorist activity in those worlds would look like. The Director of National Intelligence recently released a Congressionally mandated report on various data-mining projects of which Reynard is just one. While it's just an early effort right now, "If it shows early promise, this small seedling effort may increase its scope to a full project."

Data-mining is defined as "a program involving pattern-based queries, searches or other analyses of 1 or more electronic databases" in order to "discover or locate a predictive pattern of anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity...." and will now be ongoing "in a public virtual world environment. The research will use publicly available data and begin with observational studies to establish baseline behaviors."

No word on what world that will be in, but we already know that the CIA has a presence in Second Life and that IARPA has investigated Linden Lab's world as well. ("U.S. Project Reynard Mines Data Looking for Virtual Spies," Virtual Worlds News, February 25, 2008)

One can only wonder what IARPA will do once "baseline behaviors" are mapped! But apparently there's no need to fret since "the government understands that 'applications of results from these research projects may ultimately have implications for privacy and civil liberties,' so 'IARPA is also investing in projects that develop privacy protecting technologies,'" Secrecy News reports.

We bet they are! But as Strobel points out, "IARPA's ancestry is a wee bit interesting":

In the beginning, there was Total Information Awareness, a DARPA information-gathering program run by noneother than former Iran-Contra figure and Reagan national security adviser John Poindexter. Critics saw the program as a major, post-9/11 intrusion on American's privacy and civil liberties, and Congress killed funding for it in 2003. But there were persistent reports--confirmed by yours truly in conversations with former U.S. intelligence officials--that portions of the Total Information Awareness research had simply been shunted off to other agencies.

As readers undoubtedly recall, Total Information Awareness (TIA) was "terminated" by Congress when it learned that Poindexter was setting up a program that would sift through "public databases storing credit card purchases, rental agreements, medical histories, e-mails, airline reservations, and phone calls for electronic 'footprints' that might indicate a terrorist plot in the making," according to Shorrock's excellent read, Spies for Hire.

And to whom did DARPA turn to manage TIA? Why none other than Booz Allen Hamilton, of course! Joining SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), Booz Allen "won" some $63 million in contracts to run Poindexter's pet project. While the program--and contracts--were allegedly cancelled, portions of TIA had simply been spun-off to other agencies including the FBI and NSA.

Where else did TIA migrate? It turns out, many of its data-mining projects, including the Scalable Social Network Analysis (SSNA) operation, which seeks to model networks of connections like social interactions, financial transactions, telephone calls, and organizational memberships into a coherent analytical tool, were "assimilated" by the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), managed by NSA.

Strobel reports that "ARDA was later renamed, given the ominous-sounding moniker, Disruptive Technology Office." And now ARDA and DTO along with a "new and improved" TIA, have apparently been folded into IAPRA.

Which just goes to show, you can't kill off that which the state decrees is necessary for "your protection." As Wired's Ryan Singel advises online gaming enthusiasts, you'd better "be careful who you frag"!

Annals of Homeland Security: Crony Capitalism, Nuclear Terror and the "Advanced Spectroscopic Portal"

When the Department of Homeland Security announced in 2006 that it awarded contracts totaling some $1.2 billion over five years to Raytheon, Thermo Electron and Canberra Industries for "Advanced Spectroscopic Portal" (ASP) radiation monitors, it should have been reality-check time.

But Congress being what it is, it wasn't, and now massive cost overruns plague the project with little to show in way of "deterrence." As Global Security Newswire reported last May,

Raytheon and Thermo Electron are both headquartered in Waltham, Mass., in the district represented by Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee. Canberra Industries is headquartered in Meriden, Conn., in Lieberman's state. (Chris Strohm, "US Lawmakers Ask for Audit of Bush Administration Plans to Buy Radiation Detectors," Global Security Newswire, May 16, 2007)

Can you say congressional grifters well-attuned to the "needs" of their "constituents"--multinational defense firms "keeping America safe"--for their bottom lines? Let's take a peek at these DHS "winners."

According to Washington Technology, Raytheon Co. "earned" $5,170,829,645 in outsourced government contracts and was No. 4 on their "Top 100" list. How did they do it? If we're to believe Washington Technology, by "sticking close to their customers, developing contingency plans and looking for ways to make their customers' lives easier."

Raytheon provides a range of "services" including: "integrated defense systems, intelligence and information systems, missile systems, network centric systems, Raytheon Technical Services Company LLC and space and airborne systems" for the FBI, Navy, Air Force, Defense Department and the General Services Administration. Additionally, the company provides "enhanced information technology solutions and services through the GSA's Alliant IDIQ contract. The company is specifically providing infrastructure, application services and IT management services to support federal agencies. The 10-year contract is worth $50 billion, but is on hold as it undergoes further reviews by GSA."

GSA would be well-advised to take a very close look at Raytheon!

Thermo Electron, now Thermo Fisher Scientific, manufactures an array of analytical instruments ranging from biosafety cabinets to radiation measurement and protection systems. According to Thermo's web site, their Security and Detection Systems division "offers a full range of security products and services for the detection of nuclear materials, explosives, chemical and biological agents, and radiological protection. Our instruments are a first line of defense for first responders and border control personnel. Also, used in laboratories, nuclear, waste treatment and environmental monitoring."

Meanwhile, Canberra Industries' Homeland Security division, is a subsidiary of French nuclear-manufacturing titan, the Areva Group. Canberra claims that its mission is the "Prevention of a terrorist act involving nuclear or radiological weapons... Commitment to maintain constant vigil against those who would conspire to bring such acts of terror to our cities, and the commitment to arm those who protect our borders and ensure our security with the best available technology."

What has DHS gotten for our money as it maintains a "constant vigil" against terrorists threatening the heimat?

Sold as a high-tech "homeland security tool" that is able to provide increased capability to detect illicit nuclear or radiological material inside containers entering American ports "with low false alarm rates," it turns out the newfangled ASPs are no better than what's currently in place. Indeed, today's monitors are ill-equipped to distinguish between say, the components for manufacturing a radiological dirty bomb from--wait!--natural radiation emitters such as kitty litter, ceramics and bananas!

As originally sold, and bought, by Congress, DHS' Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) said each ASP would cost some $500,000 each to buy and deploy. But according to The Washington Post,

Now the nuclear detection office estimates that the total cost for each machine will work out to at least $778,000. The office said it needs almost $68 million "for the procurement and deployment" of 87 machines for one portion of the project, according to budget documents. (Robert O'Harrow Jr., "Radiation Monitors to Cost More than DHS Estimated in '06," The Washington Post, Saturday, June 28, 2008; D01)

A DNDO spokesman told the Post,

"The cost per unit of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal system has not increased in price. The cost was previously quoted to Congressional staff and the Government Accountability Office as approximately $377,000," Knocke said in an e-mail. "Congressional officials were also advised that there was a deployment cost associated with each system that includes a one year maintenance contract. The cost of deployment is approximately $325,000 and $400,000 per unit for current generation Radiation Portal Monitors and Advanced Spectroscopic Portal systems, respectively."

In other words, Congress was warned--and should have known--that massive cost overruns would be "factored in" to the original contract by these "enterprising" corporate malefactors. Indeed, the ubiquitous "some officials" dotting the Washington landscape like mushrooms after a warm rain, told the Post "the cost to buy and deploy the ASPs could climb even higher after the GAO completes an independent assessment this summer."

How much higher? No one knows for sure.

The project has been repeatedly delayed by technological glitches, management incompetence, indeed, by questions whether or not the newfangled ASP critters even work, according to GAO auditors.

When the program was first touted by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in 2006, GAO watchdogs questioned whether the expense was even worth it, since the "cost-benefit" report report submitted to Congress to win approval for deploying some 1,400 of the new devices were more expensive and that ASPs probably didn't perform "significantly better" than what was already taking up space and gathering dust at American ports.

Additional questions were raised by the veracity of the manufacturer's claims when the GAO discovered that ASP tests may have been rigged in order to "generate data for Chertoff's certification decision," as the Post delicately puts it.

The auditors found that the "tests were flawed because manufacturers of the monitors were allowed to conduct 'dress rehearsals' and calibrate their machines in anticipation of testing, which auditors said inappropriately enhanced the monitors' performance."

But since "failure is not an option" in the administration's ceaseless drive to "keep America safe," Chertoff has "delayed" certification since the machines "needed more work." However, DNDO is "preparing new tests" and has a goal of "securing certification" from Chertoff "by the beginning of fiscal 2009."

Congress responded "heroically." Rather than killing the program outright for its failure to deliver on advertised claims, they "cut $22.7 million from the program's requested budget." Senate appropriators said, "The Committee notes that certification of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitor systems by the Secretary will likely not occur expeditiously enough for quick obligation of the requested funds and has reduced this account accordingly."

But as with all assertions of "major technological breakthroughs" by corporate con men out to make a buck (remember DARPA's loony-quest for a "hafnium bomb"?) raising the specter of "nuclear terrorism" is a sure bet in Washington especially during an election year. One thing is certain however, the fear factory's well-heeled army of smooth-talking lobbyists will be ramping-up production lines for a "new and improved" ASP.

"Fighting Democrats" Rake-in Big Telecom Bucks

Here's some "shocking" news for those of you who still believe in the tooth-fairy or that substantial "principled differences" exist between Democrats and Republicans. Politico reported Tuesday,

House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week's FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision. (Chris Frates, "Dems Who Flipped on FISA Immunity See More Telecom Cash," Politico, June 24, 2008)

According to MAPLight, a watchdog group "that tracks the connection between campaign contributions and legislative outcomes," the 94 Democrats who changed their position on telecom immunity "received on average $8,359 in contributions from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from January, 2005, to March, 2008."

Despite congressional bromides about "national security" and "keeping America safe," what it all comes down too is cold, hard cash. Considering that legislation passed last week by the House will effectively quash some 40 lawsuits pending against telecom giants--with potential savings for these corporate grifters running into the billions--it doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude its a rigged game.

And despite efforts Wednesday by Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) to mount a filibuster against this onerous legislation, the Associated Press reports that 80 senators voted in favor of beginning debate while "only 15 senators tried to kill the bill by blocking debate." And with Senate "leaders" such as Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pressing for a Thursday vote, passage is a near certainty.

How do Democratic "leaders" spin the fabulous prizes showered on "team players" in the House? Politico's Chris Frates reports,

Nick Papas, spokesman for the House Democratic Caucus, said, "Many members of the caucus opposed the earlier version of this legislation and ultimately supported better legislation that was the product of bipartisan negotiations. Months of hard work, not campaign contributions, earned the support of many members."

But MAPLight executive director Daniel Newman told Politico, "unlike pressure from constituents, campaign cash is not a 'democratic influence'."

Indeed! But just for kicks, let's take a peek at a list of the Top 10 Democrats who changed their vote to support telecom immunity. MAPLight breaks it down by boodle received and congressional district:

PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint (January 2005-March 2008).

01. $29,500; James Clyburn, (SC-6).
02. $29,000; Steny Hoyer, (MD-5).
03. $28,000; Rahm Emanuel, (IL-5).
04. $27,500, Frederick Boucher, (VA-9).
05. $26,000, Gregory Meeks, (NY-6).
06. $24,000, Joseph Crowley (NY-7).
07. $24,500, Nancy Pelosi, (CA-8).
08. $24,000, Melissa Bean, (IL-8).
09. $22,500, Thomas Edwards, (TX-17).
10. $22,100, Joe Baca, (CA-43).

While such "contributions" may seem like a windfall to the folks back home struggling with high gas prices, for Congress' well-connected industry "friends" its so much chump change.

As Washington Technology's "2008 Top Government IT Contractors" detailed in May, telecoms fishing for taxpayer dollars have found the Bush regime a rather generous "partner" indeed. With contracts running the gamut from the Department of Defense to the 16 agencies comprising America's intelligence "community"--overseen by Booz Allen Hamilton alumnus Michael McConnell (No. 11 on Washington Technology's "Top 100" with some $2,401,528,741 in government payouts)--its a sure bet the telecoms got exactly what they wanted, immunity, and at bargain basement prices to boot!

Clocking in at No. 14, ITT Corporation raked in $1,800,281,433; at No. 18, Verizon Communications Inc. "earned" $1,320,637,982; at No. 25, Sprint-Nextel scooped-up $839,946,000; at No. 51, Qwest Communications International Inc. "generously received" $306,617,000; at No. 60, Comtech Telecommunications Corporation "handled" $276,880,406 in generous donations; at No. 77, ViaSat Inc., hardly a slouch, "merited" $192,844,980 in NSA and "defense-related" largess.

As MAPLight's Daniel Newman averred, "Who's more likely to get a meeting you or AT&T, which donates million of dollars and has the legislator's ear?"

Good question. But no matter how you divvy-up the spoils for gutting the Constitution and stripping Americans' of privacy rights, you'd have to agree it's still the best Congress money can buy!

What Bush's Torture Attorneys Wanted from SERE

The subversion of the rule of law by the George W. Bush administration was neither accidental nor contingent on executing its fraudulent "war on terror." On the contrary, within weeks of the 9/11 terror attacks while the remains of the Twin Towers continued to smolder, the foundations of the American Republic were consciously undermined by high regime officials.

Ideologically predisposed to governance via unlimited executive power, administration lawyers, many of whom identified with neoconservatism, exploited 9/11 as a salutary means to achieve an unsavory end: the creation of an authoritarian order where secretive--and highly-profitable--"public-private partnerships" served as a code for the "creative destruction" sought by their corporatist masters.

As Naomi Klein describes the processes in play after September 11:

Believers in the shock doctrine are convinced that only a great rupture--a flood, a war, a terrorist attack--can generate the kind of vast, clean canvases they crave. It is in these malleable moments, when we are psychologically unmoored and physically uprooted, that these artists of the real plunge in their hands and begin their work or remaking the world. (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007, p. 21.)

It is hardly a coincidence that Klein begins her exploration of "the shock doctrine" with a descriptive history of the CIA's MKULTRA "mind control" experiments of the 1950s and 1960s. Over time, CIA psychiatrists and paramilitary operators crafted a series of devil's dictionaries rooted in the soil of psychological terror and the quantification of human emotion. Both the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation and its deranged twin, the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual--1983, while creatures of America's anticommunist Cold War jihad have had a long-lasting and disastrous impact on U.S. military and intelligence policies.

While KUBARK was the monstrous offspring of MKULTRA, the 1983 Manual was a hybrid beast, a "product" lifted from KUBARK guidelines and from U.S. Military Intelligence field manuals written in the 1960s, the distilled "wisdom" of the Army's Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program code named "Project X." As Thomas Blanton and Peter Kornbluh describe,

The manual was used in numerous Latin American countries as an instructional tool by CIA and Green Beret trainers between 1983 and 1987 and became the subject of executive session Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in 1988 because of human rights abuses committed by CIA-trained Honduran military units. The manual allocates considerable space to the subject of "coercive questioning" and psychological and physical techniques. The original text stated that "we will be discussing two types of techniques, coercive and non-coercive. While we do not stress the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them." After Congress began investigating human rights violations by U.S.-trained Honduran intelligence officers, that passage was hand edited to read "while we deplore the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them so that you may avoid them." Although the manual advised methods of coercion similar to those used in the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. forces, it also carried a prescient observation: "The routine use of torture lowers the moral caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts those that rely on it…." ("Prisoner Abuse: Patterns from the Past," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122, The National Security Archive, May 12, 2004)

Bush's "War Council" of administration attorneys, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John C. Yoo and William J. Haynes II crafted a legal strategy for "handling" detainees in U.S. gulags that may very well lead to war crimes prosecutions for egregious breeches of international law.

Once this crew decided that "war on terror" detainees had no legal rights under the Geneva Convention and especially, Common Article 3, it set off a chain of events that ended in state-sanctioned murder and torture.

Nowhere was this grotesque strategy more apparent than in Bush administration moves to draft "enhanced interrogation techniques" for use at its Guantánamo Bay facility. But "what happened at Guantánamo, didn't stay there," as the "Gitmo regime" inevitably migrated to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soon after 9/11, the Pentagon and the CIA "began an orchestrated effort to tap expertise from the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape school, for use in the interrogation of terrorist suspects," writes Salon's Mark Benjamin, the investigative journalist who exposed the SERE school's role in implementing a harsh torture regime. Benjamin avers,

SERE training has nothing to do with effective interrogation, according to military experts. Trained interrogators don't work in the program. Skilled, experienced interrogators, in fact, say that only a fool would think that the training could somehow be reverse-engineered into effective interrogation techniques.

But that's exactly what the Bush government sought to do. As the plan rolled forward, military and law enforcement officials consistently sent up red flags that the SERE-based interrogation program wasn't just wrongheaded, it was probably illegal. ("A Timeline to Bush Government Torture," Salon, June 18, 2008)

Last Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) held hearings on the evolution of Bush torture policies. Memos and documents released by the committee paint a grim picture of what the administration sought from reverse-engineered SERE tactics.

Documents released by the SASC revealed that the SERE Training School, administered by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), conducted briefings and provided a detailed dossier on SERE tactics to the Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II in July 2002.

Indeed, according to international human rights attorney Philippe Sands,

"There were backchannels, unconnected communications," involving a military intelligence person and a non-military intelligence person, who was passing information outside. [Former Guantánamo commander Maj. Gen. Mike] Dunlavey couldn't remember his name. He told me that the most senior Washington lawyers visited Guantánamo, including David Addington, the Vice President's lawyer, with Gonzales and Haynes, at the end of September before he signed off on his memo. (Torture Team, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 47)

As Sands and other investigators, such as psychoanalyst Stephen Soldz have reported, moves to reverse-engineer SERE tactics by Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT) tasked to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, following explicit demands by Bush's team of torture attorneys, led to systematic and widespread detainee abuse. At Guantánamo and elsewhere, BSCT psychologists held operational positions and did not function as mental health providers but rather, were present at Guantánamo for the purpose of instructing personnel in the use of "enhanced interrogation" tactics, torture.

Below, I provide an abridged summary of SERE techniques exported to Guantánamo. Most, though not all, of the descriptions have been omitted, but I have provided SERE's full explanation of the purpose each technique hoped to achieve. The text is excerpted from documents released by the Senate Armed Services Committee; all are prefaced by the acronym "FOUO," For Official Use Only.

(Tab 3 -- Extracts) July 25, 2002 document entitled "Physical Pressures Used in Resistance Training and Against American Prisoners and Detainees." Attached to JPRA Memorandum of July 26, 2002.

1. FACIAL SLAP: Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

2. WALLING: Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

3. SILENCING FACIAL HOLD: Typical conditions for application: to threaten or intimidate via invasion of personal space, to instill fear and apprehension without using direct physical force, to punish illogical, defiant, or repetitive responses.

4. FACIAL HOLD: Typical conditions for application: to threaten or intimidate via invasion of personal space, to instill fear and apprehension without using direct physical force, to punish illogical, defiant, or repetitive responses.

5. ABDOMEN SLAP: Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

6. FINGER PRESS: Typical conditions for application: to instill apprehension or insult.

7. WATER: When this tactic is used, water is poured, flicked, or tossed on the subject. ... Typical conditions for application: to create a distracting pressure, to startle, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

8. BLOCK HOLD: The subject can be sitting, kneeling or standing with their arms extended out straight with the palms up. The interrogator puts a weighted block, 10-15 lbs., on their hands. The subject is required to keep their arms straight, told not to drop the block at risk of additional punishment. Typical conditions for application: to create a distracting pressure, to demonstrate self-imposed pressure, to instill apprehension, humiliation or cause insult.

(AFC Note: the "self-imposed pressure" above is described by Alfred W. McCoy in A Question of Torture as self-inflicted pain, that is, a CIA psychological technique to wear down the "subject" by deflecting responsibility for severe pain from the torturer to the tortured. "You are responsible for your suffering; it will stop when you cooperate.")

9. BLOCK SIT: Using a block with a pointed end that is pointed to the floor, the subject is told to sit on the flat top with feet and knees together. The knees are bent 90 degrees, and the subject is not allowed to spread their legs to form a tripod. The process of trying to balance on this very unstable seat and concentrate on the interrogator's questions at the same time is very difficult. Typical conditions for application: to create a distracting pressure, to demonstrate self-imposed pressure, to instill apprehension, humiliation or cause insult.

10. ATTENTION GRASP: Typical conditions for application: to startle, to instill fear, apprehension, and humiliation or cause insult.

11. STRESS POSITION: The subject is placed on their knees, told to extend their arms either straight up or straight to the front. The subject is not allowed to lean back on their heels, arch their back or relieve the pressure off the point of the knee. Note: there are any number of uncomfortable physical positions that can be used and considered in this category. Typical conditions for application: to create a distracting pressure, to demonstrate self-imposed pressure, to instill apprehension, humiliation or cause insult.

APPROVED PHYSICAL PRESSURES USED IN OTHER SERVICE SCHOOL RESISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

1. SMOKE: Pipe tobacco smoke is blown into a subject's face while in a standing, sitting or kneeling position. ... Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

2. WATERBOARD: Subject is interrogated while strapped to a wooden board, approximately 4'x7'. Often the subject's feet are elevated after being strapped down and having their torso stripped. Up to 1.5. gallons of water is slowly poured directly onto the subject's face from a height of 12-24 inches. In some cases, a wet cloth is placed over the subject's face. It will remain in place for a short period of time. Trained supervisory and medical staff monitors the subject's physical condition. Student may be threatened or strapped back onto the board at a later time. However, no student will have water applied a second time. This tactic instills a feeling of drowning and quickly compels cooperation. Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior.

3. SHAKING AND MANHANDLING: Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior.

4. GROUNDING: This tactic is using the manhandling pressure and forcefully guiding the subject to the ground, never letting go. Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior.

5. CRAMPED CONFINEMENT ("the little box"): This is administered by placing a subject into a small box in a kneeling position with legs crossed at the ankle and having him learn [sic] forward to allow the door to be closed without exerting pressure on the back. Time and temperature is closely monitored. Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

6. IMMERSION IN WATER/WETTING DOWN: Wetting the subject consists of spraying with a hose, hand pressure water cans, or immersion in a shallow pool of water. Typical conditions for application: to instill fear and despair, to punish selective behavior, to instill humiliation or cause insult.

OTHER TACTICS TO INDUCE CONTROL, DEPENDENCY, COMPLIANCE, AND COOPERATION

1. Isolation/Solitary Confinement.

2. Induced Physical Weakness and Exhaustion.

3. Degradation.

4. Conditioning.

5. Sensory Deprivation: When a subject is deprived of sensory input for an interrupted period, for approximately 6-8 hours, it is not uncommon for them to experience visual, auditory and/or tactile hallucinations. If deprived of input, the brain will make it up. This tactic is used in conjunction with other methods to promote dislocation of expectations and induce emotions.

6. Sensory overload: This includes being continually exposed to bright, flashing lights, loud music, annoying/irritating sounds, etc. This tactic elevates the agitation level of a person and increases their emotionality, as well as enhances the effects of isolation.

7. Disruption of sleep and biorhythms.

8. Manipulation of diet.

Despite hearings by the House and Senate into widespread detainee abuse, not a single administration official has been brought to justice. This too, should surprise no one since Congress has colluded with the Bush regime's torture policies and its broader "war on terror" every step of the way.

Telecoms Flex Their Muscles: FISA "Compromise" Locks-in Lawless Spying

You knew it would eventually come to this: a huge victory for the Bush regime and a gigantic swindle by Democratic party sell-outs posing as an "opposition."

Thursday, House and Senate leaders in a bipartisan Washington love-fest, stooped to new lows of dissimulation as they reached agreement on a bill that gives the nation's spy agencies and their outsourced "partners" in the telecommunications industry carte blanche to illegally spy on Americans.

By Friday afternoon the votes were in and, surprise! the bill passed by a lopsided 293-129. The bill now moves to the Senate where easy passage is expected next week. The White House immediately endorsed the bill.

According to The Washington Post,

White House spokesman Tony Fratto called the measure "a bipartisan bill" that "will give the intelligence professionals the long-term tools they need to protect the nation, and liability protection for those who may have assisted the government after the 9/11 attacks." (Dan Eggen and Paul Kane, "Surveillance Bill Offers Protection to Telecom Firms," The Washington Post, Friday, June 20, 2008)

"Bipartisan" indeed! House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) described it as a "balanced bill." True enough, if by "balanced" Ms. Pelosi means that it protects her "constituents"--the giant telecoms--while telling Americans, in the ignoble words of former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, to "watch what they say, watch what they do."

Gloating over the Democrats' "capitulation," as Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) characterized the deal, Senator Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO) who led Republicans during negotiations, told The New York Times, "I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get."

Despite hand-wringing by Democrats, the accord gives "Bush and his aides, including Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, much of what they sought in a new surveillance law," Times' reporter Eric Lichtblau avers.

Virtually guaranteeing that U.S. citizens won't have their day in court, H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, grants immunity to giant telecom companies who participated in the Bush administration's lawless surveillance programs. Congressman Roy Blunt (R-MO) told the Times without skipping a beat, "The lawsuits will be dismissed."

And in the best tradition of totalitarians everywhere, Bond, defending immunity provisions for lawless telecoms told Dow Jones Newswires,

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do."

Ponder those words and then consider the loathsome depths reached by the Democrats and their Republican partners in crime.

Under the proposal, U.S. intelligence agencies will be allowed to issue broad orders to U.S. phone companies, ISPs and other online service providers to cough-up all communications if it is "reasonably believed" to involve non-citizens outside the country. To boot, the plethora of spy agencies who make up the U.S. intelligence "community" will neither be bothered by naming their "targets" nor will they have to obtain prior approval by any court to continue their driftnet-style surveillance.

In other words, under terms of H.R. 6304 one American or the entire internet could be subject to warrantless surveillance and intrusive data-mining by state actors or private spooks. Considering that some 70% of intelligence "community" employees are mercenary contractors in the pay of private corporations that rely on U.S. Government handouts to pad their bottom line, the bill drives another nail in the coffin of privacy and individual rights while furthering the already-considerable transformation of the former American Republic into a post-Constitutional "New Order."

The Democratic "compromise" overturns longstanding rules of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under which the government was compelled to obtain court approval and individual warrants if an American's communications were to be monitored.

As ACLU Washington Legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said in her denunciation of the proposed "compromise,"

"This bill allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans' communications. The court review is mere window-dressing -- all the court would look at is the procedures for the year-long dragnet and not at the who, what and why of the spying. Even this superficial court review has a gaping loophole -- 'exigent' circumstances can short cut even this perfunctory oversight since any delay in the onset of spying meets the test and by definition going to the court would cause at least a minimal pause. Worse yet, if the court denies an order for any reason, the government is allowed to continue surveillance throughout the appeals process, thereby rendering the role of the judiciary meaningless. In the end, there is no one to answer to; a court review without power is no court review at all."

"The Hoyer/Bush surveillance deal was clearly written with the telephone companies and internet providers at the table and for their benefit. They wanted immunity, and this bill gives it to them." ("ACLU Condemns FISA Deal, Declares Surveillance Bill Unconstitutional," American Civil Liberties Union, Press Release, June 19, 2008)

As Fredrickson outlined above, this onerous legislative flotsam grants immunity to telecoms currently being sued for breaking federal wiretapping laws by handing over billions of Americans' call records to state and private data-miners whilst giving agencies such as the NSA and FBI access to phone and internet infrastructure inside the United States itself. Under terms of the "compromise" the bill strips away the right of a federal district court to decide whether these multinational privateers violated federal laws prohibiting wiretapping without a court order. In terms of telecom liability, and the huge damages that may have resulted from a guilty verdict by a jury, this is huge.

As United States District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker wrote on July 20, 2006 regarding AT&T's motion to dismiss EFF's Hepting vs. AT&T lawsuit,

Because the alleged dragnet here encompasses the communications of "all or substantially all of the communications transmitted through [AT&T's] key domestic telecommunications facilities," it cannot reasonably be said that the program as alleged is limited to tracking foreign powers. Accordingly, AT&T's alleged action here violate the constitutional rights clearly established in Keith. Moreover, because "the very action in question has previously been held unlawful," AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.

The current congressional agreement stipulates instead, that the U.S. Attorney General need only certify that a company being sued did not participate, or that the state provided said privateer with a written request certifying that the President authorized the program and that his henchmen-attorneys determined it was "legal." As the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes,

The new bill specifically allows the Court to see the directives that were given to the telecoms as "supplemental materials" to the AG certification (p. 90:22), but the court is still only evaluating whether they existed, not whether they were legal requests, or whether it was legal for the phone companies to comply with them. Thus, even if a court independently would have ruled the directives and the surveillance they authorized to be unlawful, the bill still requires the court to rubber stamp the retroactive immunity it provides. ("Analysis of H.R. 6304: It's Still Immunity!", Electronic Frontier Foundation, June 19, 2008)

In other words, even if a court rules that Bush administration directives are patently illegal, which indeed they are, the formerly independent judiciary's role under the new FISA amendments passed by the House, diminish its role to that of a mere accessory, an afterthought and rubberstamp for decrees issued by the "unitary executive" exercising plenary (unlimited) powers. Despite the temporizing weasel-words by congressional leaders, Friday's House vote is nothing less than a formula for permanent presidential dictatorship.

Consider this: if the White House can unrestrictedly spy on Americans based on the merest of "exigent circumstances," will future "exigencies"--an external terrorist attack or internal provocation--spearhead a martial law regime with full suspension of civil liberties and the detention of domestic dissidents, the "other persons who may pose a threat to national security," referred to by National Security Presidential Directive 59?

In the final analysis, whatever temporary divisions may exist amongst the twin parties of capitalist reaction, none of the leading Democrats have any interest in challenging the fundamental fraud of the so-called "war on terror." Indeed, "terrorism" is but a convenient pretext for a bipartisan attack on democratic rights as a decaying American Empire launch "preemptive" wars in a quixotic quest to shore-up its crumbling edifice.

"It Was Real 'Manchurian Candidate' Stuff"

A Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials had assembled lists of harsh torture techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on prisoners in America's Guantánamo Bay prison gulag.

The Senate's findings strongly refute claims by top Bush administration officials that their approval of such techniques were in response to requests from field commanders "far down the chain of command," The Washington Post reports. According to Joby Warrick,

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists. ("Report Questions Pentagon Accounts," The Washington Post, June 17, 2008)

During hearings Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, it was revealed that the CIA played a larger role in the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" policies than previously acknowledged. Torture, according to minutes of an October 2, 2002 meeting at Guantánamo Bay, "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong," The Washington Post reports.

The hearings, and supporting documents released by the SASC, revealed that Fredman, whose Agency handlers had been granted virtual carte blanche by the Justice Department to torture suspected "terrorists," discussed

the pros and cons of videotaping, talked about how to avoid interference by the International Committee of the Red Cross and offered a strong defense of waterboarding.

"If a well-trained individual is used to perform this technique, it can feel like you're drowning," he said, according to the meeting's minutes, which do not provide a verbatim transcript.

Fredman said medical experts should monitor detainees. "If someone dies while aggressive techniques are being used, regardless of the cause of death, the backlash of attention would be severely detrimental," he was quoted as saying. (Joby Warrick, "CIA Played Larger Role in Advising Pentagon," The Washington Post, June 18, 2008)

While Fredman's "expertise" on abusing prisoners recommends placing physicians, psychiatrists and other trained medical personnel in American torture chambers, in itself a clear breech of international norms and the military's own procedures, his callous disregard for human rights hardly absolve high-level administration officials.

As ABC News reported in April, during dozens of top-secret talks and meetings at the White House, the National Security Council Principals Committee, which included Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, "discussed and approved specific details" of how "high-value" prisoners would be interrogated.

Indeed, so explicit were these discussions that one source told ABC News, "the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed." One top official reported Ashcroft as having said, "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

In a statement released Tuesday, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, wrote:

...how did it come about that American military personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of sleep, and blasted music at them. Were these actions the result of "a few bad apples" acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were. But that's not the case. The truth is that senior officials in the United States government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. ("The Origins of Aggressive Interrogation Techniques," Carl Levin, United States Senator, June 17, 2008)

As Philippe Sands' investigative piece in last month's Vanity Fair revealed, after the Principals Committee reached a decision to torture, Bush administration "little Eichmanns" provided the necessary "legal" gloss to implement these criminal policies:

The fingerprints of the most senior lawyers in the administration were all over the design and implementation of the abusive interrogation policies. [David] Addington, [Jay] Bybee, [Alberto] Gonzales, [Jim] Haynes, and [John] Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting abuse. ("The Green Light," Vanity Fair, May 2008)

But as The Washington Post reported Tuesday, the new evidence presented by the Armed Services Committee challenged previous statements by

William J. "Jim" Haynes II, who served as Defense Department general counsel under Rumsfeld and is among the witnesses scheduled to testify at today's hearing. Haynes, who resigned in February, suggested to a Senate panel in 2006 that the request for tougher interrogation methods originated in October 2002, when Guantanamo Bay commanders began asking for help in ratcheting up the pressure on suspected terrorists who had stopped cooperating. A memo from the prison's top military lawyer that same month had suggested specific techniques and declared them legal.

However, "memos and e-mails" obtained by Senate investigators suggest otherwise. In July 2002, Haynes and other top Defense Department officials "were soliciting ideas for harsh interrogations from military experts in survival training." By late July, despite strenuous objections by military lawyers who viewed such methods as patently illegal breeches of the Geneva Convention, a list was compiled that included many of the torture techniques that infamously became synonymous with the Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram airbase repertoire.

Indeed, military criminal investigators, "attempting to develop evidence to prosecute suspected terrorists, objected strenuously to techniques they considered illegal and likely to damage chances of a conviction," The Wall Street Journal reports. Journal reporter Jess Bravin reveals that,

In an October 2002 email to a colleague, Special Agent Mark Fallon of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said that comments like those of Col. Beaver and Mr. Fredman could "shock the conscience of any legal body" looking into interrogation methods. "This looks like the kinds of stuff Congressional hearings are made of," he wrote. ("Ex-Pentagon Lawyers Challenged on Torture," The Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2008)

In a major breakthrough that demolish the mendacious claims of the Bush regime, the Senate report provides irrefutable evidence that top Pentagon and CIA officials sought out military and "outsourced" mercenary personnel, including psychologists, to reverse-engineer U.S. military Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) tactics taught pilots and Special Operations Commandos caught behind enemy lines for use on prisoners designated "enemy combatants" by the administration.

According to Levin, in July 2002, Richard Shiffrin, a Pentagon Deputy General Counsel called Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baumgartner, the Chief of Staff at the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), the DoD bureau that oversees SERE training "and asked for information on SERE techniques."

Baumgartner responded by drafting a memo with three attachments. According to Levin's statement and supporting documentation released by the SASC,

One of those attachments (TAB 3) listed physical and psychological pressures used in SERE resistance training including sensory deprivation, sleep disruption, stress positions, waterboarding, and slapping. It also made reference to a section of the JPRA instructor manual that talks about “coercive pressures” like keeping the lights at all times, and treating a person like an animal. Another attachment (TAB 4), written by Dr. Ogrisseg, also a witness today, assessed the long-term psychological effects of SERE resistance training on students and the effects of the waterboard.

Scarcely a week after Baumgartner's memo, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued two opinions drafted by Jay Bybee and John C. Yoo addressed to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. These are the infamous Torture Memos, one of which still remains classified.

As current Assistant Attorney General of the OLC Steven Bradbury testified earlier this year before the House Judiciary Committee, the "CIA's use of the waterboarding procedure was adapted from the SERE training program."

At this point, JPRA staff were "finalizing plans" to conduct training for interrogation staff from U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Task Force 170 at Guantánamo Bay.

In mid-September 2002, a group from Guantánamo, "including interrogators and behavioral scientists, travelled to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and attended training conducted by instructors from the JPRA SERE school. None of the three JPRA personnel who provided the training was a trained interrogator," Levin reveals.

As I wrote in April, those who committed these unspeakable atrocities "were acting out scenes from a CIA 'masterwork' composed decades earlier: KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation."

The July 1963 CIA torture manual describes a fear-cloaked shadow world of hooding, isolation, sensory deprivation, drugging, sexual humiliation and other unseemly interrogation techniques, many of which were "perfected" by "outsourced" psychiatrists on their patients during the 1950s and 1960s during the Agency's criminal MKULTRA "mind-control" experiments.

Fast-forward 50 years, and the fruit of these Nazi-like experiments in psychological torment are all-too-discernible in the hollowed-out eyes and shattered minds of America's "war on terror" prisoners. As former Pentagon lawyer Richard Shiffrin told The New York Times, the Rumsfeld's Defense Department turned to SERE out of "great frustration" at the nature of the intelligence obtained from prisoners through lawful means.

As Salon investigative journalist Mark Benjamin, a reporter who broke many stories on the reverse-engineering of SERE tactics as a torture tool, writes,

But as more and more documents from inside the Bush government come to light, it is increasingly clear that the administration sought from early on to implement interrogation techniques whose basis was torture. Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon and the CIA began an orchestrated effort to tap expertise from the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape school, for use in the interrogation of terrorist suspects. ...

SERE training has nothing to do with effective interrogation, according to military experts. Trained interrogators don't work in the program. Skilled, experienced interrogators, in fact, say that only a fool would think that the training could somehow be reverse-engineered into effective interrogation techniques.

But that's exactly what the Bush government sought to do. As the plan rolled forward, military and law enforcement officials consistently sent up red flags that the SERE-based interrogation program wasn't just wrongheaded, it was probably illegal. ("A Timeline to Bush Government Torture," Salon, June 18, 2008)

What were the results obtained by Shiffrin and others into the efficacy of reverse-engineered SERE tactics? "It was real 'Manchurian Candidate' stuff," Shiffrin told the Times.

An apt description if ever there were one, of the post-Constitutional order created by the Bush administration and their corporatist masters. Why then, do top Democratic party leaders, including Carl Levin, continue to insist "impeachment is off the table"?