Military lawyers warned against the harsh detainee interrogation techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, contending in separate memos weeks before Rumsfeld's endorsement that they could be illegal, a Senate panel has found.
The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee also has confirmed that senior administration officials, including the Pentagon's then-general counsel William "Jim" Haynes, sought the help of military psychologists early on to devise the more aggressive methods — which included the use of dogs, making a detainee stand for long periods of time and forced nudity, according to officials familiar with the findings.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not been formally released. Details were to be discussed at an open committee hearing Tuesday.
Rumsfeld's December 2002 approval of the aggressive interrogation techniques and later objections by military lawyers have been widely reported. But the November protests by service lawyers had not, and the interest by Pentagon civilians in military psychologists has surfaced only piecemeal.
The lawyers' objections were sent to the Joint Staff, which would have relayed the messages to civilian leadership. There is no proof, however, that Rumsfeld or Haynes personally saw the memos.
Tuesday's hearing is the committee's first look at where the harsher methods — used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq — originated and how policy decisions on interrogations were vetted across the Defense Department.
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[ via War Crimes Research ]
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