Misleader Home A Daily Chronicle of Bush Administration Distortion
Photo: Collage of President Bush and White House
Navigation: Who We Are Navigation: Special Reports Navigation: Ask the Experts Navigation: Feedback Navigation: Donate Navigation: Tell a Friend Navigation: Contact Us

Receive the Daily Mislead
Get a look past the rhetoric, every day, delivered to your inbox.

your email:

Member of the press?


             Privacy policy


In the Spotlight
Bush Campaign Ads . . . Brought to You by Special Interests
As President Bush's $10.5 million campaign ad blitz begins, Public Citizen released a report outlining who helped pay for the campaign ads and what favors they have received during his presidency.

Special Reports
No Child Left Behind? The Funding Gap in ESEA and Other Federal Education Programs
The current reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), raises high expectations for achievement and imposes stringent measures of accountability on students, teachers, and schools.

See the Ad


A Daily Chronicle of Bush Administration Distortion August 27, 2004
Send The Misleader to a Friend | Printer Friendly Version | Want the Mislead on your site?



     

Rumsfeld Misleads about Prison Abuse



Speaking yesterday in Phoenix, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed that there was no way that he and other top military officials could have known about the abuse and torture that took place at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Rumsfeld said, "if you are in Washington, D.C., you can't know what's going on in the midnight shift in one of those many prisons around the world."1 But a classified portion of a report by three Army generals (the Fay report) - obtained by the New York Times - found that the atrocities that took place in military prisons were the result of actions taken at the top of the military hierarchy.

According to secret sections of the Fay report, the former top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez "approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan."2 Moreover, "by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions."3

A separate investigation headed by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger "faulted the Pentagon's top civilian and military leadership yesterday for failing to exercise adequate oversight and allowing conditions that led to the abuse of detainees in Iraq."4 Rumsfeld was cited specifically for contributing to "confusion over what techniques were permissible for interrogating prisoners in Iraq."5



Sources:
  1. "Rumsfeld: No plans to resign ," Arizona Daily Star, 8/27/04.
  2. "Army's Report Faults General in Prison Abuse," New York Times, 8/27/04.
  3. Ibid.
  4. "Top Pentagon Leaders Faulted in Prison Abuse," Washington Post, 8/25/04.
  5. Ibid.



Send the Misleader to a Friend | Print It | Misleader Archive