Last week, when we wrote about testimony by Philip Zelikow and Ali Soufan to a Senate hearing on torture, reader John Birch wrote perceptively, “Zelikow was testifying about the organized use of toture as an interrogation method by the CIA….The photos [Obama] held back are of the abuse and even torture of prisoners by the U.S. military.” This prompted my response, “The connection is that the authorisation of torture by the CIA and US military, sanctioned from spring 2002 by Bush officials, made its way to Guantanamo Bay and then to Iraq, including Abu Ghraib,” notably via General Geoffrey Miller.

Writing for Salon, Mark Benjamin adds an interesting dimension: Gitmo general told Iraq WMD search team to torture

[Even] before Miller met with the Abu Ghraib officials, he first made a little-known visit to the Iraq Survey Group, which was in charge of the hunt for WMDs in Iraq after the invasion. Miller told the ISG they were “running a country club” by not getting tough on detainees….Miller recommended temperature manipulation and sleep deprivation.

Gitmo general told Iraq WMD search team to torture

It’s one thing if, as former Vice President Dick Cheney keeps saying, the United States brutally interrogated people to keep our kids safe from another strike by Osama bin Laden. If folks got tortured to provide a rationale for going to war with Iraq, though, that’s a whole different story.
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Tags: Abu Ghraib, Ali Soufan, Brian Searcy, Central Intelligence Agency, Detainees, Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Iraq Survey Group, John Birch, Keith Dayton, Mark Benjamin, Mike Kamin, Osama bin Laden, Philip Zelikow, Salon, Senate Armed Services Committee, Stephen Cambone, Torture, Weapons of Mass Destruction