[nettime-fr] version complète et corrigée: dossier / Patriot act ou "de quelques gosses ayant pété les plombs"

["Louise Desrenards" <louise.desrenards@free.fr>]

dossier / Patriot act ou "de quelques gosses ayant pété les plombs"
sur The Gray Zone par Seymour M.Hersh


"Le patriot act" est un plan de contrôle des libertés individuelles pire que
le code Mac Carthyste que le gouvernement Bush avait en vain tenté d'imposer
dès le début de son pouvoir ; en fait, c'est le 11 septembre qui permit de
l'instaurer, et autorisant la torture (entre autre)... Voici en quoi il
consiste (document de référence original en ligne):
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/patriotlet051303.pdf
analyse en français:
http://www.astm.lu/article.php3?id_article=653

Kerry est de ceux qui ont voté le patriot act en le contestant ensuite ;
sans doute est-ce la raison pour laquelle les démocrates radicaux se sont
attaardés pour l'accepter comme candidat repésentatif aux présidentielles)

Attention à "l'Euro patriot act" ainsi qualifié par réseau Voltaire qui
informait dès novembre dernier sous de tels termes le plan "système
d'information Schengen II"
http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/article11121.html

"Vers un monde policier ? Quand l'exception sera devenue la règle il sera
trop tard" Niels Anderson (janvier 2002)
C'est le cas en Italie, ou les lois théoriquemetn provisoires soldant les
années de plomb se sont en fait installées ; cela faillit être le cas en
Espagne ; et si nous étions déjà entrés dans cette zone de non lieu en
France avec la loi Perben, la LEN, etc?
http://cicg.free.fr/dirrepr/anderson.htm
On y verra évidemment la belle inspiration européenne dont nous subissons
les effets depuis un an...

Cette préface est pour mieux comprendre la suite : una analyse puis la
citation intégrale de l'événement critique et politique du dernier article
de Seymour M Hersh, "  dans le New Yorker.

---------

Commentaire en français (la citation intégrale de l'article américain qui
conclut ce message, et qui en fait l'objet principal, n'ayant
malheureusement pas pu être traduit par mes soins)

Amis, pardon, de vous importuner avec ce peu de politique en plus du
reste...

Que la puissance américaine se révèle en son propre projet et
délire sur le monde, à l'image de son propre chaos interne et s'en tgrouvant
d'autant plus démente et
terrible - et d'autant plus rationaliste dans son technicisme objectal,
utilitaire (on retrouve bien
cela en dit long sur la résistance des corps physiques et matériels pensants
en Irak, traitée comme on l'a vu (merci à Jean Baudrillard pour sa
publication hier matin dans Libé)... Maintenant, voici les discours selon
les interrogatoires en cours relatés par Seymour M. Hersh hier soir, dans le
New Yorker.

Ce qui nous concerne relève du crime contre l'humanité, manigancé par des
pouvoirs utilisant et manipulant la puissance de ce qui était encore
considéré, il y a quelques années, comme la plus grande démocratie du  monde
(ce que partie des citoyens osent encore penser).


        Si  l'on en croit une interview par exemple dans Le Monde ces
jours-ci, Abdel Bassat Turki, ministre des Droits de l'homme dans le
gouvernement provisoire Irakien et qui a démissionné le 2 mai (alors qu'il
attendait que sa demande soit acceptée depuis le 8 avril), a expliqué que
les
divisions d'intérêt et d'enjeux au sein de l'occupant lui-même en Irak, par
exemple entre CIA, FBI, Pentagone, s'il était encore possible de les
distinguer de cette façon (ce qui n'est donc pas le cas), créaient une
situation de chaos perpétuel immaîtrisable ; il a répondu d'autre part que
la résistance Irakienne était un mouvement de résistance diversifié mais
synchrone et cohérent, tel qu'il paraîtrait impossible de ne pas prévoir de
l'intégrer, au moins deux de ses principaux courants, dans le prochain
gouvernement Irakien si on le voulait représentatif. Si tel n'était pas le
cas, on verrait la question irakienne s'enfoncer dans le
bourbier à la façon Vietnamienne proposée en relais à l'ONU !

L'histoire des dupes
continue... cette fois aux frais de la planète pour que le pétrole irakien,
par exemple, poursuive de couler en monnaie sonnante et trébuchante dans les
compteurs métropolitains des lobbies occupants, sur le dos du peuple natif
assimilé à "les arabes" tels qu'ils ressortent sous quelques détails du
plus sombre racisme impérialiste et de son inculture de principe, dans les
propos des dirigeants des services américains relatés par l'article qui
suit...

Depuis le sac de Rome nous ne connaissions pas pareil sac sinon l'Irak (si
l'on compte de surcroît le sac des musées et du patrimoine historique
mondial).


        Donc, il s'agit du dernier papier en date dans la série considérable
sur l'Irak par Hersh, reportage intelligent des interrogatoires des
principaux dirigeants de l'Etat, de l'armée et des services secrets, depuis
la question de la manipulation de l'information préalable au 11 septembre
2001, jusqu'à la torture systématique en Irak dans la pire émergence
pollitique des Etats-Unis. Hersh en trois articles précédents dans le même
support révéla les termes
matériels et inavouables de la torture quasiment industrielle, quoique
livrée à l'inspiration aléatoire des cruautés circonstancielles, fondée sur
la nudité systématique des corps dès l'entrée dans la geôle.

Sans doute ce grand journaliste fut-il soutenu de l'intérieur à l'approche
des prochaines élections, puisqu'il put enfin publier en dépit des lois
terribles qui accablaient la communication et l'information Etats-Unis sous
le joug du patriot act... ? Les informations n'arrivèrent-elles que
tardivement et grâce à la soudaine la réapparition démocratique dans le
cadre de la campagne électorale américaine pour les présidentielles ?
Certains des protagonistes criminels furent-ils débordés eux-mêmes au point
de préférer ce coup d'arrêt ? Le vin était tiré ?

Il reste que Hersh demeure une des dernières figures du journalisme héroïque
moderne et post-moderne, le journalisme d'investigation se confrontant au
politique sans complaisance de nomenklatura, peut-être le dernier pour
relever de nouveau la conscience américaine et appeler l'honneur des
journalistes occidentaux au-delà des nouvelles dispositions financières de
la Presse des lobbies ?

Car on devine aussi, dans cet article, quel cercle d'acier menaçant,
terrible - effrayant - fut lancé sur les libertés de penser et de
communiquer aux Etats-Unis même, basé sur de tels projets relayés par les
patrons de Presse, au service d'une clique en réseau parvenant à concentrer
tous les pouvoirs de la plus grande puissance du monde, après le 11
septembre.

C'est absolument incroyable sauf à en avoir vécu directement ou
indirectement les faits. Comme d'autre part il en est certains pour présumer
des rapports entre al Qaeda et Gladio... (mais là nous restons à l'ignorer
dans les faits sauf l'indice que constitue le plan du système d'information
Schengen II que l'Europe résistait à passer à l'acte, et qu'étrangement elle
s'est mise à l'oeuvre de réaliser comme par hasard après les attentats en
Espagne - s'ils ne permirent pas au parti de Aznar de triompher au mouvoir
totalitaire, du moins ces attentats serviren-ils à édifier l'Europe dans
l'attente américaine suggérant d'imiter le patriotact pour lemonde... )), il
y a de quoi s'évanouir en attendant des jours meilleurs.

Le présent papier a paru le 19 mai. Un article majeur, d'après moi, aussi
important que le premier de la même plume, dans le même journal (de belle
tradition transmise par le nom de rédactrice de Dorothy Parker au moment de
la prohibition), disons que ce nouveau papier voit de l'intérieur l'état du
pouvoir de l'Amérique résultant du patriot act à propos des tortures à Abu
Ghraib - et le premier les révélant...  Ce n'est par le premier aspect que
la récidive d'un exploit qu'il avait également effectué à propos de la
révélation des massacres au Viet Nam en 1969, après quoi enfin, la guerre
put s'arrêter. Par le second aspect cela innove une démarche profonde visant
à l'exploration critique de la structure perverse et du délitement mêmes du
pouvoir américain en réseau et de la vision totalitaire et paranoïaque qui
le sous-tend : présidence, département d'Etat, Pentagone, CIA, FBI, etc s'il
en est d'autres, notamment des civils épisodiques non identifiés... C'est un
travail exceptionnel.

Pour accompagner notre hommage à ce grand journaliste politique de
l'investagation, nous précéderons l'article cité d'un abstract biographique
de son oeuvre professionnelle.



        Dans cette nouvelle et longue information, détaillée, maintenant
Hersh manifeste la structure même du pouvoir autour de Bush ; il s'agit
d'une endoscopie dans le pouvoir américain lui-même tel qu'il s'est révélé à
la fois dans ses fondements de référence et dans ses ressources à travers le
miroir irakien, lors des interrogatoires des responsables aux Etats-Unis. De
plus, on peut enfin imaginer quel fragment du pouvoir parmi ceux en présence
des Etats-Unis sur l'Irak aurait pu laisser faire, puis accélérer, ou enfin
"balancer" l'autre, pour régler peut-être des comptes remontant à l'avant 11
septembre 2001 ? On y voit la jacquerie interne sur le sol américain
lui-même en ses nobles institutions de pouvoir et de défense, ignoble,
s'agissant du destin et du sang des peuples comme des individus, des
différentes instances, confirmée telle que le ministre des droits de l'homme
du gouvernement provisoire lui-même en évoquait l'aspect d'intérêts et de
rapports de force oopposés, expatriée en Irak.

Mais la "balance" aurait eu lieu fatalement, car les photographies prévues
dans le plan de torture devaient bien sûr finir par accomplir leur cycle
jusqu'à leur multiplication aléatoire et jusqu'à la révélation médiatique de
leur obscénité soit par logique de leur processus, soit par défense... Les
photos prévues par le plan avaient deux fonctions : humilier le modèle
défini comme appartenant à une culture iconoclaste de la représentation
humaine, s'agissant de la nudité honteuse du premier des hommes bibliques et
des tabous sexuels liés à une perception limitée de ce qui est défini
globalement comme "arabe" par un socio-ethnologue américain mort en 1996 :
ah ! la belle théorie raciste supportant l'agresseur... Et en même temps
effrayer les autres prisonniers pour attester avant la torture de ce qui
leur arriverait s'ils ne parlaient pas.

Ce qui ne fut pas dérive improvisée à Abu Ghraib, voir même suivant
l'hypothèse d'un laxisme involontaire du à des interférences contradictoires
selon les brefs passages de différents représentants pas tous identifiés
sinon que leurs brefs séjours rendissent alternativement irresponsables les
responsables internés (et ce qui paraît peu probable à lire l'article),
donne à apercevoir la vision générale de l'opposition, de la différence et
de la résistance se constituant à l'épreuve de l'attaquant totalitaire.
Etrangement les uns disent : cela n'a servi à rien puisque la résistance n'a
pas cessé de s'accroître ; les autres disent : la machine de renseignement a
bien fonctionné puisque nous avons réussi à avoir une vision claire de la
façon dont la résistance était organisée et son extension... A ceci près que
la résistance même révélée stratégiquement, nous dirons même balistiquement,
n'en fut pas réduite, bien au contraire... Alors on croit rêver que puisse
être confondue la prise de conscience de la réalité qui se nomme résistance
et son étendue, avec le fait de pouvoir ou non la réduire. C'est bien la
trace d'une arrogance aveugle préalable aux actes, puis une naïveté à
l'épreuve des faits, accrue d'un défaut de jugement lié à la vision
panoptique du flicage laissant penser qu'ainsi dévoilés dans leur apparence
le secret des êtres vus en train de vivre disparaît ou devient maîtrisé
(Foucault). Ce n'est pas compter avec l'environnement interne ni externe du
voyeur et de sa proie.

Ainsi, le 11 septembre n'aurait servi à rien sinon à repousser l'échéance de
la guerre endogène implacable, sur le
dos des peuples, des instances et oportunités ou rapports de force des
pouvoirs américains internes et externes entre eux, toutes les armes à la
main ?... à rien sauf, par exemple, déclencher la guerre d'Irak prévue bien
avant l'émergence d'une stratégie qui, souhaitons-le, ne pourra aller
jusqu'au bout ? Sauf réappartion de la troisième génération des Bush
intriqués dans les affaires de la CIA et l'argent du pétrole depuis des
lustres, (plus protégés par ceux qu'ils représentent, que les Kennedy,
apparemment ?) Je fais également l'hypothèse que l'Amérique démocratique en
train de se battre contre ses propres maux finira par les vraincre...

Nous voici au coeur de la machine, un article majeur disions-nous.


        Ce qui est inoui vu d'ici, transparaissant de cet article jusqu'à
nous, c'est en plus de la confusion des différentes parties du pouvoir
américain et de sa
guerre interne, c'est encore le délire rationaliste techniciste qui abroge
dans son principe la question éthique, à l'horizon de la stratégie et de
l'objectif. Or il ne faut pas rêver qu'il puisse
aujourd'hui en aller autrement de toutes les mesures des organisations
mondiales, strictement dans l'économie et l'efficacité de la règle adoptée,
qu'il s'agisse de la monnaie, des techno-sciences, des OGM ou de
l'éducation, de la dette, du commerce, de l'agriculture, des ressources
naturelles, etc. comme de la sécurité et du contrôle : c'est la même utopie
économiste et le même fonctionnement sous influence, moins l'apparence de la
guerre et de la torture actualisées,
quoique laissant peu de chance à la moitié de la population du globe (en
fait à vocation de devoir disparaître numériquement)...

Si la règle des Etats-Unis paraît être la règle du paranoïaque, la règle des
organisations mondiales paraît être celle du pervers, celui qui assigne
chacun à un rôle (ou à une place) dans sa stratégie où le partenaire de son
jeu, qu'il soit consentant ou pas, se retrouve
fatalement attribué par ce manipulateur et déplacé de lui-même, dénié en soi
dans la vision qu'il sert, ou vers l'usage auquel il est ainsi destiné (une
des définitions psychiatriques d'autrefois,
voisine de la dialectique du maître et de l'esclave vue par Hegel) et n'en
doit pas bouger (d'où la relance perpétuelle du jeu exercée par le
manipulateur vers son partenaire).

C'est enfin ceci, qu'ayant reconnu depuis la fin du printemps dernier (les
propos cités dans l'article le disent) l'existence finalement d'une
véritable résistance Irakienne, non soumise à des obédiences religieuses
opposées, mais au contraire opportunément et solidairement
unies, par rapport à un combat plutôt nationaliste, en tous points
assimilable à la résistance dans les pays occupés par les nazis durant la
dernière guerre mondiale, que les dirigeants américains concernés,
ayant fait eux-mêmes et sous ces termes une telle contatation, loin de
revoir
leur copie ou leurs enjeux, renforcèrent leur presion immonde à l'image même
de ce qu'ils venaient de reconnaître d'eux-mêmes à travers l'autre.

Donc pour moi, après la lecture de cet article, qu'ils soient des nazis par
défaillance ou par structure délirante, ou par plaisir, ceux qui gouvernent
actuellement le grand pays démocrate exemplaire en missionnaires de la mort,
peu importent leurs raisons et même par maladie (d'ailleurs, dans les propos
rapportés sur la torture en Irak, initiée par le maître de Guantanamo, venu
lui-même à Abu Ghraib au moment déterminant, il est question de "tumeur"
dans la réalisation diverse de la stratégie sur place, et qui devient
"maligne" - désignation du cancer)... Totalitarisme par définition mortifère
et délirant, tout aussi dangereux que la référence (la résistance à
l'occupant nazi), déclarée sous les propres mots des protagonistes actuels,
et vu la manipulation délocalisée du terrorisme et l'ingérence mondiale, en
plus des fronts guerriers déclarés et de la guerre de l'information et de la
communication planétaires, cette forme nouvelle du nazisme, fut-elle
imprévue, ne paraît plus relever de la métaphore ni du signe, mais de la
réalité matérielle à l'acte.

Sur ce point, il convient de se reporter au portrait de l'arabe "ethnique"
déjà mentionné, également prescrit pour vaincre la résistance, ce qui
devient plus édifiant du racisme réincarné par
la force d'occupation à l'égard des adversaires ou des boucs émissaires...
idéologie de la supériorité universelle de la culture occupante ou dominante
fondée sur la force dans le déni de
l'altérité (donc de la mort diraient les psychanalystes ou les philosophes)
: s'il fut possible que cette civilisation néo-libérale à autoritaire
unilatérale, millénariste, clôturant l'ère occidentale de la civilisation
technique et industrielle du monothéisme, se crût immortelle, désormais
elle apprend le contraire.

Le choc est d'autant plus grand que tous les niveaux d'abjections auront été
envisagés, simulés et réalisés jusque dans l'iconographie, soutenue y
compris par la référence des camps (la pyramide humaine).

Réduction du peuple résistant au peuple
musulman et le peuple musulman réduit au "musulman" évoqué par Primo Levi,
déporté humainement mort, ainsi désigné par les geôliers et les
kapos,("muselmann" - sinistre jeu de mot avec Miesmuschel - la moule), et de
nous en rendre atrocement complice par le
voyeurisme ; en même temps nous en sommes édifiés, par l'effet de terreur
qu'elles durent transmettre pour convaincre les prisonniers dénudés de
parler, avant qu'ils ne soient davantage passés à la torture. Autant dire
qu'à tout résistant bon entendeur : salut.

Voyez aussi comme il est confirmé, au cours des interrogatoires, que des
chiens aient mangé partie des corps de certains prisonniers ; il vient même
une idée plus épouvantable encore,
concernant l'homme nu que les chiens tenus en laisse s'apprêtent à attaquer,
et dont tous ceux qui eurent les photos de référence entre les mains disent
que la suite photographique existe mais qu'elle n'est pas montrable, si ce
qui en est pudiquement rapporté comme une grave blessure à la cuisse de
l'homme ensuite à terre, ne serait pas en fait, alors qu'un militaire assis
sur ce corps en aurait caché davantage, je veux dire eu égard à
l'accablement sexuel prescrit par l'autorité pénitentiaire, le pire possible
sous l'oeil des géôliers ainsi autorisés à toutes les cruautés.

A savoir la réalisation des fantasmes sur lesquels les supérieurs ont joué
pour entraîner les jeunes geöliers à perdre toute distance, tous parmi la
nudité sytématique des hommes à disposition de la torture arbitraire, et
encadrés par de jeunes agents "chevronnés", comme
dans un jeu de scène et de rôles épouvantable même les coulisses purent
exister où les mêmes bourreaux pour se calmer, au
vestaire, s'adonaient entre eux aux libations pornographiques (ébats publics
également photographiés mais curieusement ces documents-là n'ont pas
circulé).

On sait que Wolfowitz lui-même, qui donna à la fin du printemps dernier un
entretien édifiant à un journaliste à Vanity fair (ça ne s'invente pas), et
dont la Défense est si fière qu'elle le reporte aujourd'hui encore dans
son site officiel, se trouva lui-même en juillet reçu par la générale
Janice Karpinsky à Abu Ghraib, moins d'un mois avant "le meunier" et pour
préparer sa visite... voici l'interview sympathique qui précéda son voyage
estival :
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html

Ces femmes au nom évidemment faux tel "England" (on l'avait remarqué)...
c'était donc cela, des "agents éprouvés" circulant sans visa, de ceux que
nous pourrions aussi bien retrouver devant notre porte, dans le cadre du
patriot act américain, global, ou européen (l'américain prévoit la
délocalisation des poursuites, des parades, ou des manoeuvres) ou celle de
notre voisin pour sauver l'Amérique d'un danger imminent (comme si cela pût
être jamais possible sauf à être Dieu) - danger que l'on pût laisser se
réaliser néanmoins, si l'on en croit le haut personnel politique, avouant
qu'il fut préalablement informé de l'agression du 11 septembre ? Ce serait
donc d'eux-mêmes qu'ils se défendraient ?


        Ne pensons pas que notre béret "basque' (terror), notre baguette de
pain, nos singularités culturelles, structurelles, ou autres exceptions
d'antan, sans lesquelles nous ne pouvions plus être reconnus qu'en acceptant
de
devenir tardivement les mêmes, donc des sous-mêmes, (double servile en
reflet dans le miroir de celui qui nous regarde ainsi), ne soient des traits
"ethniques" perçus autrement par de telles élites du close combat, fondées
par la croyance et le savoir, sans connaissance du monde, sans culture de
l'histoire de l'humanité ni de leur propre entourage.

Il reste que le monde occidental entier en a changé de face, sous
l'ingérence américaine dans l'OTAN et des organisations mondiales qui
avaient pourtant prééxisté au second avènement du clan Bush, monde lancé
globalement à l'assaut des libertés, contrôle dans tous les domaines, de la
communication aux traditionnels métiers du secret professionnel désormais
levé... Toute la transparence du monde, sauf celle de la communauté
européenne et nationale elles-mêmes, cela va sans dire - encore plus
secrètes que l'Etat totalitaire américain, puisque lui au moins étant
divisé peut soudain être dévoilé circonstanciellement, lors du réveil
citoyen et sénatorial, soulevé par les présidentielles...

On verra bien si Guatanamo ouvrira définitivement ses portes.

Ayant suivi le procès Battisti, j'ai vu les pièces à conviction manipulées
par le gouvernement italien qui les avait remises : des blancs sur les
lignes conradictoires de leur documents officiels avec leurs dires, et
toutes sortes d'autres choses encore, que jamais on aurait imaginé pouvant
être produites devant une cour de justice française contemporaine...

Merci à Antonio Negri et Nanni Ballestrini pour leur papier - toujours dans
Libération -, rappel de leurs propres expérience et mémoire, avant hier
matin, sur la continuité qui anime le gouvernement italien actuel,
lorsqu'il demande l'extradition des réfugiés politiques. Le dernier jour de
l'instruction à Paris, des avocat et juriste italiens eux-mêmes sont venus
exposer, présence physique de l'un et lettre interposée de l'autre, ce qui
ne "collait" pas dans ces affaires de droit là, ce qui se trouvait au fait
juridique de l'Italie par des lois qui n'étaient pas prévues pour durer,
alors qu'elles devinrent la règle ; et par conséquent, l'actualité de leur
recours contre d'autres actes de justice serait abusive au vu européen
(pas d'extradition sans garantie de nouveau procès notamment pour ceux
condamnés par contumace). Battisti a dit qu'apprenant l'arrestation de
ses deux avocats, il ne lui était resté qu'à s'échapper et à fuir,
ce qu'il fit.

J'ai découvert que l'organe de Presse italien encore prêté au parti
communiste qui le créa, "l'Unita" a gardé une ligne de gauche par convenance
commerciale à la vitrine de la Presse ; en fait, il a été racheté par des
affairistes de Milan ; il faut savoir comment cela a joué de façon
pernicieuse et mensongère dans la presse française, s'agissant du reportage
sur l'unanimité de gauche à droite contre Battisti en Italie.

J'ai vu enfin, à Paris, revenir les Renseignements Généraux avec
des appareils photos numériques à la main, ce qui change de leur version
seventies ou années gaulliennes (la grande époque des
physionomistes), dans les réunions anodines liées à l'art contemporain...
C'est récent, ça vient tout juste de sortir et c'était aux mardis
numériques.

Remarquons bien, ici même, quant aux exceptions "qui en avaient déjà pris un
vieux coup"... comment tout dernièrement le coup fatal fut tenté contre le
peu qui pourrait en rester... (on sait bien que le résiduel ne sera
précisément que ce qui aurait pu disparaître ou changer sans nous
affecter), et encore tout récemment, comment les précaires et intermittents
et cognitaires, même soutenus par monsieur Axel Kahn pour un grand
projet de recherche européen, ou pas (je veux dire la version
serait-elle plus pauvre), se verraient au mieux situés dans l'horizon
techno-scientifique à l'identique de la concurrence unilatérale ou
en participation avec elle : du moins ce projet est-il incontestablement
pacifique. Certes il ne faut pas tout mélanger. Mais il ne faut pas croire,
par exemple, que monsieur Kahn représente toute la pensée française
de la recherche, en matière de biologie.

Nous n'en sommes pas là, n'est-ce pas, "chez nous" imitateurs sous
ingérence, c'est plus perfide et moins spectaculaire et d'ailleurs
nous ne sommes pas en guerre, il faut s'en réjouir ; ou alors l'Europe
en gestation nous rassure, et de toutes façons étant infiniment
moins puissants, nous ne risquons pas d'importuner l'étranger par trop,
sinon par trop sur place nous-mêmes.

        Pardon, je ne peux traduire ce papier, faites comme moi si vous êtes
courts en anglophonie, prenez un traducteur automatique en ligne, il y en a
plusieurs excellents, à chaucn de trouver le sien, et lisez l'article peu à
peu dans le traducteur... Cela prendrait-il un peu de temps ne sera pas du
temps perdu.

Merci à Seymour M. Hersh, de vivre encore parmi nous.


L

=========================


http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/83/677/
Seymour M. Hersh


Seymour M. Hersh is one of America's premier investigative reporters. In
1969, as a freelance journalist, he wrote the first account of the My Lai
massacre in South Vietnam. In the 1970s, he worked at the New York Times in
Washington and New York; he has rejoined the paper twice on special
assignment. He has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including
the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and four George Polk
Awards.
He is also the author of six books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger
in the Nixon White House, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award
and the Los Angeles Times BookAward, The Target Is Destroyed: What Really
Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It, and The Samson
Option: Israels NuclearArsenal andAmericas Foreign Policy.
---------------------------------------


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

THE GRAY ZONE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
Issue of 2004-05-24
Posted 2004-05-15


    The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal
inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year
by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret
operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the
interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the
American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat
units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence
officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community
by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion
and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more
intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official,
in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation
stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's
clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu
Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret
matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was
telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, "Any
suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened,
and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding." The
senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld's testimony and that of Stephen
Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, "Some people think you
can bullshit anyone."

The Abu Ghraib story began, in a sense, just weeks after the September 11,
2001, attacks, with the American bombing of Afghanistan. Almost from the
start, the Administration's search for Al Qaeda members in the war zone, and
its worldwide search for terrorists, came up against major
command-and-control problems. For example, combat forces that had Al Qaeda
targets in sight had to obtain legal clearance before firing on them. On
October 7th, the night the bombing began, an unmanned Predator aircraft
tracked an automobile convoy that, American intelligence believed, contained
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. A lawyer on duty at the United
States Central Command headquarters, in Tampa, Florida, refused to authorize
a strike. By the time an attack was approved, the target was out of reach.
Rumsfeld was apoplectic over what he saw as a self-defeating hesitation to
attack that was due to political correctness. One officer described him to
me that fall as "kicking a lot of glass and breaking doors." In November,
the Washington Post reported that, as many as ten times since early October,
Air Force pilots believed they'd had senior Al Qaeda and Taliban members in
their sights but had been unable to act in time because of legalistic
hurdles. There were similar problems throughout the world, as American
Special Forces units seeking to move quickly against suspected terrorist
cells were compelled to get prior approval from local American ambassadors
and brief their superiors in the chain of command.

Rumsfeld reacted in his usual direct fashion: he authorized the
establishment of a highly secret program that was given blanket advance
approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate "high value"
targets in the Bush Administration's war on terror. A special-access
program, or sap-subject to the Defense Department's most stringent level of
security-was set up, with an office in a secure area of the Pentagon. The
program would recruit operatives and acquire the necessary equipment,
including aircraft, and would keep its activities under wraps. America's
most successful intelligence operations during the Cold War had been saps,
including the Navy's submarine penetration of underwater cables used by the
Soviet high command and construction of the Air Force's stealth bomber. All
the so-called "black" programs had one element in common: the Secretary of
Defense, or his deputy, had to conclude that the normal military
classification restraints did not provide enough security.

"Rumsfeld's goal was to get a capability in place to take on a high-value
target-a standup group to hit quickly," a former high-level intelligence
official told me. "He got all the agencies together-the C.I.A. and the
N.S.A.-to get pre-approval in place. Just say the code word and go." The
operation had across-the-board approval from Rumsfeld and from Condoleezza
Rice, the national-security adviser. President Bush was informed of the
existence of the program, the former intelligence official said.



The people assigned to the program worked by the book, the former
intelligence official told me. They created code words, and recruited, after
careful screening, highly trained commandos and operatives from America's
élite forces-Navy seals, the Army's Delta Force, and the C.I.A.'s
paramilitary experts. They also asked some basic questions: "Do the people
working the problem have to use aliases? Yes. Do we need dead drops for the
mail? Yes. No traceability and no budget. And some special-access programs
are never fully briefed to Congress."

In theory, the operation enabled the Bush Administration to respond
immediately to time-sensitive intelligence: commandos crossed borders
without visas and could interrogate terrorism suspects deemed too important
for transfer to the military's facilities at Guantánamo, Cuba. They carried
out instant interrogations-using force if necessary-at secret C.I.A.
detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be
relayed to the sap command center in the Pentagon in real time, and sifted
for those pieces of information critical to the "white," or overt, world.

Fewer than two hundred operatives and officials, including Rumsfeld and
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were
"completely read into the program," the former intelligence official said.
The goal was to keep the operation protected. "We're not going to read more
people than necessary into our heart of darkness," he said. "The rules are
'Grab whom you must. Do what you want.'"

One Pentagon official who was deeply involved in the program was Stephen
Cambone, who was named Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in March,
2003. The office was new; it was created as part of Rumsfeld's
reorganization of the Pentagon. Cambone was unpopular among military and
civilian intelligence bureaucrats in the Pentagon, essentially because he
had little experience in running intelligence programs, though in 1998 he
had served as staff director for a committee, headed by Rumsfeld, that
warned of an emerging ballistic-missile threat to the United States. He was
known instead for his closeness to Rumsfeld. "Remember Henry II-'Who will
rid me of this meddlesome priest?'" the senior C.I.A. official said to me,
with a laugh, last week. "Whatever Rumsfeld whimsically says, Cambone will
do ten times that much."

Cambone was a strong advocate for war against Iraq. He shared Rumsfeld's
disdain for the analysis and assessments proffered by the C.I.A., viewing
them as too cautious, and chafed, as did Rumsfeld, at the C.I.A.'s
inability, before the Iraq war, to state conclusively that Saddam Hussein
harbored weapons of mass destruction. Cambone's military assistant, Army
Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, was also controversial. Last
fall, he generated unwanted headlines after it was reported that, in a
speech at an Oregon church, he equated the Muslim world with Satan.

Early in his tenure, Cambone provoked a bureaucratic battle within the
Pentagon by insisting that he be given control of all special-access
programs that were relevant to the war on terror. Those programs, which had
been viewed by many in the Pentagon as sacrosanct, were monitored by Kenneth
deGraffenreid, who had experience in counter-intelligence programs. Cambone
got control, and deGraffenreid subsequently left the Pentagon. Asked for
comment on this story, a Pentagon spokesman said, "I will not discuss any
covert programs; however, Dr. Cambone did not assume his position as the
Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence until March 7, 2003, and had no
involvement in the decision-making process regarding interrogation
procedures in Iraq or anywhere else."

In mid-2003, the special-access program was regarded in the Pentagon as one
of the success stories of the war on terror. "It was an active program," the
former intelligence official told me. "It's been the most important
capability we have for dealing with an imminent threat. If we discover where
Osama bin Laden is, we can get him. And we can remove an existing threat
with a real capability to hit the United States-and do so without
visibility." Some of its methods were troubling and could not bear close
scrutiny, however.

By then, the war in Iraq had begun. The sap was involved in some assignments
in Iraq, the former official said. C.I.A. and other American Special Forces
operatives secretly teamed up to hunt for Saddam Hussein and-without
success-for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But they weren't able to stop
the evolving insurgency.



In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, Rumsfeld and his aides still
had a limited view of the insurgency, seeing it as little more than the work
of Baathist "dead-enders," criminal gangs, and foreign terrorists who were
Al Qaeda followers. The Administration measured its success in the war by
how many of those on its list of the fifty-five most wanted members of the
old regime-reproduced on playing cards-had been captured. Then, in August,
2003, terror bombings in Baghdad hit the Jordanian Embassy, killing nineteen
people, and the United Nations headquarters, killing twenty-three people,
including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the U.N. mission. On August
25th, less than a week after the U.N. bombing, Rumsfeld acknowledged, in a
talk before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, that "the dead-enders are still
with us." He went on, "There are some today who are surprised that there are
still pockets of resistance in Iraq, and they suggest that this represents
some sort of failure on the part of the Coalition. But this is not the
 case." Rumsfeld compared the insurgents with those true believers who
"fought on during and after the defeat of the Nazi regime in Germany." A few
weeks later-and five months after the fall of Baghdad-the Defense Secretary
declared,"It is, in my view, better to be dealing with terrorists in Iraq
than in the United States."

Inside the Pentagon, there was a growing realization that the war was going
badly. The increasingly beleaguered and baffled Army leadership was telling
reporters that the insurgents consisted of five thousand Baathists loyal to
Saddam Hussein. "When you understand that they're organized in a cellular
structure," General John Abizaid, the head of the Central Command, declared,
"that . . . they have access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'
ll understand how dangerous they are."

The American military and intelligence communities were having little
success in penetrating the insurgency. One internal report prepared for the
U.S. military, made available to me, concluded that the insurgents'
"strategic and operational intelligence has proven to be quite good."
According to the study:

Their ability to attack convoys, other vulnerable targets and particular
individuals has been the result of painstaking surveillance and
reconnaissance. Inside information has been passed on to insurgent cells
about convoy/troop movements and daily habits of Iraqis working with
coalition from within the Iraqi security services, primarily the Iraqi
Police force which is rife with sympathy for the insurgents, Iraqi
ministries and from within pro-insurgent individuals working with the CPA's
so-called Green Zone.


The study concluded, "Politically, the U.S. has failed to date. Insurgencies
can be fixed or ameliorated by dealing with what caused them in the first
place. The disaster that is the reconstruction of Iraq has been the key
cause of the insurgency. There is no legitimate government, and it behooves
the Coalition Provisional Authority to absorb the sad but unvarnished fact
that most Iraqis do not see the Governing Council"-the Iraqi body appointed
by the C.P.A.-"as the legitimate authority. Indeed, they know that the true
power is the CPA."

By the fall, a military analyst told me, the extent of the Pentagon's
political and military misjudgments was clear. Donald Rumsfeld's
"dead-enders" now included not only Baathists but many marginal figures as
well-thugs and criminals who were among the tens of thousands of prisoners
freed the previous fall by Saddam as part of a prewar general amnesty. Their
desperation was not driving the insurgency; it simply made them easy
recruits for those who were. The analyst said, "We'd killed and captured
guys who had been given two or three hundred dollars to 'pray and spray
'"-that is, shoot randomly and hope for the best. "They weren't really
insurgents but down-and-outers who were paid by wealthy individuals
sympathetic to the insurgency." In many cases, the paymasters were Sunnis
who had been members of the Baath Party. The analyst said that the
insurgents "spent three or four months figuring out how we operated and
developing their own countermeasures. If that meant putting up a hapless guy
to go and attack a convoy and see how the American troops responded, they'd
do it." Then, the analyst said, "the clever ones began to get in on the
action."

By contrast, according to the military report, the American and Coalition
forces knew little about the insurgency: "Human intelligence is poor or
lacking . . . due to the dearth of competence and expertise. . . . The
intelligence effort is not coördinated since either too many groups are
involved in gathering intelligence or the final product does not get to the
troops in the field in a timely manner." The success of the war was at risk;
something had to be done to change the dynamic.



The solution, endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was
to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected
of being insurgents. A key player was Major General Geoffrey Miller, the
commander of the detention and interrogation center at Guantánamo, who had
been summoned to Baghdad in late August to review prison interrogation
procedures. The internal Army report on the abuse charges, written by Major
General Antonio Taguba in February, revealed that Miller urged that the
commanders in Baghdad change policy and place military intelligence in
charge of the prison. The report quoted Miller as recommending that
"detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation."

Miller's concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to "Gitmoize"
the prison system in Iraq-to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also
briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in
Cuba-methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation,
exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in "stress
positions" for agonizing lengths of time. (The Bush Administration had
unilaterally declared Al Qaeda and other captured members of international
terrorist networks to be illegal combatants, and not eligible for the
protection of the Geneva Conventions.)

Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope
of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos
were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could
be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.

"They weren't getting anything substantive from the detainees in Iraq," the
former intelligence official told me. "No names. Nothing that they could
hang their hat on. Cambone says, I've got to crack this thing and I'm tired
of working through the normal chain of command. I've got this apparatus set
up-the black special-access program-and I'm going in hot. So he pulls the
switch, and the electricity begins flowing last summer. And it's working. We
're getting a picture of the insurgency in Iraq and the intelligence is
flowing into the white world. We're getting good stuff. But we've got more
targets"-prisoners in Iraqi jails-"than people who can handle them."

Cambone then made another crucial decision, the former intelligence official
told me: not only would he bring the sap's rules into the prisons; he would
bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the
Iraqi prisons under the sap's auspices. "So here are fundamentally good
soldiers-military-intelligence guys-being told that no rules apply," the
former official, who has extensive knowledge of the special-access programs,
added. "And, as far as they're concerned, this is a covert operation, and it
's to be kept within Defense Department channels."

The military-police prison guards, the former official said, included
"recycled hillbillies from Cumberland, Maryland." He was referring to
members of the 372nd Military Police Company. Seven members of the company
are now facing charges for their role in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. "How are
these guys from Cumberland going to know anything? The Army Reserve doesn't
know what it's doing."

Who was in charge of Abu Ghraib-whether military police or military
intelligence-was no longer the only question that mattered. Hard-core
special operatives, some of them with aliases, were working in the prison.
The military police assigned to guard the prisoners wore uniforms, but many
others-military intelligence officers, contract interpreters, C.I.A.
officers, and the men from the special-access program-wore civilian clothes.
It was not clear who was who, even to Brigadier General Janis Karpinski,
then the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, and the officer
ostensibly in charge. "I thought most of the civilians there were
interpreters, but there were some civilians that I didn't know," Karpinski
told me. "I called them the disappearing ghosts. I'd seen them once in a
while at Abu Ghraib and then I'd see them months later. They were nice-they'
d always call out to me and say, 'Hey, remember me? How are you doing?'" The
mysterious civilians, she said, were "always bringing in somebody for
interrogation or waiting to collect somebody going out." Karpinski added
that she had no idea who was operating in her prison system. (General Taguba
found that Karpinski's leadership failures contributed to the abuses.)

By fall, according to the former intelligence official, the senior
leadership of the C.I.A. had had enough. "They said, 'No way. We signed up
for the core program in Afghanistan-pre-approved for operations against
high-value terrorist targets-and now you want to use it for cabdrivers,
brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets'"-the sort of prisoners
who populate the Iraqi jails. "The C.I.A.'s legal people objected," and the
agency ended its sap involvement in Abu Ghraib, the former official said.

The C.I.A.'s complaints were echoed throughout the intelligence community.
There was fear that the situation at Abu Ghraib would lead to the exposure
of the secret sap, and thereby bring an end to what had been, before Iraq, a
valuable cover operation. "This was stupidity," a government consultant told
me. "You're taking a program that was operating in the chaos of Afghanistan
against Al Qaeda, a stateless terror group, and bringing it into a
structured, traditional war zone. Sooner or later, the commandos would bump
into the legal and moral procedures of a conventional war with an Army of a
hundred and thirty-five thousand soldiers."

The former senior intelligence official blamed hubris for the Abu Ghraib
disaster. "There's nothing more exhilarating for a pissant Pentagon civilian
than dealing with an important national security issue without dealing with
military planners, who are always worried about risk," he told me. "What
could be more boring than needing the coöperation of logistical planners?"
The only difficulty, the former official added, is that, "as soon as you
enlarge the secret program beyond the oversight capability of experienced
people, you lose control. We've never had a case where a special-access
program went sour-and this goes back to the Cold War."

In a separate interview, a Pentagon consultant, who spent much of his career
directly involved with special-access programs, spread the blame. "The White
House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it
to Cambone," he said. "This is Cambone's deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers
approved the program." When it came to the interrogation operation at Abu
Ghraib, he said, Rumsfeld left the details to Cambone. Rumsfeld may not be
personally culpable, the consultant added, "but he's responsible for the
checks and balances. The issue is that, since 9/11, we've changed the rules
on how we deal with terrorism, and created conditions where the ends justify
the means."



Last week, statements made by one of the seven accused M.P.s, Specialist
Jeremy Sivits, who is expected to plead guilty, were released. In them, he
claimed that senior commanders in his unit would have stopped the abuse had
they witnessed it. One of the questions that will be explored at any trial,
however, is why a group of Army Reserve military policemen, most of them
from small towns, tormented their prisoners as they did, in a manner that
was especially humiliating for Iraqi men.

The notion that Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation
became a talking point among pro-war Washington conservatives in the months
before the March, 2003, invasion of Iraq. One book that was frequently cited
was "The Arab Mind," a study of Arab culture and psychology, first published
in 1973, by Raphael Patai, a cultural anthropologist who taught at, among
other universities, Columbia and Princeton, and who died in 1996. The book
includes a twenty-five-page chapter on Arabs and sex, depicting sex as a
taboo vested with shame and repression. "The segregation of the sexes, the
veiling of the women . . . and all the other minute rules that govern and
restrict contact between men and women, have the effect of making sex a
prime mental preoccupation in the Arab world," Patai wrote. Homosexual
activity, "or any indication of homosexual leanings, as with all other
expressions of sexuality, is never given any publicity. These are private
affairs and remain in private." The Patai book, an academic told me, was
"the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior." In their discussions, he said,
two themes emerged-"one, that Arabs only understand force and, two, that the
biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation."

The government consultant said that there may have been a serious goal, in
the beginning, behind the sexual humiliation and the posed photographs. It
was thought that some prisoners would do anything-including spying on their
associates-to avoid dissemination of the shameful photos to family and
friends. The government consultant said, "I was told that the purpose of the
photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could insert
back in the population." The idea was that they would be motivated by fear
of exposure, and gather information about pending insurgency action, the
consultant said. If so, it wasn't effective; the insurgency continued to
grow.

"This shit has been brewing for months," the Pentagon consultant who has
dealt with saps told me. "You don't keep prisoners naked in their cell and
then let them get bitten by dogs. This is sick." The consultant explained
that he and his colleagues, all of whom had served for years on active duty
in the military, had been appalled by the misuse of Army guard dogs inside
Abu Ghraib. "We don't raise kids to do things like that. When you go after
Mullah Omar, that's one thing. But when you give the authority to kids who
don't know the rules, that's another."

In 2003, Rumsfeld's apparent disregard for the requirements of the Geneva
Conventions while carrying out the war on terror had led a group of senior
military legal officers from the Judge Advocate General's (jag) Corps to pay
two surprise visits within five months to Scott Horton, who was then
chairman of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on International
Human Rights. "They wanted us to challenge the Bush Administration about its
standards for detentions and interrogation," Horton told me. "They were
urging us to get involved and speak in a very loud voice. It came pretty
much out of the blue. The message was that conditions are ripe for abuse,
and it's going to occur." The military officials were most alarmed about the
growing use of civilian contractors in the interrogation process, Horton
recalled. "They said there was an atmosphere of legal ambiguity being
created as a result of a policy decision at the highest levels in the
Pentagon. The jag officers were being cut out of the policy formulation
process." They told him that, with the war on terror, a fifty-year history
of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end.



The abuses at Abu Ghraib were exposed on January 13th, when Joseph Darby, a
young military policeman assigned to Abu Ghraib, reported the wrongdoing to
the Army's Criminal Investigations Division. He also turned over a CD full
of photographs. Within three days, a report made its way to Donald Rumsfeld,
who informed President Bush.

The inquiry presented a dilemma for the Pentagon. The C.I.D. had to be
allowed to continue, the former intelligence official said. "You can't cover
it up. You have to prosecute these guys for being off the reservation. But
how do you prosecute them when they were covered by the special-access
program? So you hope that maybe it'll go away." The Pentagon's attitude last
January, he said, was "Somebody got caught with some photos. What's the big
deal? Take care of it." Rumsfeld's explanation to the White House, the
official added, was reassuring: "'We've got a glitch in the program. We'll
prosecute it.' The cover story was that some kids got out of control."

In their testimony before Congress last week, Rumsfeld and Cambone struggled
to convince the legislators that Miller's visit to Baghdad in late August
had nothing to do with the subsequent abuse. Cambone sought to assure the
Senate Armed Services Committee that the interplay between Miller and
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, had only
a casual connection to his office. Miller's recommendations, Cambone said,
were made to Sanchez. His own role, he said, was mainly to insure that the
"flow of intelligence back to the commands" was "efficient and effective."
He added that Miller's goal was "to provide a safe, secure and humane
environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence."

It was a hard sell. Senator Hillary Clinton, Democrat of New York, posed the
essential question facing the senators:

If, indeed, General Miller was sent from Guantánamo to Iraq for the purpose
of acquiring more actionable intelligence from detainees, then it is fair to
conclude that the actions that are at point here in your report [on abuses
at Abu Ghraib] are in some way connected to General Miller's arrival and his
specific orders, however they were interpreted, by those MPs and the
military intelligence that were involved.. . .Therefore, I for one don't
believe I yet have adequate information from Mr. Cambone and the Defense
Department as to exactly what General Miller's orders were . . . how he
carried out those orders, and the connection between his arrival in the fall
of '03 and the intensity of the abuses that occurred afterward.


Sometime before the Abu Ghraib abuses became public, the former intelligence
official told me, Miller was "read in"-that is, briefed-on the
special-access operation. In April, Miller returned to Baghdad to assume
control of the Iraqi prisons; once the scandal hit, with its glaring
headlines, General Sanchez presented him to the American and international
media as the general who would clean up the Iraqi prison system and instill
respect for the Geneva Conventions. "His job is to save what he can," the
former official said. "He's there to protect the program while limiting any
loss of core capability." As for Antonio Taguba, the former intelligence
official added, "He goes into it not knowing shit. And then: 'Holy cow! What
's going on?'"

If General Miller had been summoned by Congress to testify, he, like
Rumsfeld and Cambone, would not have been able to mention the special-access
program. "If you give away the fact that a special-access program exists,"
the former intelligence official told me, "you blow the whole quick-reaction
program."

One puzzling aspect of Rumsfeld's account of his initial reaction to news of
the Abu Ghraib investigation was his lack of alarm and lack of curiosity.
One factor may have been recent history: there had been many previous
complaints of prisoner abuse from organization like Human Rights Watch and
the International Red Cross, and the Pentagon had weathered them with ease.
Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had not been
provided with details of alleged abuses until late March, when he read the
specific charges. "You read it, as I say, it's one thing. You see these
photographs and it's just unbelievable. . . . It wasn't three-dimensional.
It wasn't video. It wasn't color. It was quite a different thing." The
former intelligence official said that, in his view, Rumsfeld and other
senior Pentagon officials had not studied the photographs because "they
thought what was in there was permitted under the rules of engagement," as
applied to the sap. "The photos," he added, "turned out to be the result of
the program run amok."

The former intelligence official made it clear that he was not alleging that
Rumsfeld or General Myers knew that atrocities were committed. But, he said,
"it was their permission granted to do the sap, generically, and there was
enough ambiguity, which permitted the abuses."

This official went on, "The black guys"-those in the Pentagon's secret
program-"say we've got to accept the prosecution. They're vaccinated from
the reality." The sap is still active, and "the United States is picking up
guys for interrogation. The question is, how do they protect the
quick-reaction force without blowing its cover?" The program was protected
by the fact that no one on the outside was allowed to know of its existence.
"If you even give a hint that you're aware of a black program that you're
not read into, you lose your clearances," the former official said. "Nobody
will talk. So the only people left to prosecute are those who are
undefended-the poor kids at the end of the food chain."

The most vulnerable senior official is Cambone. "The Pentagon is trying now
to protect Cambone, and doesn't know how to do it," the former intelligence
official said.


Last week, the government consultant, who has close ties to many
conservatives, defended the Administration's continued secrecy about the
special-access program in Abu Ghraib. "Why keep it black?" the consultant
asked. "Because the process is unpleasant. It's like making sausage-you like
the result but you don't want to know how it was made. Also, you don't want
the Iraqi public, and the Arab world, to know. Remember, we went to Iraq to
democratize the Middle East. The last thing you want to do is let the Arab
world know how you treat Arab males in prison."

The former intelligence official told me he feared that one of the
disastrous effects of the prison-abuse scandal would be the undermining of
legitimate operations in the war on terror, which had already suffered from
the draining of resources into Iraq. He portrayed Abu Ghraib as "a tumor" on
the war on terror. He said, "As long as it's benign and contained, the
Pentagon can deal with the photo crisis without jeopardizing the secret
program. As soon as it begins to grow, with nobody to diagnose it-it becomes
a malignant tumor."

The Pentagon consultant made a similar point. Cambone and his superiors, the
consultant said, "created the conditions that allowed transgressions to take
place. And now we're going to end up with another Church Commission"-the
1975 Senate committee on intelligence, headed by Senator Frank Church, of
Idaho, which investigated C.I.A. abuses during the previous two decades. Abu
Ghraib had sent the message that the Pentagon leadership was unable to
handle its discretionary power. "When the shit hits the fan, as it did on
9/11, how do you push the pedal?" the consultant asked. "You do it
selectively and with intelligence."

"Congress is going to get to the bottom of this," the Pentagon consultant
said. "You have to demonstrate that there are checks and balances in the
system." He added, "When you live in a world of gray zones, you have to have
very clear red lines."

Senator John McCain, of Arizona, said, "If this is true, it certainly
increases the dimension of this issue and deserves significant scrutiny. I
will do all possible to get to the bottom of this, and all other
allegations."

"In an odd way," Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch,
said, "the sexual abuses at Abu Ghraib have become a diversion for the
prisoner abuse and the violation of the Geneva Conventions that is
authorized." Since September 11th, Roth added, the military has
systematically used third-degree techniques around the world on detainees.
"Some jags hate this and are horrified that the tolerance of mistreatment
will come back and haunt us in the next war," Roth told me. "We're giving
the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has
lowered the bar."



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