The Bush Administration insists the mistreatment of detainees in the war on terror was the fault of a "few bad apples," but a bipartisan panel of senators, including John McCain, begs to differ. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees," says a new report. It blames Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush Administration officials for the harsh treatment of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, which, the report says, led to abuses like the cruel treatment of detainees by American forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The report is "the most direct refutation to date" of the administration's line that such techniques protect American lives, writes The Washington Post. The report argues that such techniques have "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." Not one of the 12 Republican senators on the panel dissented.
Read it at The Washington Post
