Still digesting it here, Washington Post has these late-afternoon dumped documents, as do other papers. The timing was chosen to miss the evening news if at all possible, and screw up newspaper deadilnes making it impossible for reporters to analyze and file stories on time for Wednesday (and hopefully some new event will make it “old news” by Thursday in the desperate Bush thinking). Bush signed a “Confidential Finding” on February 7, 2002 which declares that Taliban and Al Qaeda members are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections, then says he will extend those protections anyway. He orders prisoners in general to be treated “humanely” but only with quite a list of exceptions, including this: He specifically says that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not apply, as well as Article 4.
Common Article 3 is the article which forbids torture of prisoners.
Then late Tuesday he says this:
“Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country: We do not condone torture,” Bush said. “I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.”
Vermont Senator Pat Leahy, who repeatedly demanded some of these documents last week from Ashcroft who refused, was asked for an instant response:
“The stonewalling in the prison abuse scandal has been building to a crisis point,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “Now, responding to public pressure, the White House has released a small subset of the documents that offers glimpses into the genesis of this scandal All should have been provided earlier to Congress, and much more remains held back and hidden away from public view.“
Think the Democrats in Congress are pathetic and ineffectual in making demands for these documents? Look at what Rumsfeld had planned for one of the damning documents he was forced to give up yesterday.
One other thing: The New York Times’ coverage of this for Wednesday is inexcusably inadequate.
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