Damning report over FBI conduct of detainees from 9/11

Lemming

From today's Star newspaper (just a small side column report)

FBI lashed over 9/11 detainees

The FBI mistreated hundreds of illegal immigrants rounded up after the September 11 attacks, holding many for too long in "unduly harsh" conditions, an internal report has revealed.

Detainees were locked up for up to 23 hours a day, forced to sleep under bright lights, denied contact with lawyers and family and, in some cases, physically abused, the US Justice Department Inspector General's probe concluded

Problems

It reported "significant problems" with the Bush administration's treatment of the 762 foreigners held after the attacks.

Only one detainee has been charged with any terrorism-related crime, and he was arrested more than a month before the attacks. More than 500 detainees were deported.

Well well. I'm not surprised to see the Bush administration mentioned in there. The conditions described for detainees sounds suspiciously like interrogation torture methods were used, such as sleep depravation, etc. And the Neocons are the first people to harp on about human rights when US military are captured.

G'wan the PNAC. The new KKK of international relations :rolleyes:

Trebor

Yawn!

the FBI have been there before the bush administration and will be there after he has gone this has nothing to do with Bush but with how the FBI is run internally,

man everything and anything is blamed on Bush! it will be up to the administration to sort it out, but that does that mean that they are the resaon for the treatment of the prisoners

Double yawn!
I suppose poor old celebrity chef Conrad Gallagher,incarcerated in what he described as poor conditions was Bushes fault aswell.
Maybe it is really, the U.S should model their detention services on Castlerea or shelton Abbey.
{sarcasm}Ah yes that would be a good idea.{sarcasm}
mm

Lemming

yawn, or double yawn it may be since "everybody knows" about it.

BUT what I find different is that this report comes from an extrordinarily high place within the US government (in the form of the Inspector General of the US Justice Dept.) which lends it a lot more weight and credibility.

Thats a good thing surely, that critisism is mounted from such a high office
which is within the U.s government as you say.
Bad treatment is bad, yes to my mind but not adminstration specific.
Consider the time that we are talking about here, ie in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 and the en sue-ing fear all around mixed with humankinds natural tendancies towards revenge.

A comparison would be with , the treatment of many Irish people in England in the 70's and 80's during the worst of the IRA campaign there.

An over reaction yes, but to an extent a scary understandable over reaction.
Not unlike, egg throwing and shouting at a defendant at a controversial case in a local district court here.
Or what happened last year with the Gardaí and the reclaim the streets campaigners.
mm

Captain Trips

I wouldn't forget that Louis Freeh stepped down as director the FBI only 3 months before 9/11, a good 18 months before needing to fully complete his tenure. Robert Mueller (like the yogurts) then became Director of the FBI, a long time republican conservative and served as assistant attorney general under Rumsfeld for 6 months before 9/11.

That the FBI Special Agent Robert Wright is being prevented from revealing his report: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/38/news-crogan.php

That Cheney warned the FBI to back off in Jan '01 against investigating Al-Quedas funding (aka, the link to Saudi, Enron et al that has since become common knowledge) to protect Enron's already existsing deal to build the trans-Afganistan oil pipeline.

The net is full of examples like above and that the halt of investigations has since made the FBI look http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/29/1030508074703.html "ignorant and inept".

So in essence what I see is a method to discredit the FBI (and/or CIA) in order to reorganise the heirarchy so as that such agencies are totally under thumb of the NeoCons - hence disparaging reports on how inept they were (yet they were told to back off) and how they mistreat people (yet it's the military - always under direct NeoCon control - holding detainees in Cuba, and the FBI in continental US are doing exactly as the NeoCons wanted (much because of the new boss) when they introduced the PATRIOT Act - to make "old" America seem like a bad guy. Of course if you say to a police agency they can have certain rights regarding arrest and detention, they'll use them).

So a situation is created whereby these previously almost independently run and adminstration-unaware agencies come under the thumb of the NeoCons because after all they are totally inept and secondly they abuse police powers (yet they were stopped from investigating and were given those powers). Time for a shake-down and well look at that, a nice new agency called the Department Of Homeland Security is there, already in progress and with funding from around 1996, steadily building support.

And gee whizz, it just so happens that 9/11 is ideal to show how the old agencies need to be removed or changed. And along with that comes the obliteration of most consitutional rights.

I can't believe I'm defending the FBI and CIA but stranger things have happened!

Lemming

Originally posted by Captain Trips

I can't believe I'm defending the FBI and CIA but stranger things have happened!

On that note, some new politically oriented "intelligence" group (can't recall the name) was founded by Rummsie-baby there not long ago that has the presidents ear and is spouting sh*te that the NSA, DoD Intell & CIA are then contradicting, ye tbeing overruled because the president's hearing what he wants to hear and not the objections.

An intelligence agency HAS to be politically impartial in order for it to be effective. That's simply the nature of the game. A political agency worries the hell out of me!

Anyway, this is OT so my apologies