US/Iraq: The top US commander in Iraq authorised prisoner interrogation tactics more harsh than accepted army practice, including using guard dogs to exploit "Arab fear of dogs", a memo made public on Tuesday showed.
The September 14th, 2003, memo by army Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, then the senior commander in Iraq, was released by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained it from the government under court order through the Freedom of Information Act.
"The memo clearly establishes that Gen Sanchez authorised unlawful interrogation techniques for use in Iraq, and in particular these techniques violate the Geneva Conventions and the army's own field manual governing interrogations," ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said in an interview.
In the memo, Gen Sanchez laid out which interrogation techniques were permitted in Iraq, and said some required his prior approval. Some of the harshest techniques were disallowed the next month because of opposition from some military lawyers.
The fact that the Sanchez memo existed was previously known, but not its contents.
The memo allowed for military working dogs, or MWD, to be present during interrogations, saying the practice "exploits Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogations. Dogs will be muzzled and under control of MWD handler at all times to prevent contact with detainee".
The memo permitted "stress positions", in which a prisoner is placed in potentially painful bodily positions to try to get them to talk. It allowed for "environmental manipulation" such as making a room hot or cold or using an "unpleasant smell", isolating a prisoner, and disrupting normal sleep patterns.
It allowed the "false flag" technique of "convincing the detainee that individuals from a country other than the United States are interrogating him".
A defence official who asked not to be named said, "It's important to note that Lieut Gen Sanchez and his staff thoroughly reviewed the policy for compliance with Geneva Conventions prior to its approval."
The official said a Pentagon investigation into detainee policies headed by navy vice admiral Albert Church, released on March 10th, found that "none of the techniques contained in [ Sanchez's] interrogation policy would have permitted abuses such as those at Abu Ghraib".
Meanwhile, former US secretary of state Colin Powell said yesterday the United States had made errors in presenting its case for war against Iraq, though Saddam Hussein had to be removed. "We were sometimes too loud, too direct, perhaps we made too much noise," Mr Powell told Stern magazine in an interview released yesterday.
He said terms like "Old Europe", coined by defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to describe countries that opposed the war, had not helped ease European concerns about Washington's policies.- (Reuters)