Abu Ghraib lawyers want Cheney on stand

[wilheim]

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (CNN) -- The fifth day of military hearings for Pfc. Lynndie England on charges connected to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad included a defense request for Vice President Dick Cheney to appear as a witness.

Cheney was among a long wish-list of potential witnesses, which included many of the generals involved with the prison. Defense lawyers did not explain in open court Saturday why they want Cheney's testimony.

The hearing officer, Col. Denise Arn, said she will study the request but gave no indication when or how she might rule.

The hearing was adjourned, and Arn set no date for when it might resume. England's lawyers speculated that the hearing might reconvene in a month.

The defense is known to be seeking to compel testimony by a former Army reservist who has told investigators and reporters that military intelligence agents helped instigate the abuses.

Sgt. Kenneth Davis of Hagerstown, Maryland, told The Associated Press on Friday that he reported the intelligence agents to his own platoon leader. According to the AP, Davis said 1st Lt. Lewis Raeder replied, "They are [military intelligence] and they are in charge. Let them do their job."

Defense lawyers have contended that England and the other guards facing charges were following orders from military intelligence.

In all, seven soldiers have been charged in connection with abuses at Abu Ghraib. The seven are from the 372nd Military Police Company, a unit of reservists based near Cumberland, Maryland.

Spc. Israel Rivera, an intelligence analyst, testified in the England hearing Thursday that two of his colleagues took part in the abuse the night three detainees suspected of rape were stripped naked and twisted into a tangle of limbs and torsos on the cellblock floor.

By the AP's account, Davis saw what happened that night and said the other two intelligence agents went well beyond what Rivera told the court. Davis said the men, Spc. Armin Cruz and Spc. Roman Krol, had forced the suspects to crawl naked across the floor. Rivera had testified the prison guards did that.

No military intelligence personnel have been charged in connection with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. But Cruz and Rivera have been named publicly as people under investigation.

The incident in which the intelligence agents are alleged to have been involved happened either October 24 or 25 -- the earliest documented date of the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib last fall.

Arn has not said whether Davis will be required to testify.

Proceedings for England, charged with 19 counts in connection with the abuses, had been scheduled to conclude Friday but were delayed because a key witness was temporarily unavailable.

Prosecutors wanted to call Pvt. Jeremy Sivits, the only one of the seven guards charged to plead guilty. Sivits is serving a one-year sentence in military prison and is being moved from Germany to a lockup at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, not far from Fort Bragg. He had not yet arrived when the court called for his testimony Friday.

England's attorneys have asked Arn for permission to call a number of high-ranking officers who have had some role in oversight or investigation of Abu Ghraib.

The requested witnesses by the defense include:


Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. troops during the Iraq war


Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, overseer of all prisons in Iraq and former commander at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba


Maj. Gen. George Fay, in charge of a Pentagon investigation of Abu Ghraib


Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the Military Police brigade running Abu Ghraib at the time of the incidents. She removed from that duty after being reprimanded.

None of the ranking generals has been required to testify in any of the other prison abuse cases. Most observers think it unlikely they will be ordered to appear in this one.


CNN.com

 

[bblight]

CNN - another reliable news source - Let's see, CNN the NY Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe - all media that are well known for their unbiased reporting!

Yeh! Right!

Hey, Wil, you got them all except for Pravda?

 

[wilheim]

Blight take it easy you are getting all worked up for nothing. Grab the latest Herald and read some lies about the next president of the US - John Kerry.


wil.

 

[bblight]

Getting all worked up?

Hell wil, my wife is away, football doesn't start until Monday, and I have nothing else to do -

By the way - I'm a "Drudge Report" man - I don't waste my $ on newsprint!

 

[wilheim]

Broaden your horizens (a little) from the Drudge joke.

Herald on-line

On the house.

 

[Marco]

Actually Cheney has a rock solid alibi for anyone that would connect him with the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib....

...he was too busy abusing the American taxpayer with fraudulent Halliburton practices, therefore could not have had the time necessary to commit any offenses at Abu....

 

[GAMEFACE]

Amazing, all this over panties on the head.

They make shit like this appear worse than chopping heads off, burning bodies and hangings.

 

[wilheim]

Well it depends on where you set the bar. When the bar is set at Geneva Convention levels, which is really not asking much from trained armed forces from a democracy, then the Abu Ghraib atrocities are criminal. No matter what other crimes were commited by anyone anywhere.

wil.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Wilm,

I doubt many reservist are completely trained for this type of duty, the terrorist are animals.

 

[wilheim]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I doubt many reservist are completely trained for this type of duty <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Absolutely, the real blame HAS to go to the forces on high that put them in jobs they were obviously un-trained to perform. That is my book is where responsibility lies for the entire fiasco. Who sent a barely out of her teens, not really an adult female, to hold the keys in a war zone lock-up?


wil.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Wilm,

To be fair to the high ups, I doubt many could handle that type of duty. The day to day shit the guards have to put up with from those animals would make most reach the breaking point. I'm surprised more than one or two were killed. Do you think when our guys are held prisoner they whack off and throw it at the terrorist? America plays on a different field, which makes it very difficult.

 

[jimbutorac]

I think Cheney will eventually stand trial...

Halliburton pays 7.5 million dollars to settle accounting charges
Aug 03 '04


WASHINGTON (AFP) — US oil services group Halliburton agreed to pay 7.5 million dollars to settle charges of misleading accounting when Vice President Dick Cheney was in charge.

And supposedly they're investigating more improprities in Nigerai under his stewardship.

All this is in addition to the company during his tenure setting up offshore subsidiaries to avoid sanctions and do business with Iran and Iraq, two members of the so-called "Axis of Evil".

Nixon ain't the only Republican "Tricky Dick".

 

[xpanda]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GAMEFACE:
To be fair to the high ups, I doubt many could handle that type of duty. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In previous wars, did the US and countries abiding by Geneva (or comparable) standards not manage to hold POWs and 'enemy combatants' under reasonable, humanitarian conditions? If the answer is 'no,' then perhaps you should be questioning why the structure allows for anyone to have such an enormous duty that you 'doubt many can handle.' If the answer to the question is 'yes,' then under no circumstances is there need to be 'fair to the high ups' who are obviously less competent than their predecessors.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>The day to day shit the guards have to put up with from those animals would make most reach the breaking point. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You refer to the 'beheaders' as animals above so I am presuming you believe the prisoners to be of the same genre -- terrorists. Most of them were Iraqis who may or may not have committed any crime, as evidenced by the release of over 1,000 of them after the AG scandal broke.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>America plays on a different field, which makes it very difficult. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is very true. It is also a field shared by other democratic nations. Canada had its own similar abuse scandal of a Somali prisoner, too. The fact remains that we are supposed to behave outside our borders the same way we behave inside our borders, and we don't treat our prisoners like that.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Mud,

Will anyone in the UN stand trial for stealing 10+ billion in the Iraq oil for food program.

 

[GAMEFACE]

mud,

that's 10 billion with a B.

it's pretty sad to side against America if you're American.

 

[jimbutorac]

Game,

No doubt there was corruption at the UN. I consider myself consistent - if I condemn it by the UN, I also ain't afraid to condemn it when it's committed by our current Vice President.

 

[GAMEFACE]

mud,

provide the link where you condemned the UN.

i doubt what halliburton has done is anywhere close to the same as the UN.

halliburton is probably the only company in the world that could do what they are doing. we know the UN couldn't, END OF STORY.

 

[Marco]

The no-bid contract makes it awful easy for Halliburton to be the only company to do what they are doing....

I have little doubt when I say that Cheney will not face charges.....he will walk because this whole Halliburton thing will get covered up and muddled up in the rest of the secretive world of Bush and his cronies....

If all this overcharging and charging for services not performed was discovered among a small business in the private sector, there would be criminal prosecutions involved.....all the charges on Halliburton/Cheney will sail off with little more than a dent left behind...

I can't comprehend anyone who condones this type of behavior, regardless which political camp they support. Wake the fvck up.

 

[petyos]

Most of those people were not terrorists.
I dont think too many people would have a problem with terrorist getting tortured to get info out of them BUT regular people should not get that treatment

 

[jimbutorac]

Peytos makes a good point. The right wingers here assume it was only terrorists that suffered degradation and so what if they had to wear panties over their heads?

But it's a lot worse than that. A lot of people were not terrorists, but innocents who have since been released. And there were people there who were killed, not just
humiliated and tortured, and this is still being investigated.

See, if the Admin could only prove to international opinion that it was only guilty terrorists and the most they suffered was some mild hazing, I'd grant them their point. But IMO, facts will prove out that ain't so.

And because of this, young American Armed Forces personnel will have their safety and health needlesly jeopardized by such actions which again, IMO is a failure of leadership. For instance, when you have an Admin that publishes memos saying that in light of new terror threat, we need to redefine concepts of torture, when you have an Admin policy that says Geneva conventions do not apply to Guantanomo detainees, then it might be reasonable to expect this kind of reaction from around the world.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al, will dodge this. Whether Cheney can survive multiple accounting fraud scandals at Haliburton is anothe question, since it is no doubt in my mind, Bush will dump him like he did "Kenny Boy" Lay at the first sign of trouble.

Oh, and for you loyal Bush fans keeping score, here's the latest on Cheney's trusted Iraqi stooge:

Iraq issues arrest warrant for Chalabi
Ex-council member sought on counterfeiting charges

Zohra Bensemra / REUTERS


• Arrest warrant
Aug. 8: NBC's Jennifer Eccelston reports from Baghdad on Chalabi's warrant.
Nightly News


The Associated Press
Updated: 9:18 p.m. ET Aug. 8, 2004BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq has issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Chalabi, a former Governing Council member with strong U.S. ties, on counterfeiting charges, and for his nephew Salem Chalabi — head of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein — on murder charges, Iraq’s chief investigating judge said Sunday.

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The warrant was the latest strike against Ahmad Chalabi in his removal from the centers of power. A longtime Iraqi exile opposition leader, he had been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans in the weeks before the U.S. occupation ended in June.

Both men denied the charges, dismissing them as part of a political conspiracy against them and their family.

'Outrageous'
Salem Chalabi, named as a suspect in the June murder of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry, called the accusation “ridiculous.” His uncle said the charges were “outrageous” and “manufactured lies.”

Ahmad Chalabi was somewhat marginalized when he was left out of the new interim government that took power June 28 but has since worked to reposition himself as a Shiite populist. At the helm of the war crimes tribunal for Saddam, the Ivy League-educated Salem Chalabi remains a central figure in Iraq.

“They should be arrested and then questioned and ... if there is enough evidence, they will be sent to trial,” Judge Zuhair al-Maliky said.

In Washington, the Bush administration had no comment about the charges against the Chalabis. “This is a matter for the Iraqi authorities to resolve and they are taking steps to do so,” White House spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis.

The warrants, issued Saturday, accused Ahmad Chalabi of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars, which were removed from circulation after the ouster of Saddam’s regime last year.

Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops found counterfeit money along with old dinars during a raid on Chalabi’s house in Baghdad in May, al-Maliky said. He apparently was mixing counterfeit and real money and changing them into new dinars on the street, the judge said.

The accusation is not Ahmad Chalabi’s first brush with legal problems. He is wanted in Jordan for a 1991 conviction in absentia for fraud in a banking scandal. He was sentenced to 22 years in jail, but has denied all allegations.

The men were out of the country Sunday but promised to return to Iraq to face the allegations.

“I’m now mobilized on all fronts to rebuff all these charges,” Ahmad Chalabi told CNN from Tehran, Iran, where he was attending an economic conference. “Nobody’s above the law, and I submit to the law in Iraq ... despite my serious and grave reservations about this court.”

“I don’t think ... that I had anything to do with the charges so I’m not actually worried about it,” Salem Chalabi told CNN from London. “It’s a ridiculous charge, that I threatened somebody ... there’s no proof there.”

Death penalty
If convicted, Salem Chalabi, 41, could face the death penalty, which was restored by Iraqi officials on Sunday, al-Maliky said. His uncle, who is in his late 50s, would face a sentence determined by trial judges.

Born in Baghdad, the younger Chalabi studied at Yale, Columbia and Northwestern University and holds degrees in law and international affairs. He served as a legal adviser to the interim Iraqi Governing Council and was a member of the 10-member committee framing the basic transitional law for the new interim government.

But Ahmad Chalabi’s star has steadily declined. He was once considered Washington’s most likely choice for Iraqi president after Saddam’s fall, but he was never popular in Iraq and ended up without a job in the new government.

A frequent guest on news talk shows in the United States, Ahmad Chalabi had significant, and controversial, influence on America’s Iraq policy before the war. His network of Iraqi exiles in the Iraqi National Congress provided the Bush administration, and some news organizations, with reports on Saddam’s purported weapons of mass destruction programs.

Those weapons were cited by the United States and Britain as the primary justification for the Iraq war. When no significant weapons stocks were found, Chalabi became a liability. He has continued to insist that the weapons exist.

Chalabi also was accused recently of informing Iran that the United States had broken its secret intelligence codes, a charge he branded as “stupid.” And around the time of the raid on his house, U.S. officials privately complained that Chalabi was interfering with a U.S. inquiry into money skimmed from the U.N. oil-for-food program by pursuing his own probe.

As relations with his American backers soured, he has tried use the fallout to enhance his stature among Iraqis, many of whom saw him as an American puppet.

“I’ve risen higher in the esteem of my people and I’m now much better positioned politically in the country, because I’m in sympathy with my people. This is what it is all about,” Chalabi said Sunday.

Among his campaigns to win favor with Iraqis have been purging Baath party members from the Iraqi government and attempting to set up an exclusively Shiite political party. He recently played peacemaker in ending violence in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in June.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.