OpEdNews - Page 4 of Article: Senate Panel's Report Links Detainees' Murders to Bush's Torture Policy

But the Bush administration officials who authorized and implemented the policies were not held accountable. Indeed, Vice Admiral Church, who conducted the investigation, never bothered to interview Rumsfeld because he did not believe it to be necessary.

"In the wake of the deaths of Habibullah and Dilawar, [Combined Joint Task Force-180] and the [Special Forces Task Force] began developing written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for interrogations," the Armed Services Committee report says.

According to the Church report, following an investigation one day after Dilawar was killed, an Army lieutenant "prohibited several interrogation techniques implicated in the detainees' deaths."

Specifically, he prohibited the practice of handcuffing as a means of enforcing sleep deprivation, hooding a detainee during questioning, and any form of physical contact used for the purpose of interrogation.

"It should be noted that handcuffing as a means of enforcing sleep deprivation was never approved in any interrogation policy; and in any event.....constituted the only interrogation guidance in Afghanistan at the time,"- according to the two-pages from the Church report. "Although some of the measures were later reversed in the March 2004 interrogation guidance, as described previously, they do not indicate initial action was taken."

The U.S. Military never produced any evidence to prove that either Habibullah or Dilawar had connections to the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

In fact, as the New York Times reported, when Dilawar had died, "most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time."

1 | 2 | 3 | 4