Torture Report Confirms Team Bush War Crimes
Reading the 499-page torture report just released by the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence was a disgusting experience. Even after
many years of writing books and articles about the Bush torture policy,
I was unprepared for the atrocious pattern of crimes our government
committed against other human beings in our name.
One of the most hideous techniques the CIA plied on detainees was
called "rectal rehydration" or "rectal feeding" without medical
necessity - a sanitized description of rape by a foreign object. A
concoction of pureed "hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins" was
forced into the rectum of one detainee. Another was subjected to "rectal
rehydration" to establish the interrogator's "total control over the
detainee." This constitutes illegal, cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment and a humiliating outrage upon personal dignity.
A
handout photo of CIA Director George Tenet, center with President
George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the Oval Office,
Washington, March 3, 2003. (Photo: Eric Draper / The White House via The
New York Times)
