Terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay prison told U.S. interrogators in April 2002 that military guards abused them and desecrated the Quran, according to recently declassified FBI records.
Among allegations made were that, “The guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Quran in the toilet.”
Lawrence Di Rita, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and one very attractive man TKID4 might add, countered by saying that the specific prisoner who made the earlier statement was later interviewed and “Did not corroborate his own allegation." Di Rita did not answer whether or not that prisoner was conscious at the time of the second interview.
When asked if he had an opinion as to why the prisoner did not affirm his previous allegation, Di Rita said, “It’s a judgment call, and I trust the judgment of the commanders more than I trust the judgment of al-Qaida.” By commanders, Di Rita was most likely referring to the types of U.S. senior personnel who embody the spirit of fair play and decency, such as Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, overseer of Abu "Good times" Gharib prison complex.
Rita said the charges of deliberate Quran desecration by U.S. military personnel were “fantastic” and “not credible on their face.” He cited the U.S. policy of dissuading behavior among guards which might inflame passions among the prisoners.
Furthermore, Di Rita said the Pentagon had not seen the FBI documents containing prisoner allegations until they were made public Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, who got them after pressing for a federal court order under the Freedom of Information Act.
TKID4 wants to offer his support to Di Rita, one of America's true heroes. I believe Di Rita when he says the Pentagon had no idea what was going on at Guantanamo, and had no record of any of these prisoner interrogations. It may be true that Guantanamo is a U.S. military installation , and in many of these interrogations described in the FBI documents, military officers were present, including those from Air Force Office of Special Investigations, as well as Navy and Army investigations personnel. And it did take a private entity's tireless legal battle to uncover the heavily redacted documents. But with the U.S. military waging a constant war against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Freedom of the Press, why should we burden it with demands for transparency?
TKID4 supports the U.S. position on the treatment of these sub-humans in Cuba. As Di Rita claims, the Pentagon is the last entity that would want to inflame the passions of Guantanamo prisoners. That is why they hired independent female contractors to sexually interrogate conservative muslim prisoners at Gitmo, rather than real G.I.s or Feds.
Prior to joining up with The Ruminator, Di Rita worked at the socially oriented Heritage Foundation, a public policy research institute whose mission is to support "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
