8/15/2004

Regarding the torture of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Deputy Chief in the Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo said: “Abu Ghraib operated under the Geneva Conventions from the start, as it should have under our laws. Several Pentagon investigations, most notably a bipartisan panel chaired by two former secretaries of defense, James Schlesinger and Harold Brown, have found the charges of a secret policy to engage in coercive interrogation to be false. [In the Brown-Schlesinger Report of August 2004,] They report that the abuses at Abu Ghraib resulted not from orders out of Washington, but from flagrant disregard of interrogation in Iraq and detention rules by the guards. Schlesinger described conditions at the prison ‘as a kind of Animal House on the night shift’ and blamed a lack of resources, training, and leadership.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – John Yoo, War By Other Means, Page 194