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Rumsfeld can override Pentagon policy barring torture
By Sydney Morning Herald
11/10/05 "SMH" -- -- Washington: The US Defence Secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld, can authorise exceptions to a new Pentagon policy on
military interrogations that bars torture and calls for "humane"
treatment of detainees.
The new directive lays out broad policy governing interrogations of
detainees in Department of Defence custody, but leaves the
definition of "humane" to a separate, yet to be released, directive
that is still being debated in the Bush Administration.
A little-noticed loophole in the directive gives the Defence
Secretary or his deputy authority to override the policy.
A Pentagon spokesman said on Wednesday that there was nothing
unusual about the caveat because a defence secretary always had the
authority to change or modify policy he had made. "Any deviation
from the policy would have to be approved," he said.
The language in the directive echoes a struggle between the White
House and members of Congress over a proposed amendment to the
defence spending bill that would ban outright "cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment of prisoners in the detention of the US
government". The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has reportedly pressed
Senator John McCain, the amendment's sponsor, to exempt the CIA from
the ban.
The White House has denied it is seeking an "exemption for torture"
for the CIA, despite President George Bush's threat to veto the
legislation.
It was also revealed on Wednesday that the CIA's inspector-general
warned last year that interrogation procedures approved by the Bush
Administration could violate the UN convention against torture.
■ The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would not seek the death penalty
against any of the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged this week.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Guardian
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