Date: 2005-06-21
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to this rule. We have been led to believe that the use of torture in Iraq. Afghanistan. and Guantanamo Bay. Cuba. were isolated incidents. that murder. sexual assault. and physical abuse were the work of a few lowranking guards who are now being brought to justice. The new evidence indicates we have been misled. Recent news accounts have detailed the deaths of two detainees in 2002 at the Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan during interrogation by military intelligence. One man was hung by his arms in his jail cell for days and beaten so severely in the legs that he died. even though. as the newspapers reported. soldiers involved in the detention believed that. the man was innocent. Despite being ruled homicide by the coroners. the deaths were described by a military spokesman as resulting from natural causes. In the meantime. the officer was promoted and placed in charge of interrogations in Iraqs Abu Ghraib Prison. But this story is not about lowranking soldiers who independently ran afoul of the system. it is not a matter of a few bad apples. It is one tale in what is emerging to be a pattern of systematic abuse carried out with the knowledge and approval of senior military and civilian officials. How do we know that the Defense Department and senior military commanders knew what was going on? Because their own documents say so. Their own documents show that the general ini charge of our troops in Afghanistan knew that unapproved techniques were being used in those interrogatories. So what did he do? He made a list of these techniques and sent them to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. who were looking for ways to alter interrogations in Guantanamo Bay. In fact. the only time the general in charge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan seems to have issued any written policy is w hen he recommended that the Geneva Convention techniques be removed for everyone. regardless of whether or not they were tied to al Qaeda or the Taliban. So let me sum it up. Advanced torture techniques were developed and used in Afghanistan and resulted in the deaths of multiple detainees. The deaths were covered up and the investigations were stalled. The. techniques were shared with the interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and then spread to Iraq where the same people responsible for the deaths in Afghanistan were put in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison. From Afghanistan to Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib. torture. lies. and coverup. This is not an accident. this is a pattern of abuse. I want to enter into the RECORD an editorial from my hometown paper on this. That is why I join my colleagues in calling for the creation of an independent commission on detainee abuse. The leadership in the House and. more specifically. the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services have proven both negligent and incapable of dealing with this issue as they have looked the other way and led the country to continue to believe that this is only a few bad apples. a few malcontents that went about it the wrong way when. in fact. the evidence from our own Defense Department tells us differently and has irreparably damaged the reputation of the United States. and has cast doubt on our foreign policy. and it is a new recruitment tool. as so many have commented. both in the intelligence community and in the Congress. that raises the likelihood that U.S. troops captured by enemy combatants or terrorists will be killed or tortured. It gives the radical opponents of the United States and the insurgents the fuel to feed the insurgency against U.S. soldiers and the new Iraqi Government. The failure of this administration. which so often demands accountability of others to deal with this issue in an honest and forthright fashion. undermines our ability to implement the strategy for success in Iraq and Afghanistan and tears down our forces.