June 20, 2005

Promotion through screwup

In yet another example of failing upward (see Wolfowitz, Bolton, Rice et. al.) here's an interesting news item: General Ricardo Sanchez is up for promotion.

From a March ACLU press release:

...a memo sent by Lt. Gen Sanchez flatly contradicts sworn testimony given by him before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which he denied authorizing highly coercive interrogation methods.

[snip]

The ACLU obtained a physical copy of the memorandum, however, under an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and released a hard copy on Tuesday.

The memorandum, dated September 14, 2003, was signed by Lt. Gen. Sanchez and laid out specific interrogation techniques, modeled on those used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for use by coalition forces in Iraq. These include sleep "management," the inducement of fear at two levels of severity, loud music and sensory agitation, and the use of canine units to "exploit [the] Arab fear of dogs."

During sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lt. Gen. Sanchez flatly denied approving any such techniques in Iraq, and said that a news article reporting otherwise was false.

As far as I can tell, no investigation of the perjury charge has ever been undertaken.

Posted by Linkmeister at June 20, 2005 12:03 PM
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