Did Abu Ghraib 'enhanced interrogation techniques' cost us half Trillion tax dollars?

[Liberty Star]

Could 'enhanced interrogation techniques' at Abu Guraib have cost tax payers upto half a Trillion dollars IF these news reports and claims are factual?


Considering Bush's calling Abu Ghraib biggest mistake of Iraq war and many observers view that Abu Ghraib extended Iraq war by 1-2 years by giving insurgency a new life and by causing an increase in influx of foreign fighters into Iraq, what in your view was the total financial cost of enhanced interrogation techniques used at Abu Ghraib?

Torture techniques endorsed by the Bush administration

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 April 2009

Walling: The detainee is slammed into a wall. "Walling is performed by placing the detainee against what seems to be a normal wall but is in fact a flexible false wall. The interrogator pulls the detaineee towards him and then quickly slams the detainee against the false wall." The false wall exaggerates the sound, making the contact apparently sound worse than it is.


Nudity: "Nudity is used to induce psychological discomfort and because it allows interrogators to reward *detainees instantly with clothing for co-operation ... Because the ambient air temperatures are kept above 68F, the technique is at most mildly physically uncomfortable and poses no threat to the detainee's health."


Insect: In the 2002 memo, the justice department gave the go-ahead for the CIA to play on the fears of Abu Zubaydah, an alleged al-Qaida member, a charge he denies. "You would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect in the box with him. You would, however, place a harmless insect in the box.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...-bush-approved

Abu Ghraib biggest mistake on Iraq: Bush
Thursday, 25 May 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Thursday that he viewed the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal as his administration's biggest mistake in Iraq.

The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More

By Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030702846.html

The Lasting Impact of Abu Ghraib
by Jackie Northam

Morning Edition, April 28, 2005

It has been a year since shocking photographs of prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison were first publicized. The scandal stunned the nation and the world, and still reverberates. A series of investigations has sought to identify where blame for the soldiers' actions should lie.

Rumsfeld Let the Dogs Out

If you were ever in need of stronger evidence linking Donald Rumsfeld to Abu Ghraib, look no further than yesterday’s court testimony provided by two Army dog handlers who stand accused of prisoner abuse at the detention center. At the hearing Maj. David DiNenna, the top military official at Abu Ghraib in 2003, testified that the former commander of Guantanamo Bay Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller came to Iraq to encourage new interrogation techniques.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/28/...-the-dogs-out/

Some news photos of Abu Ghraib interrogation techniques being used on "terrorism suspects":

Stress Position:



Nudity:




Fake electric shock, "fake insect" memo may have got mixed up:

[Aratus]

yes... they did.

[Liberty Star]

yes... they did.

I'm afraid so too.


Following news from GD may relate here as well and have additonal foreign policy implications in future years.

Guantanamo 'lessons' reached Iraq's front line

James Rowley, Washington
April 23, 2009

US Attorney General Eric Holder.

FORCED nudity, stress positions and police dogs were commonly used by military interrogators to intimidate prisoners at the Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq, a Senate panel has concluded.

The newly declassified Senate Armed Services Committee report said coercive techniques, later described by military investigators as abuse, were authorised in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib, the prison made infamous by photos of naked prisoners that first appeared in April 2004.

April 22, 2009 10:52 AM

Abu Ghraib Head: We Were Scapegoated

by Michelle Levi

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who ran Iraq prisons in 2003, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison was insistent that all orders on interrogation practices came from the top down during the Bush administration on CBS News’ The Early Show this morning.

“These soldiers didn't design these techniques on their own…we were following orders,” Karpinski told Harry Smith. “We were bringing this to our chain of command and they were saying whatever the military intelligence tells you to do out there you are authorized to do."

A new Senate Armed Services Committee report finds that early roots of U.S. interrogation practices were being circulated through the CIA and the Pentagon as early as 2002.

Bush's men feel the heat as US torture techniques are exposed

Date: 23 April 2009
By CHRIS STEPHEN
IN NEW YORK

THE most comprehensive report to date detailing American torture techniques used at Guantanamo Bay has been released by the US Senate, increasing pressure for a full-scale inquiry.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04...y4961519.shtml

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...FeV7vNgySqdIBg

http://www.theage.com.au/world/guant...0422-afc2.html

[Liberty Star]

Video: Fmr. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski implicates Rumsfeld and others.


YouTube - Countdown - Frm. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski - straight line from memos to Abu Ghraib