- Archives

President Bush's nomination of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to be the new head of the World Bank continues a pattern of rewarding those involved in crafting torture policies with prestigious appointments, the ACLU said Friday. "As privates and sergeants are getting jail time, top level officials are getting promotions," said Christopher Anders, an ACLU legislative counsel. "Government documents show the torture at Abu Ghraib wasn’t an isolated incident. The only way to get to the bottom of the issue is if we go straight to the top." Documents turned over to the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal that the Defense Department used "torture techniques" on detainees at Guantanamo. The documents include e-mails indicating that the FBI raised objections over interrogation techniques that appear to have been authorized by Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz isn’t the first individual involved in the torture scandal to continue up the career ladder. Alberto Gonzales, who drafted memorandums on torture and gave legal advice on the matter as White House counsel, is now the attorney general. Michael Chertoff -- the force behind the detention of hundreds of Arab, South Asian and Muslim men after 9/11 - become the secretary of Homeland Security. And Jay Bybee, the head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel who signed the notorious August 2002 torture memorandum, was given a lifetime post on the influential Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. [more]

Nomination Shocks, Worries Europeans [more]