A 1963 CIA manual describes the techniques used in Iraq, as does one dating from 1983, and two others uncovered by the Baltimore Sun in 1993. A reporter at WSWS writes, "torture is as American as apple pie," and details the recent movement to get the American public to back torture techniques in our fight against terrorism. It also asserts theat the U.S. government used torture techniques in Vietnam and Central America. In fact, the man selected to oversee Iraq starting this summer, John Negroponte, "was intimately connected with contra terrorism against Nicaragua and death squad murders in Honduras," and "the man now serving as the US advisor to the Iraqi security forces, James Steele, is likewise a veteran of that period. He was the highest ranking US military officer in El Salvador in 1985, a year in which the US-backed regime killed more than 1,500 civilians and tortured many thousands more."
On May 6, 2004 an unapologetic Bush said on a U.S. funded Arab TV channel that the people of Iraq "must understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know." In other words, the son of the man who ran the CIA for some of the years when CIA torture manuels describing Iraqi-type torture techniques were written, disseminated, used for training, and reportedly practiced had absolutely no idea of any of this, even though his own administration is populated by those who have been accused of involvement with such practices? That's quite a stretch. --05.06.04
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1210574,00.html
