Gen Ricardo Sanchez Orders Torture in Iraq: His Memo

t r u t h o u t - Gen Ricardo Sanchez Orders Torture in Iraq: His Memo: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has written to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asking him to open a perjury investigation of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former US Military commander in Iraq.

According to an official memo dated September 14, 2003, and signed by Gen. Sanchez, he personally authorized the use of coercive interrogation techniques outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. In sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, he denied ever approving such techniques in Iraq.

The ACLU obtained a physical copy of the memo by suing the Defense Department under the Freedom of Information Act. Below, you will find a copy from the ACLU along with a typed transcript prepared by t r u t h o u t."

To date, the Bush administration has been content to fry small fish and let the big ones swim away. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal revealed individual episodes of misbehaver, but the systematic pattern of disdain toward the Geneva Conventionss and the contempt that the administration has displayed toward the accepted Laws of Land Warfare (not to mention International law in general) fostered a climate in which misbehaver and abuse of prisoners was actually encouraged. Now we have a smoking gun held by none other than General Sanchez. This is meaningful test of the normative orientation of Bush and his subordinates.