Kevin Zeese at Democracy Rising asks, Who to Believe? when it comes to the Iraq War and treatment of Guantanamo prisoners? His conclusion is one that most human rights groups and members of Congress have been advocating for some time. We need more people to listen.

The truth in this matter could be resolved merely by having a truly independent commission investigate the allegations. Or, even more appropriately having a special prosecutor investigate abuses as senior Republicans in the Senate promised -- John Warner, Lindsay Graham and John McCain stated that everyone culpable would be held accountable, no matter how senior when the torture photos were released but have taken no action to live up to their promise.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that among the documents it received from its Guantanamo FOIA request are transcripts of interviews with detainees in which they allege they were sold to the U.S. for a bounty. This is not new news. It's been reported before by several organizations, by TalkLeft in December, 2003 and May, 2004, and in Time Magazine.

According to Time, activities leading toward release of the 140 [Guantanamo] prisoners have accelerated since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. It said U.S. officials had concluded some detainees were kidnapped for reward money offered for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. (our emphasis)

Nonetheless, Before Bush calls the latest AP claims "absurd," he needs to consider the statement of this former CIA officer, contained in Tuesday's AP article:

A former CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because U.S. allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into Afghanistan himself to help supply and win over warlords to fight for U.S. Special Forces.

That's our leader, in denial, as always. At a press conference today, George Bush called the Amnesty International report on Guantanamo abuse (pdf) "absurd."

David Corn responds.

If anything is absurd, it's that the Bush Administration has held 70,000 persons prisoner during its war on terror.

Here are Amnesty International's latest numbers.

That certainly seems to belie Bush's claim that "The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world."

How is it the Vice President of the United States can say things like this and not be laughed out of the television studio? On Larry King Live:

CHENEY:...And what we're doing down there has, I think, been done perfectly appropriately. I think these people have been well treated, treated humanely and decently.

Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment. But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and been released by to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.

Crooks and Liars has the video and Here's What's Left has more thoughts on our disingenous Vice President..

The AP has received a second batch of documents from its FOIA request regarding the detainees at Guantanamo, consisting of 1,000 additonal pages of transcripts of the detainee's tribunal (status review) hearings. Several detainees told the hearing officers of torture and abuse. The officers did not believe it was their job to investigate the claims. In several instances, they just changed the subject. Here's an example:

Another man alleged that U.S. troops stripped the prisoners of their clothes in Afghanistan and bullied them into saying things the Americans wanted to hear. "Americans were beating us really hard, and they had dogs behind us and they said if we didn't say this, they would release the dogs," he said.

The tribunal president made no comment and moved on to the next question: Where were you born?

The New York Times reports that flights are filling up to Guantanamo....with American volunteer lawyers offering to defend the detainees. The Supreme Court ruled a year ago the detainees have the right to challenge their detention in federal court, so the Bush Administration can no longer keep them out.

The detainees are not entitled to lawyers at government expense, but in increasing numbers, private firms are offering up their lawyers pro bono. One of the reasons: changing views about the detentions, particularly the idea of holding people for three years, without charges or access to counsel. So far, 300 lawyers have signed up.

Law Professor Rosa Brooks did an admirable job on the O'Reilly factor explaining why we should provide the Guantanamo detainees with lawyers. Crooks and Liars has the video. Newshounds has the full transcript.

How do we know if the detainee is an enemy combatant who according to Bush, Rumsfeld and O'Reilly is not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, or a taxi driver or unlucky Joe who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up getting kidnapped and sold to U.S. forces by others who lied and said they were fighters?

How do the innocent make their case if they are not allowed a voice with which to do it? Answer, they can't. That is why the Muslim world is justified in its criticism of us for holding prisoners for three years without charges, without lawyers and without a neutral forum - an Article III judge - in which to be heard.

As Amnesty International has said, these are the rights we should afford to every detainee at Guantanamo:

From the newest crop of documents the Defense Department has turned over to the ACLU and made available on their website is this e-mail, spotted by this astute Democatic Underground reader: [hat tip Crooks and Liars.]

DETAINEES-2797B

E-mail (from CTD employee to Frankie Battle) noting that sender is forwarding this EC up the chain of command, concerning alleged impersonation of FBI Agents at GTMO

12/05/03

Same document as Detainee-2797 with the following unredacted: "Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that the FBI…" and "These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." and "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the "FBI" interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public." (emphasis supplied)

The story of the day so far is the unraveling and dissembling of Pentagon Spokesman Lawrence DeRita.

• Raw Story
• Think Progress
• David Corn at The Nation
• Joe Conasen

Bump and Update: ACLU wins photos.

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Orig Post 5/26

The ACLU is back in court today, charging that that the FBI documents they received show that Defense Department personnel impersonated State Department officials in Guantánamo Interrogations. The ACLU says the Defense Department And CIA are illegally refusing to turn over photos and documents regarding the torture of prisoners. [Press release to be online soon.]

In the past, it has come to light that DoD officials impersonated FBI agents, but now it appears they impersonated state department officials as well. Today's documents are online here.

Today the U.S. confirmed it had received five reports of guards mishandling the Koran. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood said two Guantanamo staffers had been disciplined.

Four U.S. guards and one interrogator were involved in the cases, three of which appeared to be deliberate mishandling and two accidental, Hood said.

Although the military says the detainee who mentioned the toilet flush incident in 2002 was reinterviewed in May and did not mention the incident, Hood acknowledged he was never specifically asked about it. The word toilet wasn't used.

"We then proceeded to ask him about any incidents where he had seen the Koran defiled, desecrated or mishandled, and he allowed as how he hadn't, but he heard that guards at some other point and time had done this," Hood said. But Hood said investigators did not directly ask the detainee about a Koran being placed in a toilet. "I do not believe they used that word toilet," he said.

There's a disconnect here and I'd say it's on the part of Scott McClellan.

• Scott McClellan
  "The [Koran flushing]allegations are ridiculous and unsupported by the facts. The United States is leading the way when it comes to protecting human rights and promoting human dignity."

• Amnesty International
  Despite the US administration’s repeated use of the language of justice and freedom there was a huge gap between rhetoric and reality. This was starkly illustrated by the failure to conduct a full and independent investigation into the appalling torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US soldiers in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and the failure to hold senior individuals to account.

Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Bagram. Camp Bucca. And we haven't even gotten to Camp Cropper yet - where Saddam and other high level Iraqis are held: