Rumsfeld involved in Abu Ghraib torture

Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/163683.html

Governmental documents indicate that former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among other US officials, played a role in the torture policies in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In his new autobiography, Rumsfeld says Abu Ghraib's prisoner abuse was perpetrated by rogue soldiers, despite governmental documents hinting at pro-torture policies issued by senior US officials, such as Rumsfeld, himself.

"There were decisions made by Secretary Rumsfeld, himself, and by other members of the Bush cabinet to endorse torture to allow the use of interrogation methods that in the past, the United States had regarded as war crimes," Hameel Jaffer told Press TV's US Desk in an interview.

As a result of these policies, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other worldwide US-run detention facilities have used severe torture techniques, previously regarded as war crimes in the United States.

Since 2004, numerous accounts of “systematic and illegal abuses of detainees” have been reported. Cases including rape, torture, and murder have been among those reported.

An estimated 1,300,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, while about 4.7 million have been displaced since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

During these seven years, 4,436 US troops have been reported as being killed.