A Dream for a Better World

Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a gross breach of medical ethics, a long-secret report by the Red Cross concluded. Based on statements by 14 prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda and were moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in late 2006, Red Cross investigators concluded that medical professionals working for the C.I.A. monitored prisoners undergoing waterboarding, apparently to make sure they did not drown. Medical workers were also present when guards confined prisoners in small boxes, shackled their arms to the ceiling, kept them in frigid cells and slammed them repeatedly into walls, the report said.  Facilitating such practices, which the Red Cross described as torture, was a violation of medical ethics even if the medical workers’ intentions had been to prevent death or permanent injury, the report said.

Did the CIA manufacture phony documents linking al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein in an effort to assist the Bush Administration in its lead up to war in Iraq?  According to a new book, “The Way of the World”, the CIA has although the agency adamantly denies the allegation.  The author contends that once the Bush Administration learned in 2003 that the Iraqi President no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction, they ordered the CIA to concoct a fake document that purported to show that Iraq helped trained Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.  The purpose behind this forgery was to influence public opinion about the war.

According to revelations in a new book, “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency”, Dick Cheney assured top GOP congressional leaders that Iraqi President Saddam Huessein had indeed direct ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and that he was on his way to developing a suitcase nuclear weapon.  This declaration was what persuaded the congressmen to give George Bush the authority to wage war in 2002.  As former Majority Leader Dick Armey laments, Dick Cheney’s accusations went way beyond “cherry-picking” available intelligence; his assertions were simply without foundation at all.  The book is based on hundreds of interviews with Cheney’s former and present associates.