If you can just free half the prisoners by fiat, what were they doing in prison to begin with?
Published: May 5, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 4 — The American commander in charge of military jails in Iraq said Tuesday that he had decided to reduce the number of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison sharply. The move comes after a military investigation into photographs and other evidence of prisoner mistreatment identified overcrowding as contributing to an abusive and chaotic atmosphere.
The commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, also said he had decided to end the hooding of prisoners, largely because it was too humiliating. But he defended practices like depriving prisoners of sleep and forcing them into "stress positions" as legitimate means of interrogation, noting that they are among 50-odd coercive techniques sometimes used against enemy detainees.
This is a bizarre argument in that temporarily restricting a prisoner's vision while moving him is a bona fide security need while the " coercive " techniques are not.
Posted by mark safranski at May 5, 2004 06:08 PM