The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged Defense Department

Congress Helps DoD Hide Torture Photos

By | 10.08.09 | 8:40 am

House and Senate members today approved language for a homeland security appropriations bill that would give the Pentagon the right to continue withholding photos of the abuse of detainees in its custody, the ACLU reported on Wednesday.

The ACLU has been trying to get its hands on More…

You’re Never Going to Believe This, But the Kagans Want to Add At Least 40,000 Troops to Afghanistan

By | 09.22.09 | 9:02 am

The sun rose today and its gravitational force kept the planet twisting around it through the void, so naturally Fred and Kim Kagan, the neoconservative wing of counterinsurgency, have put out a call for between 40,000 and 45,000 additional troops to be sent to Afghanistan in the next year. More…

Mike Huckabee: Trust John Bolton, Not the Pentagon

By | 09.18.09 | 1:25 pm

After former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s speech to the Values Voter Summit, he held a short press conference where I asked him to expand on something from his speech: His argument that President Obama had left America weaker by scrapping the Euro missile shield.

I heard Ambassador John Bolton,

More…

A Sharp Elbow Concealed in a Troop Compromise

By | 09.18.09 | 9:01 am

Ahead of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resource request for the Afghanistan war, which should be finalized today-ish, Defense Secretary Gates is already settling on areas of agreement, such as adding “enabler” assets to the  increases in troop levels that President Obama ordered in the spring:

The 2,500 to 3,000 troops

More…

Defense Department Conceals Data on Detainee Deaths

By | 09.10.09 | 11:24 am

Last year, as Dr. Steven Miles, professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, was researching the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody, he noticed something strange. Although the Department of Defense had in the past issued press releases when detainees died More…

Jawad Case Supports Argument for Broader Investigation

By | 09.09.09 | 9:27 am

A military judge’s ruling that U.S. officers used “cruel and inhuman” treatment and possibly “torture” on an Afghan teenager imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay provides strong support for the argument that the government should embark on a broader investigation of the treatment of “war on terror” detainees during the Bush administration. More…

DOD and DOJ Continue to Make Outrageous Arguments in Gitmo Cases

By | 08.24.09 | 8:49 am

Late last week, in a decision that got some attention over the weekend, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that a Pakistani man who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison since 2004 has the right to submit written questions to self-described 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh More…

Obama Defies Federal Courts in Holding Yemeni Detainees

By | 08.21.09 | 6:00 am

On Monday a federal court judge ordered the Department of Defense to release a 47-year-old father of two with a heart condition who it has imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for the past seven years without justification. But like the other Yemeni men cleared for release but still held at the More…

Jeh Johnson’s Walkback

By | 07.24.09 | 3:53 pm

The Pentagon general counsel, July 7:

Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson suggested to the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the difficulties inherent in bringing legal charges against (or deciding on preventive detention for) about 220 detainees at Guantanamo Bay means that some continued detention past President Obama’s January

More…

Lockheed Martin on the F-22 Vote

By | 07.21.09 | 2:29 pm

I asked Rob Fuller, Lockheed Martin’s chief spokesman for the F-22 jet that it manufactures, what his reaction was to the Senate’s vote to strip funding for the F-22 from the defense authorization. And since the House’s companion bill has F-22 money in it, will Lockheed lobby to keep More…