ACLU Heats Up on Rumsfeld

This morning, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit charging that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody. The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that Secretary Rumsfeld violated the U.S. Constitution and international laws.

This landmark lawsuit was filed by a coalition of human rights advocates on behalf of eight former detainees who were incarcerated in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment. None of the men was ever charged with a crime.

What the ACLU lawsuit against Rumsfeld says:

* Widespread abuses did not spring from the spontaneous acts of a couple of soldiers. Secretary Rumsfeld personally authorized the military to abandon our nation's historic prohibition against torture and cruel and degrading treatment.

* Secretary Rumsfeld and other high-ranking military officials failed to stop the torture and degrading treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo even after credible reports of abuses began to emerge in the media and in military documents.

* Although Secretary Rumsfeld knew of wrongdoing, and even ordered investigations into the torture of prisoners, he knowingly limited those investigations in a way that blocked high-ranking civilian or military officials, including himself, from being held accountable.

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Officials at the highest levels of government bear the ultimate responsibility for the actions of the U.S. military. Click the title of this posting to go to the ACLU Website. They are initiating an e-mail campaign urging Attorney General Gonzales to appoint a special counsel to investigate instances of torture.