Senators Fault Pentagon as New Photos Emerge Lawmakers Split on Rumsfeld Resignation

http://www.washingtonpost.com ^ | 10May04 | R. Jeffrey Smith

[dixie sass]

Reminds me of a sign I use to have at my desk about planning.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Neatness and Spelling should be the rule on protest signs.

Nothing looks dumber than a pooly worded, sloppy, misspelled sign. Who can take you serious like that.

[Let's Roll]

You can look up your Congressman's contact info at http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html

and your Senators' contact info at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Then FAX them at http://www.tpc.int/sendfax.html in support of Rummy. Do it now!!

Remember PAID dim operatives have been working on your congresscritters all weekend.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Dang " pooly = poorlym ".

See what I mean. I look stupid now.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I give up. No more protests for me.

[dixie sass]

Thank you for making me laugh, I needed that! Did you you see the article about the Kentucky County that sent it's WWII vets to DC last night?

[cyncooper]

Why was the Taguba Report classified Secret/Noforn? The pretext that it was to protect the worldwide reputation of the United States and its Army is difficult to swallow without some further justification. The decision to classify the document should be a legitimate area of inquiry.

Where did you come up with that made up pretext? Nobody ever said that.

Why should the actions of some prison guards be hidden from the public? Can you imagine the outrage if the Army tried to suppress reporting of the incident when Patton slapped the soldier with combat fatigue by classifying the matter Secret/Noforn?

Where did you come up with the idea anyone was suppressing anything?

How do you think published reports of discipline is keeping the results of the report's findings "secret". So they didn't publicize the gruesome details. So what. A judge keeps some evidence away from a jury, too.

Explain yourself.

[marty60]

Ditto that. Whay do you think the media gets such a ***** out of showing this trash that can be found in any xxx book store.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I didn't see the WWII Vet story. If it is on a thread please ping me to it.

[just me]

What I do not like is they are playing it like propaganda. Whey don't they just drop leaflets of these pictures and get it over with. I don't doubt there are a few in the media that really want to. They want this war to fail. Not for the good of the country, but to hurt the President. This is free publicity for Kerry and they know it.
I don't deny them of free speech either, I would just like to see commonsense.

[Poodlebrain]

I'll answer your questions with a question. What information in the Taguba Report justified a Secret/ Noforn classification?

The information could not realistically be prevented from being disseminated as the defendents in any court martial proceedings would be entitled to the information for their defense. Therefore, it was STUPID to try and prevent the information in the report from becoming public by classifying the Report.

By the way, Secret/Noforn is the same level of classification as the nuclear weapons command and control materials I used daily during my time in the service. Would you consider both to be of equal sensitivity to national security?

[GraniteStateConservative]

Apparently on 10% is really classified. The rest of the paragraphs are not and should have already been made public.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Only 10% is even classified period. The other 90% is marked UC.

[cyncooper]

As stated at the hearings, one reason was to protect the rights of the accused (the ones facing court martial) and most certainly was available to their defense attorneys, is my understanding.

It's not like it was all a big secret. You just didn't get the lurid details.

The military announced to the world immediately what the allegations were (in general, of course) and named General Taguba as investigating the matter. As developments came about, such as charges being filed and the like, that was announced to the world, too.

[cricket]

"If there were a need for the public to know about this, it would have been announced in a public areaa such as a news conference by AUTHORIZED individuals - it wasn't"

Rush said earlier on his show today - from a story printed in NYT's on Saturday - the 'out with the trash day' as he described it. . .this story: that it was the Father of a soldier who was involved - sorry did not quite follow the thread here - but he was upset should this be found out; his son would become the responsible party; so he tried to go the top with this; he wrote seventeen Senators (this disclosure is buried deep into the story on a cont. page); some Repubs; and Democrats. . .no one replied.

He went to Colonel Hackworth's website; posted the letter; and got a call, I believe from Hack; from there he was put in touch with the Sixty Minutes people. . .and we know the rest of the story.

I surely hope the names of these Senators are made public.

No doubt, that some of the same self-rightious-fire-breathers that were screaming they had no idea that this could happen as they were nailing Rumsfield received that mail. So either they did not read their mail; or it did not seem like such a big deal or just not enough to require a response.

WhatEVER the case, their position as as 'Senator' and their office 'chain-of-command' should be investigated-by-committee; 'dontcha think'.

We need to know 'who dropped that ball'. . .sure. . .and on 'prime-time'tv. . .sure again. . .

[CyberAnt]

Here are some of the names of the Senators who KNEW ahead of time about the abuse in the prisons, because an uncle of one of the men charged, wrote to the following:

John Warner
Jay Rockefeller
Mark Dayton
Bill Nelson
Robert Byrd
Hillary Clinton
______ Reid
Roscoe Barnett (who is he?)

THEY ARE ALL DEMOCRATS - EXCEPT FOR WARNER.

And .. I find it disgusting that the ones whose names appear here are the same ones who were the most vicious to Rumsfeld. These dems knew about this - and THEY DID NOTHING. No wonder Hillary said there was going to be an October surprise. They hid what they knew, and planned to use it against the President in October.

Because the SENATORS ignored his letters, the uncle contacted Col Hackworth. While I'm not a fan of the Col, this time - the fact he gave the photos to CBS was a good thing.

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? They can't conquer Najaf or Karbala and they are claiming they can conquer the USA .. ROTFLOL!!

[monkeywrench]

"This is free publicity for Kerry..."

And that's good? Everyone's heard the soundbyte of kerry admitting to war crimes, by now, and this just reminds them that the left is offering a candidate for the highest office of the land that is of the same stripe as the people they want us outraged about! Time to truly laugh at any dems you may know.