Word: pentagonal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Protests by the top legal officers in each of the military services - Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines - against questionable interrogation techniques were ignored by the Pentagon's top lawyer, who did not even bother to read memoranda outlining detailed legal objections to their...
...another point Lt. Col. Beaver - who has retired from the military and now serves the Pentagon in a civilian capacity - asks, "Does SERE employ the 'wet towel' technique [a reference to waterboarding]?" The CIA lawyer answers: "If a well-trained individual is used to perform this technique it can feel like you're drowning. The lymphatic system will react as if you're suffocating, but your body will not cease to function...
...variety of witnesses called before the committee tried to explain how the abusive interrogation system evolved, while minimizing their own responsibility. Richard Shiffren, a former deputy general counsel at the Pentagon dealing with intelligence, explained that the U.S. military lacked expertise in interrogation after 9/11, but was desperate to extract intelligence from prisoners captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Instead of consulting the FBI - an agency with long experience in conducting effective interrogations using lawful methods - the Pentagon opted to use the enemy tactics taught in the SERE program. Many of those have since been found to be illegal...
...Witness Alberto Mora, the Navy's former top lawyer, called the abusive interrogation program a "mistake of massive proportions." He had been one of very few senior Pentagon officials to protest at the time, and his objections led to the cancellation of some of the program's worst aspects. But both Beaver and Rear Admiral Jane G. Dalton, the former top legal advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave answers that were repeatedly challenged by Senators. When both asserted that the use of dogs and stripping prisoners naked had never been authorized at Guantanamo, their attention...
...final witness of the day was former Pentagon general counsel William Haynes. He admitted that he had never read the strongly worded objections to the harsh techniques filed by lawyers from all four branches of the military. Instead, Haynes said he approved many of those harsh methods based on a memo written by Beaver - a memo described by a number of experts as riddled with errors and flawed legal reasoning...