Word: softener
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...deputy, Larry Thompson, now a visiting law professor at the University of Georgia, who joined Bush at a recent event promoting the Patriot Act in Buffalo, N.Y. And the White House prevailed upon Thompson to sit near Ashcroft during his testimony before the 9/11 commission in an attempt to soften the Attorney General's hard edge with commission members, who have grown contemptuous of his imperious manner and methods. Thompson, an African American, left Justice after serving almost two years under Ashcroft. Many believe Thompson may be back and in the top job if Bush wins a second term...
...believe the other six soldiers implicated so far--Graner, Frederick, Davis and three female MPs--superior officers not only knew but approved of it all. The accused insist that military intelligence and civilian interrogators told the low-ranking MPs to soften up prisoners before they were questioned and that the unit was just doing the job. Guy Womack, Graner's civilian attorney, gave TIME copies of two photos he intends to use to defend his client, who was formally charged last week on seven counts of maltreatment and committing indecent acts. According to Graner, the photos, taken from a vantage...
...officials insisted the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the work of seven individuals acting on their own, the rest of Washington looked for possible culprits further up the chain of command. Did key leaders unwittingly encourage--or deliberately order--the reservists to violate the Geneva Conventions in order to soften up detainees for interrogation...
...images out of Abu Ghraib prison fit into the canon of torture tactics? Soldiers claim they were told by military intelligence officers to "soften up" the detainees for questioning. Certainly, putting hoods over prisoners' heads and stripping them naked would conform to common, if primitive, interrogation-prep tactics. Ilan Kutz, an Israeli psychiatrist who has witnessed military training for interrogations, confirms that sexual humiliation is also a well-known tool. "The idea of interrogation is to break down the person so all his resistance is shot, and then he'll tell you anything," he says. "In the process, sexual humiliation...
SHOCK THERAPY Soldiers "soften" captives before handing them over to interrogators. Prisoners are beaten, stripped, doused with water and subjected to drastic swings in temperature. They are often made to remain naked even while watched by female guards...