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Today on Law and Disorder we run excerpts from an event sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Rights. From Pinochet to Rumsfeld: Accountability of US officials for torture. Speakers include Janis Karpinski, former US Army Brigadier General at Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. She was the commander of three large US- and British-led prisons in Iraq in 2003, eight battalions, and 3400 Army reservists. In October 2005 she published an account of her experiences, One Woman’s Army, in which she claims that the abuses were perpetrated by contract employees trained in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay and sent under orders from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and that her demotion was political retribution.
Also on this program, Law and Disorder co-host Michael Ratner president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Scott Horton, chair of the International Law Committee, New York Bar Association. We hear about the long term effects of torture from another perspective. Kate Porterfield, Ph.D. who works with torture survivors describes the health consequences of torture.
In the wake of CCR’s groundbreaking filing of war crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld, this Center for Constitutional Rights event aimed to examine different strategies for holding international officials accountable for their actions. We’ll hear an exploration of the devastating effects of torture techniques employed by the U.S. Government. Certainly not for the faint of heart but important in beginning to understand how torture used in the name of the people in the United States must end immediately.