BY MARTIN C. EVANS, published January 22, 2006 in NY Newsday
England’s former
ambassador to Uzbekistan and a former general in charge of the Abu
Ghraib prison during the 2004 abuse scandal there were among legal
scholars and activists speaking out against the Bush administration’s
handling of the war on terror yesterday at Manhattan’s Riverside Church.
Craig Murray, ousted as Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan after he
criticized the use of intelligence gained through torture, said Uzbek
security forces supplying interrogation findings to the CIA used
torture “on an industrial scale.”
“I would rather
die than to have [innocent people] tortured to save my life,” Murray
said, drawing applause from the crowd of more than 500 people.
His appearance followed a Friday radio interview in which he said,
“We’re not talking about marginal definitions of torture. The U.S. knew
this was happening and encouraged it by being prepared to accept and
give credence to the results of it.”
Murray said in its quest
to secure increasingly scarce oil and gas supplies, the Bush
administration is fanning anti-American sentiments in the Islamic
world. “They are making America a much more dangerous place,” he said.
The hearing was held by a panel calling itself the Bush Crimes
Commission, which has issued “indictments” against the president and
others for what it says are crimes against humanity perpetrated in
America’s prosecution of the Iraq war. The commission, which has no
legal standing, said it had invited the Bush administration to rebut
the allegations.
A White House media officer declined comment yesterday.
Former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski said photographs of abuse at Abu
Ghraib “opened a huge door on” America’s mishandling of the war, and
that soldiers trained to handle prisoners of war were ill-suited for
running Iraq’s civilian prisons.
Karpinski said as many as 85
percent of the Iraqi detainees there were “guilty of nothing,” but were
not released because interrogators “were afraid of releasing the next
Osama bin Laden.” In April, Karpinski was relieved of her command and
in May, Bush approved her demotion to colonel, based on allegations not
related to her position at Abu Ghraib.
The commission was
organized by Not In Our Name, a New York-based activist group formed to
challenge American military actions abroad. A final hearing is
scheduled at the church today.
Many of those who attended yesterday said it was persuasive to hear former insiders criticize the war.
Bob Parsons, an autoworker from Detroit, said, “It’s incredibly moving
for people who have served for so long to stand up and say what is
really going on.”