The UK Daily Mail reports on it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024036/2-Americans-CAN-sue-Donald-Rumsfeld-tortured-US-army-Iraq.html#ixzz1UlPZqjXz
Please go to the above link. Watch the video of the interview with Donald Vance. It’s near the bottom. It is important.
I copied the written article below. The link to the video doesn’t copy.
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- Pair say their rights of ‘habeas corpus’ were violated
- ‘Having judges second guess the decisions made by the army … is no way to wage a war,’ counters lawyer
By Oliver Pickup
Last updated at 10:01 PM on 9th August 2011
Rumsfeld, pictured in April, stepped down from his post as U.S. Secretary of Defence in December 2007Two American men will be allowed to sue former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over claims that they were unfairly tortured by U.S. troops in Iraq.
Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, who worked for a private security firm in the Middle East country, were allegedly beaten and punished for months in 1996 at Camp Cropper near Baghdad before being dumped at the airport without charge.
The pair argue that their rights of ‘habeas corpus’ – the legal term for unlawful detention – were violated, and are seeking damages from 79-year-old Rumsfeld, who was succeeded by Robert Gates in December 2007, and unnamed others.
Vance and Ertel had been hired by Shield Group Security, an Iraqi firm who the duo believed were involved in some questionable dealings, including illegal bribery and other corruption activities.
They flagged up their concerns to the U.S. authorities and began co-operating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation – and in early 2006 they were taken into custody and slung into Camp Cropper, the notorious holding facility for security detainees near Baghdad International Airport.
The whistle-blowers claim that they were forced to undergo harsh and prolonged interrogations at the same place Sadam Hussain lived his last years, and they were subjected to physical and emotional abuse.
Among the methods of torture used against them during several weeks in military camps was sleep deprivation and a practice known as ‘walling’, in which subjects are blindfolded and walked into walls, according to the lawsuit.
Scroll down to see a video of Donald Vance making his claims
Camp Cropper is a notorious holding facility that is located near to Baghdad International Airport
Donald Vance, who is suing former US Defence Secretary Donald RumsfeldSCANDALS IN IRAQ
There have been a number of complaints against the U.S. over their treatment of prisoners in Iraq, and there have been a number of controversies along the way.
In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld instituted a policy that ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq’.
In November 2005 173 detainees were found in an Iraqi government bunker in Baghdad were found starved, beaten and tortured.
In December 2005 John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), said an estimated 14,000 people being held in prison in Iraq contrary to UN Resolution 1546.
In October 2009 21 colour photographs surfaced, showing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq being abused by their U.S. captors.
And in December 2010 nearly 400,000 secret U.S. army field reports and war logs, detailing torture, summary executions and war crimes, were released through whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
Some 97 days later, they allege that they were unceremoniously dumped at the airport and never charged with a crime.
At that point they sued for unspecified damages insisting that their constitutional rights had been violated and claiming that U.S. officials knew that they were innocent.
The lawsuit alleges Mr Rumsfeld personally participated in approving the methods for use by the U.S. military in Iraq, making him responsible, it argues, for what happened to Mr Vance and Mr Ertel.
In 2003, Mr Rumsfeld instituted a policy that ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq’.
And yesterday a panel of three judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago upheld the decision made by a federal judge in Illinois, voting 2-1.
The verdict paves the way for the lawsuit to proceed, in spite of the best efforts of the U.S. government to have the case thrown out.
‘We agree with the district court that the plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to show that Secretary Rumsfeld personally established the relevant policies that caused the alleged violations of their constitutional rights during detention,’ the court ruled.
Mr Rumsfeld’s lawyer hit back at the ruling, which rejected arguments that he should be immune from such lawsuits for work performed as a cabinet secretary, and said the appeals court decision was a huge dent to the U.S. military.
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David Rivkin said: ‘Having judges second guess the decisions made by the armed forces halfway around the world is no way to wage a war.
‘It saps the effectiveness of the military, puts American soldiers at risk, and shackles federal officials who have a constitutional duty to protect America.’
U.S. Circuit Judge David Hamilton wrote yesterday: ‘There can be no doubt that the deliberate infliction of such treatment on U.S. citizens, even in a war zone, is unconstitutional.’