John Howard, George Bush: war criminals

[greenleaf]

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/584/584p24.htm

From Green Left Weekly, June 2, 2004.

John Howard, George Bush: war criminals

Rohan Pearce

Attempts by the White House to defuse the Iraq torture scandal by claiming that the prisoner abuse didn’t represent US policy have unravelled in the face of more evidence that US President George Bush and members of his cabinet had a direct hand in devising a post-9/11 policy of torture.

Moreover, there is evidence that the Australian government, a partner in the illegal and brutal invasion of Iraq, lied when it claimed not to have known about human rights abuses committed in Iraqi prisons until the recent public revelations in the US media.

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Similarly, in a May 4 interview with Kerry O’Brien on ABC’s 7.30 Report Australian defence minister Robert Hill claimed that if the torture scandal “had of come to my knowledge other than through the public domain I would have made inquiries and expressed my views”.

O’Brien asked Hill: “Why wouldn’t you ... have expected to be told privately that this, that these instances of torture had been discovered and that this ... investigation was going on?”......

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As usual they try to muddy the waters with semantics.