Not only do you confuse Rumsfeld with Cheney ...

Look, I just painfully reviewed a lot more than 20 pages of the Levin report. There is absolutely no link between Cheney and Abu Ghraib that I could find. There is no direct link between Rumsfeld and AG. It's quite clear from the Levin report that Iraq was a mess with a lot of ad hoc and almost constantly changing medium and low level directives. Start around page 150 or so...

http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf

What you have to recognize, to be rational, is that low level people simply lifted stuff from other documents and used it with at most mid-level approvals. Meanwhile every few weeks in Sept-Nov 2003, what rules there were kept changing.

What I'd like to know: What intel was gathered at AG due to or despite the methods used, and did any of it lead to the capture of Saddam in late 2003? Something like that could be what Cheney is alluding to.

"I don't understand why you say the report proves the chain of command was not operating in a top-down fashion. It seems to show much the opposite to me."

I have not read the whole report. I was looking for specific things so I started looking closely around p150ff.

"I'm guessing Levin is referring to pages 109-132."

?? p110-131 is re Gitmo. That doesn't explain the behavior at AG, "seeds" or not. Don't forget that seeds can be blown by the wind to where they become weeds.

There are numerous references to low level officers in Iraq putting together SOPs out of "found documents" and then not getting any approval or corrective action on them. Please pardon the OCR glitches, my copy is not a plain text version:

"That same Legal Advisor stated that he too tried numerous times,
also unsuccessfully, to get the Commander to sign the policy. The Legal Advisor added that it
~erehe would print out a fresh copy ofthe policy every night and give it to
~aide.The Legal Advisor said that he knew the Commander had received
copies ofthe policy from his aide, but that he had a habit ofrepeatedly "losing" the draft
policy.1239 He said that the exercise became "lau able" and eventually, he was forced to raise
the issue with the legal advisor. 1240 In the absence o.
guidance, the Legal Advisor told the Committee that his direction to SMU
personnel was that the unsigned SOP applied to SMU TF interrogations."

"Interrogation techniques used by the Special Mission Unit Task Force eventually
made their way into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) issued for all U.S. forces in Iraq. In
the summer of2003, Captain Wood, who by that time was the Interrogation Officer in Charge at
Abu Ghraib, obtained a copy ofthe Special Mission Unit interrogation policy and submitted it,
virtually unchanged, to her chain ofcommand as proposed policy."

You see? Not top-down. The report is ambiguous as to "summer of 2003" actual time period but Wood apparently arrived in Iraq around early August.

"(U) On September 14,2003 the Commander ofCJTF-7, Lieutenant General Ricardo
Sanchez, issued the fIrst CJTF-7 interrogation SOP. That SOP authorized interrogators in Iraq to
use stress positions, environmental manipulation, sleep management, and military working dogs
in interrogations. Lieutenant General Sanchez issued the September 14, 2003 policy with the
knowledge that there were ongoing discussions about the legality ofsome ofthe approved
techniques. Responding to legal concerns from CENTCOM lawyers about those techniques,
Lieutenant General Sanchez issued a new policy on October 12,2003, eliminating many ofthe
previously authorized aggressive techniques. The new policy, however, contained ambiguities
with respect to certain techniques, such as the use of dogs in interrogations, and led to confusion about which techniques were permitted."

Confusions and changes.

"(U) In his report of his investigation into Abu Ghraib, Major General George Fay said
that interrogation techniques developed for GTMO became "confused" and were implemented at
Abu Ghraib. For example, Major General Fay said that removal of clothing, while not included
in CJTF-Ts SOP, was "imported" to Abu Ghraib, could be ''traced through Mghanistan and
GTMO," and contributed to an environment at Abu Ghraib that appeared "to condone depravity
and degradation rather than humane treatment of detainees." Major General Fay said that the
policy approved by the Secretary ofDefense on December 2,2002 contributed to the use of
aggressive interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib in late 2003."

More unofficial leaks, confusion, etc. BTW, Rumsfeld rescinded the Dec 2002 authorization in Jan 2003, so this is clearly an ad hoc situation.

And that's just from the summary.

CPT Wood shows up a lot starting with p153ff

"Wood said that, in early January [2002], she saw a "secret power point presentation" containing the
techniques authorized for use at GTMO but did not recall where she had obtained the power
point presentation."

"She said that she used her "best judgment and concluded [the techniques]
would be effective tools for interrogations at [Abu Ghraib].,,1282 She also said that she later put
together a request for additional interrogation options because "the winds ofwar were changing"
and there was "mounting pressure from higher for 'actionable intelligence' from interrogation
operations.,,1283 CPT Wood said that she did not want to repeat her experience in Mghanistan,
where interrogators lacked written guidance."

"The SMU Task For~
Advisor who served at the facility in July and August 2003 stated that he was sure___
_ saw the policy, that he asked him to sign it, and that a copy ofthe policy sat in the
Commander's inbox during the Legal Advisor's deployment to the Task Force."

Thank you! What is wrong with these people that they have to use euphamisms to try to say what we all know in the first place?