The White House ignored early warnings from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, or FBI, that US interrogators may have abused detainees,
according to a new report from the Justice Department.
The report, released yesterday, shows that FBI agents started reporting as
early as 2002 about abusive interrogations methods used on detained terror
suspects, including sexual humiliation, prolonged shackling and exposure to
extreme temperatures.
Justice Department officials did convey some of these concerns in at least
one White House meeting in 2003, but the White House ignored them.
A year later, the revelation of similar abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison
became a source of everlasting shame for American citizens, and seen as a
serious blow to the US "moral authority."
Some US legal experts found the latest revelations not surprising.
Previous media reports said top Bush aides including Vice President Dick
Cheney were micromanaging the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House
basement in 2002.
Nevertheless, the latest revelations adds a key element to the portrait of
complicity in what could someday be prosecuted as violations of US torture
statutes or even war crimes, the experts said.
