Red Cross report: Prisoner abuse was routine

From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle:

The report also said military intelligence officers confirmed the inspector's impression that these "methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information."

The 24-page report, completed in February, appears to contradict several statements by senior Pentagon officials in recent days as to how and when the military learned of potential abuses in Iraq, how they reacted to reports of abuses, and how widespread the practices might have been.

A spokesman for the Red Cross in Geneva said on Monday the organization's president, Jakob Kellenberger, complained about the prison abuses directly to top administration officials during a two-day visit to Washington in mid-January when he met with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

So they knew at the highest levels, which is no surprise at all.

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