stAllio!'s way

rumsfeld is in some scalding hot water after the release of seymour hersch's new yorker story alleging that rummy tacitly approved of prisoner abuse at abu graib.

united press international suggests that hersch got much of his damaging info from his contacts in the cia, with more coming from sources in the us army.

Indeed, intelligence and regular Army sources have told UPI that senior officers and officials in both communities are sickened and outraged by the revelations of mass torture and abuse, and also by the incompetence involved, in the Abu Ghraib prison revelations. These sources also said that officials all the way up to the highest level in both the Army and the Agency are determined not to be scapegoated, or allow very junior soldiers or officials to take the full blame for the excesses.

President George W. Bush in his weekly radio address Saturday claimed that the Abu Ghraib abuses were only "the actions of a few" and that they did not "reflect the true character of the Untied States armed forces."

But what enrages many serving senior Army generals and U.S. top-level intelligence community professionals is that the "few" in this case were not primarily the serving soldiers who were actually encouraged to carry out the abuses and even then take photos of the victims, but that they were encouraged to do so, with the Army's well-established safeguards against such abuses deliberately removed by high-level Pentagon civilian officials.

naturally rumsfeld & the DoD deny that. but what's interesting is that the cia has also officially denied it:

"The New Yorker story is fundamentally wrong, there was no DOD/CIA program to abuse and humiliate Iraqi prisoners," CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said.

...

"Despite what is alleged in the article, I am aware of no CIA official who would have or possibly could have confirmed the details of the New Yorker's inaccurate account," Harlow of the CIA said.

so it would seem that the cia people are pissed off, but the cia organization is trying to cover its ass. unfortunately for the govt, it looks like the people are winning, since allegations keep coming, like the MPs' testimony that the cia was directly involved in the death of at least one interrogee.