Unknown Unknowns, 18x24 oil on canvas, Sandra Koponen © 2015DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSEDonald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense Jan. 20, 2001 - Dec. 18, 2006As head of the Defense Department, Rumsfeld was directly or indirectly responsible for the gross abuses committed at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and other military detention centers. Along with Vice President Cheney and others, he opposed recognizing the rights of detainees under the Geneva Conventions, and he instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that those rights did not apply. He was also a member of the National Security Council Principals Committee, which approved the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques.On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld signed an action memo authorizing the military to use harsh interrogation techniques based on those used at a DOD program established to help U.S. forces withstand torture. He withdrew the authorization in January 2003 but then convened a working group on interrogation, and approved a new set of harsh techniques three months later. In August and September 2003, he sent Major General Miller, the commander at Guantanamo Bay, to Iraq to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib. Rumsfeld stood by the military’s interrogation policies despite continuously mounting evidence of abuse at the hands of military interrogators.Rumsfeld also specifically approved the brutal interrogation plan for Mohammed al-Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay, who was harshly interrogated for 50-plus days, and a “special interrogation plan” for Mohamedou Slahi, another Guantanamo prisoner, who was subsequently subjected to a mock execution at sea, solitary confinement, beatings, sexual humiliation, and environmental manipulation.**Excerpted from the ACLU’s infographic, “The Architects of Torture” https://www.aclu.org/infographic/infographic-torture-architects

Unknown Unknowns, 18x24 oil on canvas, Sandra Koponen © 2015

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense Jan. 20, 2001 - Dec. 18, 2006

As head of the Defense Department, Rumsfeld was directly or indirectly responsible for the gross abuses committed at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and other military detention centers. Along with Vice President Cheney and others, he opposed recognizing the rights of detainees under the Geneva Conventions, and he instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that those rights did not apply. He was also a member of the National Security Council Principals Committee, which approved the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques.

On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld signed an action memo authorizing the military to use harsh interrogation techniques based on those used at a DOD program established to help U.S. forces withstand torture. He withdrew the authorization in January 2003 but then convened a working group on interrogation, and approved a new set of harsh techniques three months later. In August and September 2003, he sent Major General Miller, the commander at Guantanamo Bay, to Iraq to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib. Rumsfeld stood by the military’s interrogation policies despite continuously mounting evidence of abuse at the hands of military interrogators.

Rumsfeld also specifically approved the brutal interrogation plan for Mohammed al-Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay, who was harshly interrogated for 50-plus days, and a “special interrogation plan” for Mohamedou Slahi, another Guantanamo prisoner, who was subsequently subjected to a mock execution at sea, solitary confinement, beatings, sexual humiliation, and environmental manipulation.*

*Excerpted from the ACLU’s infographic, “The Architects of Torture” https://www.aclu.org/infographic/infographic-torture-architects