Don Rumsfeld: “I think that — I’m not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. I don’t know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there’s been a conviction for torture. And therefore I’m not going to address the torture word.”
Meanwhile Josh Marshall points to this, from the Report of Major General Antonio M. Taguba, assigned by the Pentagon to investigate the not-torture of Iraqi prisoners:
“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; … sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick…”
Makes the old “it depends on what the meaning of is is” look so quant in reflection.
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