The Bush Torture Timeline

• 1992-2000: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al, want to invade Iraq, wait for "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor".
• 2001/01: official Iraq invasion plans begin.
• 2001/09/11: "It was an interesting day".
• 2001/10: Justice Department writes the first torture memo: international torture law does not cover "stress factors".
• 2001/12/28: DoJ Office of Legal Counsel writes a second torture memo: Guantanamo is outside of all court jurisdiction.
• 2002/01: General Rick Baccus treats the first group of Guantanamo prisoners humanely, tells them Geneva Convention rights. Rumsfeld later relieves him of command.
• 2002/01/09: John Yoo and Robert Delahunty write torture memo to Department of Defense: the laws of war do not apply in Afghanistan, and international law has "no binding legal effect on either the President or the military".
• 2002/01/11: State Department Legal Adviser William Taft IV says Yoo memo is "seriously flawed", wants to follow Geneva Conventions.
• 2002/01/22: Updated torture memos passed to White House Counsel.
• 2002/01/25: Alberto Gonzales and David Addington write response memo directly to Bush: "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions", and "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act".
• 2002/01/26: Colin Powell personally objects.
• 2002/02/01: John Ashcroft writes letter to Bush: "If a determination is made that Afghanistan was a failed state, various legal risks of liability, litigation, and criminal prosecution are minimized".
• 2002/02/07: White House decides that a few Geneva Conventions apply to Afghanistan, but not the parts about PoWs.
• 2002/02/27: Brown & Root begins construction of Guantanamo Camp Delta. Contracts eventually exceed $100 million.
• 2002/04: Al Qaida official Abu Zubaydah captured, tortured.
• 2002/07: Halliburton/KBR gets $16 million to keep building cells.
• 2002/08/01: Jay Bybee writes torture memo to Gonzales titled "Standards of Conduct for Interrogations": "certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within Section 2340A's proscription against torture". And besides, "necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Section 2340A".
• 2002/09/26: Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, is detained in New York while boarding a plane for home. He is sent to a prison in Syria and tortured with electric cables for a year.
• 2002/10: Guantanamo commanders ask for permission to use stronger methods.
• 2002/10/25: General James Hill passes request to the Joint Chief, with a few misgivings: "I am particularly troubled by the use of implied or expressed threats of death of the detainee or his family".
• 2002/11/27: William Haynes sends Action Memo to Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of Guantanamo.
• 2002/12: Rumsfeld authorizes hooding, nakedness, dark rooms, and "using detainees' individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress".
• 2002/12: At least two prisoners beaten to death in Afghanistan.
• 2003/01/15: After Navy interrogators object to the new techniques, Rumsfeld takes it back.
• 2003/03/06: Pentagon writes memo: "the prohibition against torture [in the 1994 criminal statute] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority".
• 2003/04: Rumsfeld approves new list of allowed interrogation methods.
• 2003/04: Judge Advocate General's office secretly contacts international human rights lawyer Scott Horton, asks him to go to court since they can't intervene.
• 2003/05: Four soldiers plea-bargain to beating Iraqi prisoners, quietly discharged.
• 2003/05: Guantanamo General Geoffrey Miller writes "72-point matrix for stress and duress" which recommends hooding, nakedness, dark rooms, and increasing levels of pain.
• 2003/??: CIA interrogators and CACI contractors hold secret prisoners in Iraq.
• 2003/06/01: US withdraws military aid from 50 countries for supporting international prosecution of war crimes.
• 2003/06/10: General Miller plans an execution chamber at Guantanamo.
• 2003/06: General Karpinski takes command of prisons. Like most of her troops, she has no experience with prisons.
• 2003/??: CIA "ghost detainees" shuttled around different cells to avoid being seen by Red Cross.
• 2003/09: General Miller visits Karpinski, puts Abu Ghraib prison under command of military intelligence.
• 2003/10: General Ryder investigates prisons.
• 2003/11/05: Ryder report indicates lack of controls. Pentagon calls for second inquiry.
• 2003/11: Undocumented prisoner killed during interrogation, then packed in ice, given fake IV, listed as medical mortality.
• 2003/12: General Karpinski says "living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn't want to leave."
• 2003/several: Red Cross detects abuse. Their reports "repeatedly asked the U.S. authorities to take corrective action".
• 2003/??: butt pyramids.
• 2004/01: General Taguba questions prison guards, gets confessions.
• 2004/01/??: General Karpinski reassigned. The abuse continues.
• 2004/02/??: Taguba report explicitly verifies abuse. No action taken.
• 2004/04/15: CBS gets abuse photos, asks DoD, then holds story for two weeks. No action taken.
• 2004/04/29 morning: Donald Rumsfeld meets with Senate Armed Services committee, does not mention abuse problem.
• 2004/04/29 evening: Abuse at Abu Ghraib on 60 Minutes II.
• 2004/04/30: New Yorker publishes Hersh article, excerpts of Taguba report.
• 2004/06/08: Congressional 9/11 Commission asks for torture memos. John Ashcroft refuses, says there is no link between the administration redefining torture and the soldiers committing torture.
• 2004/06/28: Supreme Court rules that indefinite detainees have a right to judicial review.
• 2004/07/07: Paul Wolfowitz stalls for time by proposing rigged tribunals.
• 2004/07/25: Pentagon stalls for time by denying the right to legal counsel.
• 2004/09: If we can't torture prisoners in America, Congress wants to send them somewhere else where we can.
• 2004: Don't want torture transfers showing up on the record? Rendition them by charter jet!

Oh, I forgot to mention, this doesn't even count the secret prisons which the military refuses to discuss.