6-02-05, 1:36 pm

After the Bush administration yesterday (June 1) lined up numerous officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, to attack Amnesty International for its report that criticizes the administration’s human rights record, the respected human rights organization fired back.
'If this administration is committed to transparency,' says Schulz, 'it should immediately open the network of detention centers operated by the US around the world to scrutiny by independent human rights groups.'

Schulz also pointed to the irony that the Bush administration eagerly cites AI research when that criticism happens to conform with the administration’s political and foreign policy goals.

An Amnesty International press statement cited numerous references by Donald Rumsfeld to AI’s work, including the following:

On March 27, 2003, Rumsfeld said: We know that it’s a repressive regime? Anyone who has read Amnesty International or any of the human rights organizations about how the regime of Saddam Hussein treats his people? The next day, Rumsfeld cited his 'careful reading' of Amnesty: [I]t seems to me a careful reading of Amnesty International or the record of Saddam Hussein, having used chemical weapons on his own people as well as his neighbors, and the viciousness of that regime, which is well known and documented by human rights organizations, ought not to be surprised. And on April 1, 2003, Rumsfeld said once again: [I]f you read the various human rights groups and Amnesty International’s description of what they know has gone on, it’s not a happy picture. The Bush administration seems intent on attacking Amnesty International in order to shift focus from its deplorable record. But by refusing to call for an independent, open and thorough investigation, the administration proves that it has more to hide.



--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.