Outsourcing Torture

Via Daily Kos: The US and UK are using information obtained through torture in Uzbekistan. The former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan has leaked the memos. Some key excerpts:

1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.
2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the question and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up the results.
3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but not as in a friendly state.

The Bush rhetoric about liberating Iraqis from Saddam's torture chambers rings a little hollow when you find out, even after all of our claims that Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident perpetrated by rogue soldiers, we're still outsourcing torture to a regime that the State Department glowingly refers to as one of the most repressive in the world.

Outsourcing Torture