Doug Bereuter: “as the chairman of the House delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and currently the president of the assembly…”

“as the chairman of the House delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and currently the president of the assembly, I have frequently had to reassure parliamentarians that the outrageous and false allegations they had heard about the way detainees were being treated by the U.S. at our Guantanamo detention facility were not true. Since I had been part of a small number of Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence members to visit Guantanamo, actually the first congressional delegation to visit, since the HPSCI members and staff have made several such trips and have given oversight to this interrogation and detention facility, and since I am a former military intelligence officer, I knew I could conscientiously give such an assurance. Now, however, from Abu Ghraib prison, and perhaps from elsewhere, we have reports, with photographs, graphically telling and showing outrageous abuses of Iraqi detainees by U.S. military personnel and possibly by military contractors. The international damage to the credibility and reputation of our country and our military absolutely cannot be overstated, especially in the Arab and Islamic communities. The alleged actions by at least a few members of our military, already confirmed by very recent disciplinarian action, makes the job being done by our dedicated and courageous military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan just that much harder and much more dangerous.”