"Court asked to decide: Was Rumsfeld a torturer?"

By Nat Hentoff, March 26, 2010:

. . . [I]n an unexpected and historic ruling on March 5 of this year, federal District Judge Wayne Andersen in Chicago allowed the continuance of a lawsuit — “Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel v. Donald Rumsfeld, United States of America and Unidentified Agents.” It is the first continuance of a torture case against a senior Bush official.

The charge against Rumsfeld is that he was the authorizing source and therefore personally responsible for the torture in 2006 by U.S. forces in Iraq of American citizens Vance and Ertel, members of a private security firm. They had become unpaid informants for the FBI when they suspected their employer of illegal activities in Iraq. Nonetheless, they were imprisoned and tortured by American forces. . . .