JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, Defense of Phosphorus Use Turns Into Damage Control:

On Nov. 8, Italian public television showed a documentary renewing persistent charges that the United States had used white phosphorus rounds, incendiary munitions that the film incorrectly called chemical weapons, against Iraqis in Falluja last year. Many civilians died of burns, the report said.

The half-hour film was riddled with errors and exaggerations, according to United States officials and independent military experts. But the State Department and Pentagon have so bungled their response - making and then withdrawing incorrect statements about what American troops really did when they fought a pitched battle against insurgents in the rebellious city - that the charges have produced dozens of stories in the foreign news media and on Web sites suggesting that the Americans used banned weapons and tried to cover it up.

The Iraqi government has announced an investigation, and a United Nations spokeswoman has expressed concern.

"It's discredited the American military without any basis in fact," said John E. Pike, an expert on weapons who runs GlobalSecurity.org, an independent clearinghouse for military information. He said the "stupidity and incompetence" of official comments had fueled suspicions of a cover-up.

"The story most people around the world have is that the Americans are up to their old tricks - committing atrocities and lying about it," Mr. Pike said. "And that's completely incorrect."

From USA Today, CIA Chief: Methods 'Unique' But Legal:

CIA interrogators use “a variety of unique and innovative ways” to collect “vital” information from prisoners but strictly obey laws against torture, CIA Director Porter Goss said.

In his first interview since the clash this month between the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Senate on restricting interrogations, Goss said the CIA remains officially neutral on the proposal by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of detainees by CIA or military officers. But Goss made clear that techniques that would be restricted under McCain's proposal have yielded valuable intelligence.

“There is a huge amount of misinformation swirling about on the subject of detainees. That would include alleged activities of this agency,” Goss said in an interview Friday in his office at agency headquarters in Northern Virginia.

“This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work,” Goss said. “We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture.”

Goss declined to describe interrogation methods exclusive to the CIA. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said the problem with McCain's proposal is that the restriction on “degrading” treatment might bar psychological techniques, such as calling a prisoner a coward or isolating a detainee in a very small room. Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is a close ally of the administration in the interrogation debate.