December 24, 2004 - A significant part of my job as Middle East editor consists of scouring government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, looking for juicy tidbits to report on. Once in a while I sit up straight in my chair, wipe the glaze from my eyes, and let out a yelp, thinking I've found something substantial. More often than not it turns out to be nothing.

But the other day, while going through the huge batch of FBI and other government documents revealed this week by the ACLU, which we've reported on here: http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1348
and here: http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1350 , my co-editor, Jessica, read out loud a list of techniques interrogators had used on Iraqi prisoners:

...strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations...

I experienced a hiccup of recognition after a moment of deja vu gave way to a confirmed memory of a story we ran in The NewStandard last summer:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=
658 .

A bunch of left-leaning and even mainstream media outlets have referred to the newly released document ( http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI.121504.4910_491
2.pdf ). But most of them -- including the ACLU ( http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17216&c=206 ) -- thought the report relays the eyewitness account of an FBI agent, like most of the other recently released documents ( http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/fbi.html ). In this case, I recognized it as the story of US Army counterintelligence sergeant Greg Ford, whose superior officers allegedly had him shipped out of Iraq on a psych discharge because he tried to blow the whistle on tortures taking place at Abu Ghraib.

Last July, freshman journalist David DeBatto ( http://davedebatto.com/ )-- himself a former counterintelligence agent straight out of the Army -- interviewed Ford and one of his teammates and put together an excellent story for TNS ( http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=658 ). It was, in fact, Dave's first hard news article ever, and one he should be proud of. He later went on to write an extended version, which Salon.com ran (enjoy the Verizon ad) about a week ago. (Since they're a big, gross commercial media corporation, they could not help proclaiming the story a "Salon exclusive," acting as if they'd just uncovered it themselves, backed up by Democracy Now!, which said as much when they had Dave on for an otherwise terrific interview : http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/09/1516228 . That's kind of how most media works -- corporate and alternative alike -- as we are learning the hard way.)

The nature of the "cover-up" referred to in that almost totally-redacted document is completely blanked out. At one point, the released version of the FBI document says:



But we reported the details 5 months ago. Here is The NewStandard version of what it says under the blanks:

A US Army counterintelligence agent who accused fellow National Guardsmen of abusing Iraqi detainees says that his own commander coerced an Army psychiatrist into diagnosing him as "delusional." According to Sergeant Greg Ford, his commanding officer confronted psychiatrist Angelina Madera, a captain with the 30th Medical Support Element, after she had initially assessed Ford to be mentally stable.

There's your secret, folks. The FBI didn't want you to know that, but we've long thought you should: http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1222-02.htm

Anyway, without pretending to claim we are the only people to have told the story, I can't help but use my blogging privileges to tell this little behind-the-news tale and show how as early as last July we were able to recognize an important story, and recognize the potential of a green but eager journalist. That's kind of what we are all about here. We take chances with unproven reporters and unexplored stories. (And sometimes the corporate media then takes off with one or the other or both.)

A lot of the time it doesn't pan out. (If only you knew how many journalists and articles we've turned down in the past year...) But sometimes we hit the spot, and that is one of the reasons we have clung to this project through the hardest of times, holding out hope that what we call "the NewStandard difference" will be recognized by enough people to make it all worthwhile.