GOP Candidate for Pennsylvania Special Election is a Former Abu Ghraib Interrogation Consultant

January 20th, 2018

Awake Goy

Rick Saccone, the GOP nominee in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, is a former intelligence support consultant for the U.S. Army at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. He has written extensively in support of interrogation tactics widely condemned by human rights experts as torture.

Over the years, drawing upon his experience in Iraq, Saccone has promoted waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, as well as threatening prisoners with execution, dogs, and electrocution, as necessary tactics for obtaining information from detainees.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump appeared in North Fayette Township in Pennsylvania to promote Saccone’s candidacy. Despite the district going to Trump by some 20 points in November, the GOP is at risk of losing it to Democrat Conor Lamb.

The election was triggered by the sudden resignation of Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., after revelations last year that the anti-abortion lawmaker had pressured his mistress to seek an abortion.

The Intercept reached out to the Saccone campaign but did not receive a response to multiple requests for comment.

In his book, “The Unseen War in Iraq” and in a series of newspaper columns, Saccone argued for the use of such tactics, claiming that so-called enhanced interrogation methods are both legal and effective means for extracting intelligence. International human rights attorneys reject the former claim, and an extensive investigation by the Senate intelligence committee rejects the latter.