Guantanamo - Amnesty Head Backs Down

The head of the Amnesty International USA, Executive Director William Schulz, now says he doesn't "know for sure", does "not know" and has no idea what he is talking about.

Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn't "know for sure" that the military is running a "gulag."

Executive Director William Schulz said Amnesty, often cited worldwide for documenting human rights abuses, also did not know whether Secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation.

Schulz recently dubbed Rumsfeld an "apparent high-level architect of torture" in asserting he approved interrogation methods that violated international law.

"It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea," Schulz told "Fox News Sunday."

The Reuters report leaves out a lot more of Schulz's backtracking. But you can read the transcript at Fox. Backtracking like:

Mr. Schulz, do you have any evidence whatsoever that he ever approved beating of prisoners, ever approved starving of prisoners, the kinds of things we normally think of as torture?

SCHULZ: It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea...

WALLACE: Wait, Mr. Schulz, excuse me, you're switching subjects. I asked you whether the ICRC has been allowed access to every place from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay. And the answer is yes, correct?

SCHULZ: Oh, Chris, I have no idea whether the Red Cross has been given access to the secret detention facilities that the U.S. is maintaining. Have they been given access to the Syrian prisons and the prisons where the United States is rendering prisoners? I have absolutely no idea and I suggest you don't either. I think we don't know. [...]

SCHULZ: Chris, we don't know what the Red Cross has said about torture.

What we do know about Mr. Schulz is this:

WALLACE: Mr. Schulz, if I can get a couple of final questions in. Last year, didn't you contribute $2,000, the maximum, to John Kerry's presidential campaign?

SCHULZ: I did indeed, yes.

WALLACE: Isn't it a fact that you have already contributed $1,000 to Ted Kennedy's next campaign?

SCHULZ: I have contributed, yes.

AI seemed pretty damn sure in their report and now they have "no idea" and "don't know". More fake but accurate, eh?
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