Copper Green is reported by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to be one of several code names for a US black ops program, according to an article in the May 24, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. According to Hersh, the task force was formed with the direct approval of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and run by Deputy Undersecretary Stephen Cambone Hersh claims the special access program members were told "Grab whom you must. Do what you want". The program allegedly designed physical coercion and sexual humiliation techniques for use against Muslim Arab men specifically, to retrieve information from suspects, and to blackmail them into becoming informants. Seymour Hersh Seymour Myron (Sy) Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and author who contributes regularly to The New Yorker on military and security matters. ... A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about: United States Wikinews has news related to this article: United States United States government CIA World Factbook Entry for United States House. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... May 24 is the 144th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (145th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The New Yorkers first cover, which is reprinted most years on the magazines anniversary. ... Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) has been the Secretary of Defense of the United States since January 20, 2001, under President George W. Bush. ... The United States invasion of Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) occurred in October 2001, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., marking the beginning of its War on Terrorism campaign. ... Stephen A. Cambone (born 1951) is the United States Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, a post created in March 2003, and of which he was the first occupant. ... A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم) is an adherent of Islam. ... The Arabs (Arabic: عرب ʻarab) are an originally Arabian ethnicity widespread in the Middle East and North Africa. ...

According to the article, the sexual humiliation techniques were based on research done by the late cultural anthropologist Raphael Patai in 1973 in "The Arab Mind", which claimed to be a "study of Arab culture and psychology". According to Hersh's anonymous intelligence source, the Patai book was "the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior", which gave life to two themes: "One, that Arabs only understand force and, two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation". Neocons is a shortened version for neoconservatives in current American politics. ...

Hersh claims to have spoken to a senior CIA official who said the program was designed by Rumsfeld to wrest control of information from the CIA, and place it in the hands of the Pentagon. According to Hersh's sources, the program was so successful in Afghanistan, that Cambone decided to introduce the SAP program to operations during 2003 invasion of Iraq, eventually leading to the use of common soldiers instead of using special ops forces exclusively. In Hersh's view the program was used on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, leading directly to the prisoner abuse by US soldiers there. The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... A pre-9/11 view of The Pentagon, looking east with the Potomac River and Washington Monument in the distance. ... This article covers invasion specifics. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... {{{mWf}}} Caution: This article contains several potentially morbid photographs that depict nude, abused, and deceased persons. ...

Department of Defense spokesperson Lawrence DiRita immediately issued a statement about the accusations, referring to them as "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture". Press accounts have generally characterized DiRita's statement as a "denial", although it is clearly not a blanket denial of Hersh's allegations or even a denial that they are substantially correct. Senators on Capitol Hill, most notably the former POW John McCain, promised to investigate the reported claims, "regardless of where it leads". The United States Department of Defense, abbreviated as DoD or DOD and sometimes called the Defense Department is a civilian Cabinet organization of the United States government. ... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ... John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is an American politician. ...

External links

• Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, 24 May 2005, "The Gray Zone", published online May 15
• Department of Defense press release (in response to Hersh article)
• "Pentagon denies the existence of Copper Green"