Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld Allowed To Proceed

Good call.

A federal judge in Illinois has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by two Americans (pdf) who claimed they were detained and interrogated in Iraq.

David Vance and Nathan Ertel, who traveled to Iraq in 2005 to work for a security firm, filed suit against Rumsfeld and the U.S. government alleging that they were taken into custody and interrogated by the military because of suspicion that their company was providing arms to insurgents. They claim they were placed in cages, strip-searched and questioned using "physically and mentally coercive tactics," before they were finally released weeks later.

Rumsfeld filed a motion to dismiss. However, Judge Wayne Anderson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Friday allowed one claim against him to go forward, finding the two contractors pleaded enough details to implicate the former secretary.