What makes plausible denial somewhat implausible in this case is the strong suspicion that no one of note in an overseas deployment would make a walk to the crapper without reference to and reassurance from Ottawa.

the Bloc Quebecois' Claude Bachand, who remind the witnesses — and the rest of us, of course — that the point of this investigation is to *protect* the military apparatus, particularly when there is the risk of Geneva convention violations. What they're looking for is the danger that Canadian troops knew there was the risk of torture, and the prisoners were transferred anyway. He also points out that, given the unity in the Canadian Forces, it's not surprising that none of the witnesses before him would contradict each other — but there are other sources who have different claims, including Amnesty International, the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission, various European diplomats, journalists — everyone but the military seems to acknowledge there was torture, yet these witnesses seem to be denying it.

..there's a moment of increasingly pointed silence before Gauthier — the only one on whom Hillier's eyes were fixed — takes the floor. He notes, somewhat haltingly, that he wasn't on the ground at the time, and points out that it was up to these experts to alert them to the fact that there was a problem before June 2007. Wait, huh?

Exactly.. this looks like the generals were playing 3 Blind Mice here.