Top Officials Exonerated of Abuse:
Deny, Deny, Deny

Report says that no top officials are guilty of ordering or of turning a blind eye to the torture of Abu Ghraib. Is this another case of the Fox guarding the chicken coop?

March 11, 2005

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's top brass were exonerated yesterday of accusations that they ordered, or turned a blind eye to, the brutal torture and humiliation of detainees at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

The unclassified 21-page summary of a 400-page secret report confirms that at least six detainees have died in the  71 proven cases of abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reveals that the U.S. military was holding an estimated 50,000 detainees as of last September.  The report said that "eight of the 71 cases occurred at GTMO, all of which were relatively minor in their physical nature, although two of these involved unauthorized, sexually suggestive behavior by interrogators, which raises problematic issues concerning cultural and religious sensitivities.  Three of the cases, including one deathcase, were from Afghanistan, while the remaining 60 cases, including five death cases, occurred in Iraq."

Another 130 cases remained open as of September 30, 2004, with investigations ongoing.  Among the open cases were several ongoing investigations related to abuse at Abu Ghraib, including the death of a detainee who was brought to Abu Ghraib by a special operations/OGA team in November 2003.  This case was considered in [thier] review of medical issues.

According to the report, "We considered serious abuse to be misconduct resulting or having the potential to result in death, or in grievous bodily harm (as defined in the Manual for Courts-Martial, 2002 edition.) In addition, we considered all sexual assaults, threats to inflict death or grievous bodily harm, and maltreatment likely to result in death or grievous bodily harm to be serious abuse."

"This report strains credibility," said Reed Brody, special counsel at Human Rights Watch. "Unfortunately, the United States continues to do what every dictatorship and banana republic does when its abuses are discovered: Cover up and shift blame downwards."

"So there's been no assessment of accountability of any senior officials, either within or outside of the Department of Defense, for policies that may have contributed to abuses of prisoners," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat.

"I can only conclude that the Defense Department is not able to assess accountability at senior levels, particularly when investigators are in the chain of command of the officials whose policies and actions they are investigating," he added.

We found, however, that As of September 30, 2004, disciplinary action had been taken against 115 service members for this misconduct, including numerous nonjudicial punishments, 15 summary courts-martial, 12 special courts-martial and nine general courts-martial. But still no accountablility at top levels.

But, Church even knowing this had the gall to say in his report, "I don't think you can hold anybody accountable for a situation that maybe if you had done something different, maybe something would have occurred differently," he said. "It's a lesson learned that we need to capture and think about for the future."

Vice-Adm. Church also confirmed the existence of so-called ghost detainees, a practice in which the CIA detains suspects without documenting them. Admiral Church's report concludes that there were at least two efforts to specify which interrogation techniques were allowed, and which were not. He says that created some confusion. According to the rules, only relatively mild techniques such as poking a prisoner in the chest or gentle pushing, were allowed.

But the admiral also concluded there was a lack of clarity on what non-military interrogators, like those from the CIA, could do in military prisons. And the report says the urgency of gathering intelligence in the wake of the September 11 attacks contributed to a more aggressive, and unauthorized, approach by some interrogators. Convienient that it was unauthorized, convienient that some people in the military do not recognize what humanity and being treated humanely is.

The report also says Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved harsher techniques for two particular prisoners, a move the report says contributed to an atmosphere in which the boundaries of proper procedures became blurred. (So was it authorized or not or are we now distinguishing between 'approved' and 'authorized'?) Secretary Rumsfeld ordered this review last May.

Other official inquiries into specific aspects of the abuse and detention operations are continuing. "The members of the Senate Armed Services Committee know that all these investigations are incomplete," Brigadier General Janis Karpinski said. "I don't think people in this administration want them to get to the bottom of this."

Some of Mr. Bush's staunchest supporters appeared to be in denial about Abu Ghraib, a year after the horrific pictures of abuse and sexual humiliation emerged."I don't need an investigation to tell me that there was no comprehensive or systematic use of inhumane tactics by the American military, because those guys and gals just wouldn't do it," said Senator Jim Talent, a Republican from Missouri. "Everything about the culture and the training in the military and at home works against that. That's why the terrorists are attacking us -- because we're not the kind of society that would do that."U.S. courts dealt another setback to the administration's handling of detainees on Monday, when a federal judge rejected a government effort to indefinitely imprison a U.S. citizen without charge by claiming that he is an enemy combatant.The move would be a "betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties," U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd ruled. He gave the government 45 days to charge or release Jose Padilla, who is alleged to have plotted to detonate a so-called dirty bomb to spread radioactive debris.

"It seems the military can only look down the chain of command, not up, when it comes to holding people accountable," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "An outside special counsel is the only way to ensure that all civilians who violated, or conspired to violate, the laws are held responsible for their crimes."

On the Net:

The Church report: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/detainee_investigations.html
Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil/news