Iraqi prisoner abuse and the fallout, pt. 2 -- now the deaths start getting mentioned

He was thrown out of the army but did NOT go to jail.

The other murder was committed by a private contractor who worked for the CIA, the official said.

Why has he been let off scot free? He should've got life.
What would've happened if the murder was in texas?
Bush operates double standards shocker!

What pisses me off though is Bush/Rumsfeld et al's moral fucking high ground on the war. "Do as we say, but not as we do" might as well be the rule of thumb for them :(

Possibly if you follow that famous speech that Orson Welles gave Harry Lime... In that awful times give rise to finer art and culture than stable, peaceful times...

I can't easily see anything else positive about war. At best it is a necessary evil when there is no other choice, i.e. WW2. Mere usage of the word 'necessary' seems cruelly ironic in a thread relating to the whole Iraq fiasco.

Good Josh Marshall post about the disconnect between Washington and Iraq. I think connecting Bush's apparent ignorence of the Taguba Report to his apparent disinterest in CIA intellegence is pretty astute.

but seriously i'm almost inclined to say there's some sort of justice in letting the troops who committed these atrocities off "easy". because i think the responsibility should move up the chain of command to the people who called the invasion in the first place. when the generals say "these are the actions of a few, blah blah blah" i want to say "no these are the actions of people put in a FUCKED-UP situation and YOU put them there"

we can blame stalin's army for executing thousands of it's own soldiers on the german front - or we can blame stalin for throwing waves of (very poorly equipped) troops at the germans.

in both cases i think it's the mistreatment and misuse of soldiers by their superiors that causes this shit to happen.

(the andersonville movie was made for tnt)

that said i don't think you can get away from the fact that if you know what you're doing, who you're doing it for and why you're doing it you'll do a good job. i think that applies to everyone, not just soldiers. i imagine how it feels to go to iraq thinking you're doing this for "freedom" or the iraqis or something and be met with this much hostility. i think i'd feel morally adrift, with a gun.

maybe all war's like that, who knows.

What turns my stomach about the American abuse of Iraqis is that they haven't been at war for years, holed up somewhere with comrades having bits blown off left right and centre, home towns being devastated, etc. I can't see the same dehumanisation from being in Iraq for 6 months, even if it turns out 'freedom' was a bit of a sham.

After pictures apparently showing the abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners were published in the US media, it emerged the report was commissioned back in January.

The investigation by Maj Gen Antonio Taguba was completed on 3 March, the Pentagon said, but as of 4 May Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had still not read it fully.

What's actually going to happen in Iraq? I mean, OK, so everyone but the the True Believers and their courtiers acknowledges that the current status is fucked up. But it will still change somehow, seek some kind of stability. We will "hand over" (ha ha ha) power to someone, and soon -- and probably the Bushies will end up giving up a lot more control than they want to, because circumstances will compel it. But then what?

I know it's hard to get a clear sense of what's going on now, much less think about a year or five years down the road. But there's not enough contemplation of the various realistic long-term options -- which is too bad, because some of those options (say, a Shiite dominated state with a more or less functional democracy and women's rights) are probably better than others (an outright theocracy, civil war, some creepy ex-Saddam thug-ass general, Ahmad Chalabi, etc.), but without some thoughtful assessment we're just going to flounder around grasping at whatever comes along. Which might be intellectually satisfying to those of us who were convinced all along that this administration was bound to severely fuck this thing up, but it's not like we need that opinion validated any more than it has been, and some kind of stable, relatively free Iraq is still better than any of the alternatives.

So what are the choices? Where are we headed?

May 5, 2004
No Plan to Hurt 9/11 Detainees, Ex-Jailer Says
By NINA BERNSTEIN

The former warden of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where the Justice Department and a new lawsuit say Muslim detainees were physically abused after Sept. 11, 2001, said yesterday that there had been no organized effort to mistreat the detainees or to "soften up" those being questioned by federal investigators.

But the former warden, Dennis W. Hasty, said he had recognized the potential for abuse in the charged atmosphere after the World Trade Center attack and took action to try to prevent it. After one detainee complained of mistreatment, the warden began requiring the use of hand-held cameras to videotape all so-called 9/11 detainees whenever they were moved outside their cells.

Some of those videotapes are now being used by the inspector general of the Justice Department as prime evidence of the abuse that took place there. Only a handful of frames from hundreds of tapes have been made public, and none comes close to the shocking images of Iraqi prisoners abused at the hands of American soldiers. But the videotapes captured numerous examples of excessive force being used in Brooklyn, including ramming unresisting detainees into walls, twisting their manacled arms and hands, and mocking them during unnecessary strip searches, the Justice Department said in a report issued in December.

Mr. Hasty, 54, a 30-year veteran of the federal prison system who retired as head of the Metropolitan Detention Center in April 2002, said he would not comment on specific allegations because of pending litigation. He is one of several defendants named in a federal lawsuit that was filed Monday by lawyers for Ehab Elmaghraby and Javaid Iqbal, two Muslim men who say they were physically abused while detained for more than seven months in the center's maximum-security unit before being cleared by the F.B.I. of any terrorist links.

The lawsuit charges that the men were repeatedly slammed into walls and dragged across the floor while shackled and manacled, kicked and punched until they bled, cursed as "terrorists'' and "Muslim bastards,'' and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one during which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby's rectum, making him bleed.

In a phone interview from his home in Springfield, Mo. - his first since the Justice Department issued a critical report about post-9/11 detentions in June - Mr. Hasty stressed that any mistreatment that occurred did so despite his best efforts. "There was no game plan, such as we're hearing about now in Iraq, to break their will," he said, referring to the unfolding scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. "There was no collusion." He added, "I did not subscribe to doing anything but handling detainees in a restrained, professional manner."

At the same time, he said, his officers were not immune to the emotions that ran high after Sept. 11. Recalling that he counted 27 flags on display near one Brooklyn service station as he filled his tank with gas, he said: "People were feeling very patriotic. The city and the country felt victimized and felt threatened by what had happened. Of course many people, my staff included, had neighbors and friends who were killed in the attack."

He described the change that swept the detention center as 84 detainees designated "of high interest" by the F.B.I. were brought in after the terrorist attacks.

"We didn't know how many, if any, were going to be implicated in the conspiracy to attack our country," he said. But he added that he cautioned his staff that some of the detainees brought to the Brooklyn center would be found to have had no involvement at all in 9/11. "We were to house them in constitutional conditions, avoiding anything that would have a hint of cruel or unusual punishment."

But a different picture emerged from the inspector general's two reports. In one case cited in the December report, a lieutenant who denied that any mistreatment had occurred was caught on tape discussing abuse with other officers. According to that report, the lieutenant, apparently not realizing that the audiotape was still running, "suggested how the officers could break some detainees' hunger strikes," saying: " 'Let's get a team. Let's go with a tube. The first guy that gets that tube shoved down his throat, they'll be cured!' He then stated, 'We're going hard,' to which another officer responded, 'Outstanding!' The lieutenant repeated his statement, 'We're going hard.' " Among the hundreds of video and audiotapes belatedly recovered after they had been ordered destroyed by a prison official were some that showed that many of the federal officers, including at least one senior management official, had lied to investigators in denying knowledge of abuse, the December report concluded. It recommended disciplinary action against at least 10 employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

No one has yet been disciplined, federal prison officials said, because such administrative action would have interfered with possible prosecutions, which the Justice Department recently decided not to pursue.

"We consider this a very serious matter," Dan Dunne, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said yesterday. "Our review will be done as quickly as possible, while assuring it is done in as thorough a manner as possible."

A broader lawsuit filed in 2002 by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the constitutionality of the detentions also includes allegations of abuse. It has been stalled in Federal District Court in Brooklyn pending a judge's ruling on the government's motion to dismiss the case. So far, lawyers for the plaintiffs have not been allowed to view the videotapes themselves, they said.

Mr. Hasty, who had previously been the warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, where the 1993 World Trade Center bombers were held, said he ran his detention centers by the book. "We were constantly reminding the staff that it was just essential that they exercise restraint, that they not allow emotions to override their professional training,'' he said.

He added that he warned the staff that Al Qaeda had instructed its members to allege mistreatment, so the behavior of officers toward detainees was bound to come under scrutiny. "We told them," he said, to "make sure that we're squeaky-clean, that we're complying with every jot and tittle of agency policy."

Easy enough for him to say now, but it would have been impossible for this guy to police ALL his staff 24 hrs each and every day. Even the most high tech cameras can't catch every action in all corners. Hint to a guard that this prisoner might have been responsible for the destruction of his/her friends and neighbours: allegation doesn't have to be true for actions to happen.

nichole, what do you mean by this?

They're gonna put you in detention totally fer sher.

White House aides have let it be known privately that Mr Rumsfeld received a dressing-down from President Bush over his handling of the controversial pictures.

The BBC's Justin Webb reports from Washington that Mr Rumsfeld is under the greatest political pressure of his life.

It is possible that he could be forced to resign, our correspondent says.

Dare I dream?

Still, early days yet. If that dressing down DID happen as described, oh to have been a fly on the wall.

sorta like how Bush was 'very disappointed' after the fact by Ashcroft's desclassification of dozens of documents trying to impugn Jamie GorelicK? he's so magnanimous.

"The president is sorry for what occurred and the pain that it has caused," Mr McClellan said after Mr Bush's TV interview.

Asked why Mr Bush himself had not apologised, he added: "I'm saying it now for him."

The White House spokesman also pointed out that Mr Bush had not been pressed to apologise by the two TV channels on which he appeared, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya and the US-funded al-Hurra.

He didn't apologize because they didn't ask him to?

?!??#%#$#????

Every time I think I can't be anymore disgusted and amazed, entire new pits of disgust and amazement open up inside me. Some sick part of me is almost curious about what four more years of this would be like.

I mean, seriously, what?

I know America is several countries really, rather than a cohesive One Nation... but certain values do get transmitted through US popular culture. I don't think sex should be the issue however; there is more of a violence and gun problem in U.S. society... yet it is a problem that many righteous Religious Rightists see sex as the greatest problem in modern America...

One has, Stuart, to see how this sort of thing would appear *outside of* the parochial prism of one's own perspective.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40133000/jpg/_40133905_dogs_abuse_203.jpg

His latest report, and a CNN interview yesterday. Some key points:

When I asked retired Major General Charles Hines, who was commandant of the Army’s military-police school during a twenty-eight-year career in military law enforcement, about these reports, he reacted with dismay. “Turning a dog loose in a room of people? Loosing dogs on prisoners of war? I’ve never heard of it, and it would never have been tolerated,” Hines said. He added that trained police dogs have long been a presence in Army prisons, where they are used for sniffing out narcotics and other contraband among the prisoners, and, occasionally, for riot control. But, he said, “I would never have authorized it for interrogating or coercing prisoners. If I had, I’d have been put in jail or kicked out of the Army.”

...

At a Pentagon news conference last week, Rumsfeld and Marine General Peter Pace, the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that the investigation into Abu Ghraib had moved routinely through the chain of command. If the Army had been slow, it was because of built-in safeguards. Pace told the journalists, “It’s important to know that as investigations are completed they come up the chain of command in a very systematic way. So that the individual who reports in writing [sends it] up to the next level commander. But he or she takes time, a week or two weeks, three weeks, whatever it takes, to read all of the documentation, get legal advice [and] make the decisions that are appropriate at his or her level. . . . That way everyone’s rights are protected and we have the opportunity systematically to take a look at the entire process.”

In interviews, however, retired and active-duty officers and Pentagon officials said that the system had not worked. Knowledge of the nature of the abuses—and especially the politically toxic photographs—had been severely, and unusually, restricted. “Everybody I’ve talked to said, ‘We just didn’t know’—not even in the J.C.S.,” one well-informed former intelligence official told me, emphasizing that he was referring to senior officials with whom such allegations would normally be shared. “I haven’t talked to anybody on the inside who knew—nowhere. It’s got them scratching their heads.” A senior Pentagon official said that many of the senior generals in the Army were similarly out of the loop on the Abu Ghraib allegations.

Within the Pentagon, there was a spate of fingerpointing last week. One top general complained to a colleague that the commanders in Iraq should have taken C4, a powerful explosive, and blown up Abu Ghraib last spring, with all of its “emotional baggage”—the prison was known for its brutality under Saddam Hussein—instead of turning it into an American facility. “This is beyond the pale in terms of lack of command attention,” a retired major general told me, speaking of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. “Where were the flag officers? And I’m not just talking about a one-star,” he added, referring to Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander at Abu Ghraib who was relieved of duty. “This was a huge leadership failure.”

The Pentagon official told me that many senior generals believe that, along with the civilians in Rumsfeld’s office, General Sanchez and General John Abizaid, who is in charge of the Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, had done their best to keep the issue quiet in the first months of the year. The official chain of command flows from General Sanchez, in Iraq, to Abizaid, and on to Rumsfeld and President Bush. “You’ve got to match action, or nonaction, with interests,” the Pentagon official said. “What is the motive for not being forthcoming? They foresaw major diplomatic problems.”

---

In an interview Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition," Hersh said he learned that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq, put U.S. prisons under the command of military intelligence in November and changed procedures that allowed military police to participate in interrogations.

Hersh said he believed the pressure was on last fall to end a steadily rising insurgency -- and that military intelligence officers being pressured from above passed it on to military police guarding detention facilities.

A recommendation from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller -- then commander of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and now in charge of all U.S. detention centers in Iraq -- made that concept easier to put into play, Hersh writes.

Miller's recommendation suggested a more active role for military police in interrogation procedures, prompting Sanchez to give military intelligence command over the facilities, Hersh reports in his article.

Military intelligence, in turn, pushed MPs to "loosen up" their prisoners, Hersh told CNN.

"The evidence suggests that cameras were part of the interrogation process," said Hersh, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his article on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

"One of the ways you could get more leverage was shame, humiliation, to threaten to show these photos to neighbors, others."

Yep, handled REAL well here. The father of the first guy up on a court-martial charge, in an interview from late last month, is not impressed:

But Daniel Sivits, in an interview from April 30, said he thought the abuse scandal stemmed from a lack of leadership.

"All it is lack of leadership, lack of instruction and lack of standard operating procedure and everyone at the top is covering their butts," Daniel Sivits said. "My only question is this: Where was the leadership?"

Jeremy Sivits was charged with conspiracy to maltreat subordinates and detainees, dereliction of duty for negligently failing to protect detainees from abuse and cruelty and maltreatment of detainees, Kimmitt said.

If convicted of all charges, he could face one year in prison, reduction in rank to private, forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay for a year, a fine or a bad conduct discharge, military officials said.

Daniel Sivits said he spent 22 1/2 years in the military and his son grew up in the military. "He knows how to follow instructions," he said.

I do agree that leadership failed spectacularly here, but I still don't see much concern that, in the lack of SOPs, the main instigators are corrections officers in their non-Reservist lives.

Yep, it's a Monday.

Military newspaper the Army Times has joined in with an editorial in effect calling on Mr Rumsfeld to be sacked.

The private newspaper, widely circulated at military bases, says Mr Rumsfeld and his top general, Richard Myers, should be held accountable for their failures.

"On the battlefield, Myers' and Rumsfeld's errors would be called a lack of situational awareness - a failure that amounts to professional negligence," the newspaper says.

But earlier, Vice-President Dick Cheney described Mr Rumsfeld as the best defence secretary the US has ever had.

I want Cheney's drugs because they sure are effective.

http://foreign.senate.gov/about.html

Here is a couple of lists of people to email, if interested.

I've got emails into both of my senators, my congressman and the two senators from my home state.

I'm planning on hitting all of the members of the Armed Services Committee and Senate Committee on Foreign Relations tonight.

China + India + the "islamic world" is about half the world, and that doesn't count social conservatives everywhere else. I'm guessing there are at least twice as many people in the world, hypocritically or not, who would describe America (as well as the rest of the west) as sexually decadent as would describe America as sexually puritanical. I'd bet well over half of Americans would too.

http://www.navytimes.com/content/editorial/pdf/050604dodprisonrebuttal.pdf

From the Military Times editorial:

The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.

In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world.

...

Myers, Rumsfeld and their staffs failed to recognize the impact the scandal would have not only in the United States, but around the world.

If their staffs failed to alert Myers and Rumsfeld, shame on them. But shame, too, on the chairman and secretary, who failed to inform even President Bush.

He was left to learn of the explosive scandal from media reports instead of from his own military leaders.

On the battlefield, Myers’ and Rumsfeld’s errors would be called a lack of situational awareness — a failure that amounts to professional negligence.

This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

Now THAT's cold.

— Giorgio Ra'Shadd, lawyer for alleged Abu Ghraib prisoner abuser Pvt. Lynndie R. England.

PHOTOS SHOW AMERICAN SOLDIERS HAVING SEX WITH ONE ANOTHER

Pentagon possesses three disks of photos, one of which includes some brief video clips. Many of the photos are redundant, and some have little to do with Iraqi detainees but show sex between U.S. soldiers... Pentagon officials prevailed at least temporarily in their insistence that the administration not immediately release the images, which include the forced masturbation of a detainee...

Pentagon officials say they are still deciding whether the photographs seen by Mr Bush and others not yet published in the media should be released publicly.

With new pictures surfacing almost every day - the latest showing soldiers with dogs surrounding a naked prisoner - efforts to draw a line under the scandal appear to have failed.

Troops praised

Mr Bush pledged that any US soldiers who abused prisoners would be brought to justice.

"The conduct that has come to light is an insult to the Iraqi people and is an affront to the most basic standards of morality and decency," he said.

The president also praised the more than 200,000 US military personnel who had served in Iraq since the conflict began last year.

"I know how painful it is to see a small number dishonour the honourable cause in which so many are sacrificing," he said.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says Mr Bush was trying to reassure US troops, and at the same time end suggestions that Mr Rumsfeld should resign.

Calls for him to leave have been made by opposition politicians and various newspapers, including the Army Times which published an editorial in effect calling on Mr Rumsfeld to be sacked.

The private newspaper, widely circulated at military bases, says Mr Rumsfeld and his top general, Richard Myers, should be held accountable.

"On the battlefield, Myers' and Rumsfeld's errors would be called a lack of situational awareness - a failure that amounts to professional negligence," the newspaper says.

People really are still having sex!

The latest nationwide opinion poll suggests, for the first time, that a majority now believe it was not worth fighting.
is mulling whether to release them to the media.