More on Abu Ghraib

According to today's Baltimore Sun, another army report on Abu Ghraib is due out soon.

"A long-awaited report on the role of the Army's military intelligence troops in the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison will recommend that more than two dozen soldiers be disciplined but would spare anyone above the colonel who commanded them at the infamous facility outside Baghdad, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

The Army report, expected to be released by the end of the month, contends that responsibility for the abuses goes beyond the seven soldiers from a Maryland-based military police unit who up to now are the only ones to face charges in the scandal, said the officials, who requested anonymity.

The Pentagon officials said the report alleges even more troubling incidents than have been portrayed to date in the testimony of prisoners and soldiers as well as widely circulated pictures of naked Iraqi detainees stacked in pyramids, held on a leash or faced with snarling guard dogs. The officials provided no details.

The report recommends action against the military intelligence soldiers that ranges from administrative punishment carrying penalties such as loss of pay and reduction in rank to the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding that could lead to court-martial, the officials said."

This is the final report from the investigation originally headed by Gen. Fay, which was charged with investigating the role of military intelligence in the torture at Abu Ghraib. Since Gen. Fay was replaced in order to allow Gen. Sanchez to be investigated, this investigation could have concluded that responsibility went far higher than the colonel in charge of the military intelligence unit. As I understand it, however, it was not directed to look outside the army at either the civilian leadership at the Pentagon or other agencies like the CIA. For an examination of the civilian leadership we must await the report by James Schlesinger and his panel. I am not aware of anyone investigating the CIA, other than Seymour Hersh. For the sake of our credibility abroad and our integrity as a nation, I hope that some investigation or other thinks seriously about the climate created by a civilian leadership that seems to have thought that obedience to basic norms of conduct and international law was for wimps. There are some things that 9/11 did not change, and morality is among them.

Comments

[Anarch]

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul has been all over the prisoner abuse scandal the past week or so. The more recent examples are here:

Torturers' Apprentices
Hidden in the Annex
"They Were Just Joking Around"
While we're waiting for Seymour Hersh

[Anarch]

Also, a rather graphic description via Salon of just what was going on there:

Salon's Abu Ghraib coverage

It's behind the wall so you'll need to get a day pass as per usual if you're not a subscriber.

[DaveC]

Karl Zinmeister (sp?) had an NRO article that said 20+ Iraqi prisoners were killed in one night of mortar fire (from insurgents, I dont think US troops would fire on Abu Grhaib). Is this true? How many prisoners died from US troops atrocities?