Now that the Bush administration has lost its post-hoc justification for the Iraq war, will the conservatives try to resurrect the initial justification? In the wake of the Abu Ghraib acandal, it has become difficult for the neo-cons to justify the war on the basis of ending years of torture and repression in Iraq. Of course, the situation in Iraq on the whole is still better than it was under Saddam, but the prisoner abuse scandal has undercut America's moral high ground.
In the wake of this, will the neo-cons or other Bush administration apologists try to revive the WMD issue? This editorial by William Safire in the New York Times indicates some desire to do so. He cites the discovery of sarin gas in an IED (roadside bomb) over the weekend as evidence that WMD's still exist in Iraq. Never mind the fact that most experts believe that it is an old leftover from the 1980's.
In fact, Safire goes on to revive the argument that Saddam had ties to al Qaeda, in spite of the fact that no good evidence could be found of this link. Even the Bush administration has backed off on this argument. Safire cites Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the terrorist that is said to have killed Nicholas Berg last week, as evidence of a link. Never mind that Zarqawi never operated in the portions of Iraq controlled by Saddam, but operated only in the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
He also raises the straw man of racism. Conservatives like to prop up the argument that Arabs are not culturally ready for democracy, only to shoot it down. I have never heard this argument seriously put forward as a reason not to go forward with the Iraq war and democracy-building in Iraq. I have only heard it cited by the pro-war crowd as a straw man to discredit the anti-war movement.
I think Safire is a good writer, probably better than I ever will be. I also like his linquistic columns in the Times, though I haven't seen them in a few years. When it comes to politics, I think he is disingenuous and uses facts to support his already formed opinions rather than using facts as part of the process of developing opinions. Compare his columns to those of Thomas Friedman and I think you will see what I mean.
update:
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has his own comments on Safire's article. Read it here.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Monday, May 17, 2004
Here is a fascinating article from the New Yorker regarding the policy foundations that led to the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. The article, by Seymour Hersch, lays responsibility for the scandal at the feet of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The article opens with the following: "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq." Annals of National Security: The Grey Zone, New Yorker, May 24, 2004
That is a quick summary of the entire article, which implicates Rumsfeld in the whole mess. More pointedly, the article lays particular blame on Under-Secretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. This scandal is far from played out and by the time the dust settles, I doubt we will see Stephen Cambone in his current position. Rumsfeld's position is also not as secure as it was last week when after apologizing in testimony before Congress.
The article opens with the following: "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq." Annals of National Security: The Grey Zone, New Yorker, May 24, 2004
That is a quick summary of the entire article, which implicates Rumsfeld in the whole mess. More pointedly, the article lays particular blame on Under-Secretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. This scandal is far from played out and by the time the dust settles, I doubt we will see Stephen Cambone in his current position. Rumsfeld's position is also not as secure as it was last week when after apologizing in testimony before Congress.
Saturday, May 15, 2004
The Abu Ghraib (pr. Aboo Ghrehb) scandal has a lot further to go before it burns itself out. More and more is coming to light as the scapeg… uh, perpetrators come up for trial. First up is the soldier who took the pictures, cooperated with the prosecutors to get home sooner, and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. Coming up soon will be the soldiers who claim they were under orders to do what they were doing.
Certainly the pictures and the reports of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and General Taguba reveal horrific and repulsive scenes. So much so that even President Bush was “sick to his stomach.” But the pictures are only the worst of it and the tip of the iceberg. The reports of the ICRC claim that abuse and violations of the Geneva Conventions were widespread. Major General Antonio Taguba’s report states that there was a failure of leadership at the brigade level. An editorial in the New York Times states that “each passing day has made it more clear that the routine treatment of prisoners in military prisons violates international law, the Geneva Conventions and American values of due process and humane behavior.”
Who besides the soldiers at Abu Ghraib is involved in the controversy, what was their role and what are the implications for the whole matter? We can start at the top and work down from President Bush to Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers and keep going down to the soldiers whose faces are now splattered across the world press in shameful poses. But I prefer to work my way up. Lets start with the soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, 320 Battalion.
The Soldiers - 372nd Military Police Company, 320 Battalion
Specialist Jeremy Sivits – According to the New York Times, Sivits, 24, the first to be court-martialed, is expected to plead guilty on Wednesday and testify against the others in a bid for leniency. He apparently took most of the photos. In fact, he is not in most of the photos. I wonder if Sivits is being put forward first by the Army to cover their asses. Sivits claims that "Our command would have slammed us. They believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay." When a soldier claims guilt and states that his superior officer is innocent as the pure driven snow, it reeks of falling on one’s sword. More likely is what General Taguba claims is a lack of leadership. The platoon sergeant heard the screams and yelled down at Sergeant Davis to stop, surprising the other soldiers with the anger in his command. But within two minutes, the platoon sergeant left, and the soldiers resumed the abuse. If the sergeant knew of this abuse, why were the soldiers still allowed to guard the prisoners?
Pfc. Lynndie R. England – Sivits described her as “laughing at the different stuff they were having the detainees do." She is best known for the picture of her holding a leashed man and for standing in front of a naked man with her thumb up. She claims that she was under orders to pose for the picture by someone “in her chain of command,” but would not name names.
Sergeant Javal C. Davis – When the detainees were piled in a tower like cheerleaders, Davis jumped and landed on them, then stepped on their fingers and toes if they complained that it hurt. Davis told investigators that intelligence officers frequently said things such as "loosen this guy up" and "make sure he has a bad night." Davis said he was told: "Good job. They're breaking down real fast. They're giving out good information."
Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. - "Graner punched the detainee with a closed fist so hard in the temple that it knocked the detainee unconscious. He was joking, laughing," Specialist Sivits said. "Like he was enjoying it." Sivits seems to make Graner into the bad guy in the whole situation, but Graner’s lawyer says he would not have hit a detainee. "He would have done it if he was ordered to do it." He also said that military intelligence soldiers were in one of the graphic photographs, indicating that they were aware of what was going on. Graner’s lawyer also said that Sivits's statement "is of dubious value because he's trading information to try to help himself."
Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II - Frederick and Graner then tried to get several of the inmates to masturbate themselves.
Specialist Sabrina Harman – She was a former assistant manager of a Papa John's Pizza from Alexandria, Va. She told Taguba's investigators that Graner and Frederick were responsible for getting "these people to talk." She said that military-intelligence officers "made the rules as they went."Harman and England would stand in front of the detainees and put their thumbs up and have the pictures taken. Sivits described Harman as looking somewhat disgusted by the events.
Specialist Matthew Wisdom – He was apparently asked to be involved, but Sivits did not appear to testify whether he had done anything.
Spec. Megan M. Ambuhl – According to MSNBC, little is known about Spec. Ambuhl. Her lawyer released Sivits’ testimony to the public.
Well, this seems like a bad bunch of people, but were they alone? Sivits seems to be covering for his superior officers and the Army as a whole by claiming that his superiors did not know about it. He says that he was asked not to report it. But a platoon sergeant ordered them to stop. Military intelligence soldiers were involved, but are they being charged? Administrative action was taken against officers of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, but were the soldiers involved charged with crimes?
Most of the pictures were apparently taken on October 3 after the commanders had changed shifts and gone home. What happened on other nights when Sivits did not have his camera handy? Pfc England claims that she was ordered to do these things and pose for the camera. If this is true and not simply her best shot at getting off the hook, who in her chain of command gave the order?
The Chain of Command - A Failure of Leadership
According to the New Yorker magazine, a retired major general described the situation as “a huge leadership failure, implying that the stink rises above the one-star general, Brig. Gen. Karpinski. He also said 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.” New Yorker, May 17, 2004
Donald Reese - 372nd company commander and a window-blind salesman from New Stanton, Pa. His unit was given control of Tier 1A, where "high priority" detainees were held for interrogation by civilian and military-intelligence officers.
Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum - Phillabaum, a reservist who commanded the 320th Military Police Battalion was the officer in charge of the prison. Taguba found that Phillabaum was "an extremely ineffective commander and leader" who did little after the Camp Bucca beating incident five months earlier to put his soldiers on notice about proper detainee treatment. Soon after the 372nd arrived at Abu Ghraib, Karpinski sent Phillabaum, a 1976 West Point graduate, to Kuwait for two weeks to "give him some relief from the pressure he was experiencing," the report states. Phillabaum was gone from Oct. 18 to Oct. 31.
Phillabaum claims not to have known what was going on and blamed it on a few rogue soldiers, particularly Staff Sgt. Frederick. "I have been made the scapegoat in this event," Phillabaum wrote in an e-mail to The Washingto Post. "Frederick was the NCO (noncommissioned officer) in charge of that wing of the prison. No one higher in his chain of command, starting with his platoon sergeant, knew what was occurring. If he thought that his actions were condoned, then why were they only conducted between 0200-0400 hours for a few days in late October and early November?"
In March, General Taguba recommended that Karpinski and Phillabaum be relieved of their commands and given reprimands for various command failures.
Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade - Taguba recommended that Pappas and his liaison officer, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan be relieved of their commands and given reprimands for various command failures. Taguba also recommended the officers be investigated for possible criminal prosecution. Two civilians working with them — Steven Stephanowicz and John Israel, both employees of the CACI firm — are also recommended for possible prosecution.
Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski – Karpinski was the brigade commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, the military unit that ran the prisons in Iraq at the time of the abuses. General Taguba traced leadership failures as high as her. But Taguba also admitted that he did not investigate any higher than General Karpinski. Karpinski, a corporate-management consultant from Hilton Head, S.C., was called to active duty in June. She said she tried to visit each of the detention facilities under her command regularly. But she scaled back as the insurgency stepped up attacks. She was responsible for 3,400 soldiers at 16 facilities, including Abu Ghraib.
General Karpinski has said that she knew nothing about the abuse until weeks after it occurred and that she didn't have direct authority over the prison, which was run by the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. The prison cellblock where the mistreatment occurred was under the tight control of Army military intelligence officers who may have encouraged it. She has said that she was excluded from areas of the prison where some of the abuses occurred. Taguba thought that the worst abuses was a result of soldiers interacting with military intelligence personnel who they perceived or thought to be competent authority. There are reports of conflict between her and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller regarding the powers of military intelligence officers in prisons. Karpinski said she sees "a linkage" between Miller's visit and the abuse of prisoners. As Karpinski puts it, Miller's plan was to "Gitmo-ize" the place, to teach the soldiers manning Abu Ghraib his best psychological and physical techniques for squeezing information out of detainees. That included using Karpinski's MPs to "enhance the intelligence effort." At a meeting of top military-intelligence and MP commanders last September, Miller bluntly told Karpinski: "You're going to see. We have control, and [the prisoners] know it."
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller – Currently head of the military prisons in Iraq after Karpinski was removed in April 2004. He may have helped create the conditions that led to the outrages at Abu Ghraib. Miller was brought in by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in September 2003. That summer, the word came down from Washington to get better intelligence in Iraq. "There was extraordinary pressure being put on MI [military intelligence] from every angle to get better info," says Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the former 800th MP Brigade commander, who at the time was responsible for Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. "Where is Saddam? Find Saddam. And we want the weapons of mass destruction." MSNBC
Miller, the commander of the task force in charge of the prison at Guantánamo, had brought a team of experts to Iraq to review the Army program. Miller's task was "to review current Iraqi Theater ability to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence." MSNBC His recommendation was radical: that Army prisons be geared, first and foremost, to interrogations and the gathering of information needed for the war effort. “Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation . . . to provide a safe, secure and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence,” Miller wrote. The military police on guard duty at the prisons should make support of military intelligence a priority. General Sanchez agreed, and on November 19th his headquarters issued an order formally giving the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade tactical control over the prison. New Yorker, May 17, 2004
Miller declared that Abu Ghraib was the best choice for his interrogation purposes and that military intelligence was going to take it over. Karpinski responded: "Sir, Abu Ghraib is not mine to give you." She noted it was formally under the control of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority. General Miller replied, "I don't care. Rick Sanchez said I could have whatever I want. And I want Abu Ghraib," Miller said. He even cleared the room, Karpinski relates, saying, "Everybody out. I want to talk with the general." Miller then told Karpinski: "Look, we can do this my way or we can do it the hard way. We are going to take Abu Ghraib." MSNBC
Miller says that the recommendations he gave were "in keeping" with the Geneva Conventions, and that he asked only that MPs be involved in "passive intelligence collection"—observing and listening to prisoners. Karpinski's MPs maintain that they were simply following new orders, which were, they say, to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation.
In late March, before the Abu Ghraib scandal became publicly known, Gen. Miller was transferred from Guantánamo and named head of prison operations in Iraq.
Major General Antonio Taguba – Was deputy commanding general of the Third Army and of the Coalition Forces Land Component Command in Kuwait at the time of his report. In his report, which was completed in March and publicly revealed about two weeks ago, he cited the "systematic and illegal abuses of detainees," and said that between October and December 2003, "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." Under the scope set by his superiors, the inquiry was limited to the conduct of a military police brigade. But General Taguba used it to deliver a much broader indictment.
Among the findings laid out in the report was what General Taguba described as his strong suspicion that military intelligence officers and private contractors "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses," and urged that they be subjected to disciplinary action. General Taguba took issue with Sanchez’s order giving military intelligence control over Abu Ghraib. According to Taguba, the order “effectively made an MI Officer, rather than an MP officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility. This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agenda assigned to each of these respective specialties.”
General Taguba will soon take a new post in Washington as a deputy assistant secretary for reserve affairs, a move that in Army culture is not seen as a major promotion. According to an unnamed retired major general quoted in the New Yorker “[Taguba]’s not regarded as a hero in some circles in the Pentagon. He’s the guy who blew the whistle, and the Army will pay the price for his integrity. The leadership does not like to have people make bad news public.” I guess that’s what you get for telling the truth.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez – Overall commander in Iraq authorized the use of dogs during interrogations. In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A few months after Miller gave his recommendations, General Sanchez, apparently troubled by reports of wrongdoing in Army jails in Iraq, asked Army Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general, to carry out a study of military prisons. In the resulting study, which is still classified, Ryder identified a conflict between military policing and military intelligence dating back to the Afghan war. But Ryder somehow failed to note last fall that MPs were being asked to facilitate interrogation. In his report to Sanchez, Ryder flatly declared that “there were no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” Ryder, as provost marshal, was the commanding general of all military-police units as well as of the C.I.D. He was, in essence, being asked to investigate himself.
Despite his role in having brought Miller in, General Sanchez came away unscathed.
General John Abizaid – in charge of Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A mounting body of evidence around the world suggests that abuses did not stop at Abu Ghraib or even in Iraq, that the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war from beatings and humiliation were being routinely flouted in an environment where, as at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, almost anything can happen because almost no one is held accountable. According to U.S. military pathologists, two Afghan detainees died of "blunt force injuries" to "the lower extremities" and "legs" at Baghram in December 2002 and another Afghan prisoner died at a U.S. military camp in Kunar province in June 2003. Yet 18 months after the first deaths, a military investigation is still incomplete, and no broad inquiry like the Taguba probe has been launched into conditions at Baghram
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld – According to the New Yorker, Secrecy and wishful thinking are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break.”
Rumsfeld insisted last week that the U.S. military has observed the Geneva Conventions regarding POWs and civilians in Iraq. But in his public statements (at least until last week), Rumsfeld has also declared that Geneva Conventions rules do not necessarily mean that all detainees—especially so-called unlawful combatants—will get all the rights and privileges normally accorded prisoners of war. And in recent months, NEWSWEEK has learned, some senior members of Congress have been given highly classified briefings, indicating, in the words of one official, that U.S. interrogators were not necessarily "going to stick with the Geneva Convention."
Nigel Rodley, who was the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and has written an authoritative book, "The Treatment of Prisoners Under International Law," dismisses Rumsfeld's claims that the Geneva Conventions have been observed. Rodley says that even some interrogation practices the Pentagon acknowledges using are "clearly violations both of international human-rights law and international humanitarian law as codified in the Geneva Conventions." He adds that the problem "goes back to the whole process of essentially creating legal black holes where people are held in the dark and secret reaches of state power. When that happens it breeds a sense of impunity and people do things that they shouldn't do."
One British critic has stated, “Any defense secretary who disparages the Geneva Conventions and then fails to read a damning report detailing its violation by U.S. forces seems to me to have no option but to resign.” Niall Ferguson in Slate.com
President Bush
Many critics say the Bush administration routinely uses the global war on terrorism as a blanket justification for all sorts of human-rights violations. One American intelligence officer admitted as much, telling NEWSWEEK: "The U.S. government and military capitalizes on the dubious status [as sovereign states] of Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and aircraft carriers, to avoid certain legal questions about rough interrogations. Whatever humanitarian pronouncements a state such as ours may make about torture, states don't perform interrogations, individual people do. What's going to stop an impatient soldier, in a supralegal location, from whacking one nameless, dehumanized shopkeeper among many?"
Certainly the pictures and the reports of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and General Taguba reveal horrific and repulsive scenes. So much so that even President Bush was “sick to his stomach.” But the pictures are only the worst of it and the tip of the iceberg. The reports of the ICRC claim that abuse and violations of the Geneva Conventions were widespread. Major General Antonio Taguba’s report states that there was a failure of leadership at the brigade level. An editorial in the New York Times states that “each passing day has made it more clear that the routine treatment of prisoners in military prisons violates international law, the Geneva Conventions and American values of due process and humane behavior.”
Who besides the soldiers at Abu Ghraib is involved in the controversy, what was their role and what are the implications for the whole matter? We can start at the top and work down from President Bush to Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers and keep going down to the soldiers whose faces are now splattered across the world press in shameful poses. But I prefer to work my way up. Lets start with the soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, 320 Battalion.
The Soldiers - 372nd Military Police Company, 320 Battalion
Specialist Jeremy Sivits – According to the New York Times, Sivits, 24, the first to be court-martialed, is expected to plead guilty on Wednesday and testify against the others in a bid for leniency. He apparently took most of the photos. In fact, he is not in most of the photos. I wonder if Sivits is being put forward first by the Army to cover their asses. Sivits claims that "Our command would have slammed us. They believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay." When a soldier claims guilt and states that his superior officer is innocent as the pure driven snow, it reeks of falling on one’s sword. More likely is what General Taguba claims is a lack of leadership. The platoon sergeant heard the screams and yelled down at Sergeant Davis to stop, surprising the other soldiers with the anger in his command. But within two minutes, the platoon sergeant left, and the soldiers resumed the abuse. If the sergeant knew of this abuse, why were the soldiers still allowed to guard the prisoners?
Pfc. Lynndie R. England – Sivits described her as “laughing at the different stuff they were having the detainees do." She is best known for the picture of her holding a leashed man and for standing in front of a naked man with her thumb up. She claims that she was under orders to pose for the picture by someone “in her chain of command,” but would not name names.
Sergeant Javal C. Davis – When the detainees were piled in a tower like cheerleaders, Davis jumped and landed on them, then stepped on their fingers and toes if they complained that it hurt. Davis told investigators that intelligence officers frequently said things such as "loosen this guy up" and "make sure he has a bad night." Davis said he was told: "Good job. They're breaking down real fast. They're giving out good information."
Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. - "Graner punched the detainee with a closed fist so hard in the temple that it knocked the detainee unconscious. He was joking, laughing," Specialist Sivits said. "Like he was enjoying it." Sivits seems to make Graner into the bad guy in the whole situation, but Graner’s lawyer says he would not have hit a detainee. "He would have done it if he was ordered to do it." He also said that military intelligence soldiers were in one of the graphic photographs, indicating that they were aware of what was going on. Graner’s lawyer also said that Sivits's statement "is of dubious value because he's trading information to try to help himself."
Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II - Frederick and Graner then tried to get several of the inmates to masturbate themselves.
Specialist Sabrina Harman – She was a former assistant manager of a Papa John's Pizza from Alexandria, Va. She told Taguba's investigators that Graner and Frederick were responsible for getting "these people to talk." She said that military-intelligence officers "made the rules as they went."Harman and England would stand in front of the detainees and put their thumbs up and have the pictures taken. Sivits described Harman as looking somewhat disgusted by the events.
Specialist Matthew Wisdom – He was apparently asked to be involved, but Sivits did not appear to testify whether he had done anything.
Spec. Megan M. Ambuhl – According to MSNBC, little is known about Spec. Ambuhl. Her lawyer released Sivits’ testimony to the public.
Well, this seems like a bad bunch of people, but were they alone? Sivits seems to be covering for his superior officers and the Army as a whole by claiming that his superiors did not know about it. He says that he was asked not to report it. But a platoon sergeant ordered them to stop. Military intelligence soldiers were involved, but are they being charged? Administrative action was taken against officers of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, but were the soldiers involved charged with crimes?
Most of the pictures were apparently taken on October 3 after the commanders had changed shifts and gone home. What happened on other nights when Sivits did not have his camera handy? Pfc England claims that she was ordered to do these things and pose for the camera. If this is true and not simply her best shot at getting off the hook, who in her chain of command gave the order?
The Chain of Command - A Failure of Leadership
According to the New Yorker magazine, a retired major general described the situation as “a huge leadership failure, implying that the stink rises above the one-star general, Brig. Gen. Karpinski. He also said 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.” New Yorker, May 17, 2004
Donald Reese - 372nd company commander and a window-blind salesman from New Stanton, Pa. His unit was given control of Tier 1A, where "high priority" detainees were held for interrogation by civilian and military-intelligence officers.
Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum - Phillabaum, a reservist who commanded the 320th Military Police Battalion was the officer in charge of the prison. Taguba found that Phillabaum was "an extremely ineffective commander and leader" who did little after the Camp Bucca beating incident five months earlier to put his soldiers on notice about proper detainee treatment. Soon after the 372nd arrived at Abu Ghraib, Karpinski sent Phillabaum, a 1976 West Point graduate, to Kuwait for two weeks to "give him some relief from the pressure he was experiencing," the report states. Phillabaum was gone from Oct. 18 to Oct. 31.
Phillabaum claims not to have known what was going on and blamed it on a few rogue soldiers, particularly Staff Sgt. Frederick. "I have been made the scapegoat in this event," Phillabaum wrote in an e-mail to The Washingto Post. "Frederick was the NCO (noncommissioned officer) in charge of that wing of the prison. No one higher in his chain of command, starting with his platoon sergeant, knew what was occurring. If he thought that his actions were condoned, then why were they only conducted between 0200-0400 hours for a few days in late October and early November?"
In March, General Taguba recommended that Karpinski and Phillabaum be relieved of their commands and given reprimands for various command failures.
Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade - Taguba recommended that Pappas and his liaison officer, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan be relieved of their commands and given reprimands for various command failures. Taguba also recommended the officers be investigated for possible criminal prosecution. Two civilians working with them — Steven Stephanowicz and John Israel, both employees of the CACI firm — are also recommended for possible prosecution.
Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski – Karpinski was the brigade commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, the military unit that ran the prisons in Iraq at the time of the abuses. General Taguba traced leadership failures as high as her. But Taguba also admitted that he did not investigate any higher than General Karpinski. Karpinski, a corporate-management consultant from Hilton Head, S.C., was called to active duty in June. She said she tried to visit each of the detention facilities under her command regularly. But she scaled back as the insurgency stepped up attacks. She was responsible for 3,400 soldiers at 16 facilities, including Abu Ghraib.
General Karpinski has said that she knew nothing about the abuse until weeks after it occurred and that she didn't have direct authority over the prison, which was run by the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. The prison cellblock where the mistreatment occurred was under the tight control of Army military intelligence officers who may have encouraged it. She has said that she was excluded from areas of the prison where some of the abuses occurred. Taguba thought that the worst abuses was a result of soldiers interacting with military intelligence personnel who they perceived or thought to be competent authority. There are reports of conflict between her and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller regarding the powers of military intelligence officers in prisons. Karpinski said she sees "a linkage" between Miller's visit and the abuse of prisoners. As Karpinski puts it, Miller's plan was to "Gitmo-ize" the place, to teach the soldiers manning Abu Ghraib his best psychological and physical techniques for squeezing information out of detainees. That included using Karpinski's MPs to "enhance the intelligence effort." At a meeting of top military-intelligence and MP commanders last September, Miller bluntly told Karpinski: "You're going to see. We have control, and [the prisoners] know it."
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller – Currently head of the military prisons in Iraq after Karpinski was removed in April 2004. He may have helped create the conditions that led to the outrages at Abu Ghraib. Miller was brought in by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in September 2003. That summer, the word came down from Washington to get better intelligence in Iraq. "There was extraordinary pressure being put on MI [military intelligence] from every angle to get better info," says Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the former 800th MP Brigade commander, who at the time was responsible for Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. "Where is Saddam? Find Saddam. And we want the weapons of mass destruction." MSNBC
Miller, the commander of the task force in charge of the prison at Guantánamo, had brought a team of experts to Iraq to review the Army program. Miller's task was "to review current Iraqi Theater ability to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence." MSNBC His recommendation was radical: that Army prisons be geared, first and foremost, to interrogations and the gathering of information needed for the war effort. “Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation . . . to provide a safe, secure and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence,” Miller wrote. The military police on guard duty at the prisons should make support of military intelligence a priority. General Sanchez agreed, and on November 19th his headquarters issued an order formally giving the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade tactical control over the prison. New Yorker, May 17, 2004
Miller declared that Abu Ghraib was the best choice for his interrogation purposes and that military intelligence was going to take it over. Karpinski responded: "Sir, Abu Ghraib is not mine to give you." She noted it was formally under the control of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority. General Miller replied, "I don't care. Rick Sanchez said I could have whatever I want. And I want Abu Ghraib," Miller said. He even cleared the room, Karpinski relates, saying, "Everybody out. I want to talk with the general." Miller then told Karpinski: "Look, we can do this my way or we can do it the hard way. We are going to take Abu Ghraib." MSNBC
Miller says that the recommendations he gave were "in keeping" with the Geneva Conventions, and that he asked only that MPs be involved in "passive intelligence collection"—observing and listening to prisoners. Karpinski's MPs maintain that they were simply following new orders, which were, they say, to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation.
In late March, before the Abu Ghraib scandal became publicly known, Gen. Miller was transferred from Guantánamo and named head of prison operations in Iraq.
Major General Antonio Taguba – Was deputy commanding general of the Third Army and of the Coalition Forces Land Component Command in Kuwait at the time of his report. In his report, which was completed in March and publicly revealed about two weeks ago, he cited the "systematic and illegal abuses of detainees," and said that between October and December 2003, "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." Under the scope set by his superiors, the inquiry was limited to the conduct of a military police brigade. But General Taguba used it to deliver a much broader indictment.
Among the findings laid out in the report was what General Taguba described as his strong suspicion that military intelligence officers and private contractors "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses," and urged that they be subjected to disciplinary action. General Taguba took issue with Sanchez’s order giving military intelligence control over Abu Ghraib. According to Taguba, the order “effectively made an MI Officer, rather than an MP officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility. This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agenda assigned to each of these respective specialties.”
General Taguba will soon take a new post in Washington as a deputy assistant secretary for reserve affairs, a move that in Army culture is not seen as a major promotion. According to an unnamed retired major general quoted in the New Yorker “[Taguba]’s not regarded as a hero in some circles in the Pentagon. He’s the guy who blew the whistle, and the Army will pay the price for his integrity. The leadership does not like to have people make bad news public.” I guess that’s what you get for telling the truth.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez – Overall commander in Iraq authorized the use of dogs during interrogations. In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A few months after Miller gave his recommendations, General Sanchez, apparently troubled by reports of wrongdoing in Army jails in Iraq, asked Army Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general, to carry out a study of military prisons. In the resulting study, which is still classified, Ryder identified a conflict between military policing and military intelligence dating back to the Afghan war. But Ryder somehow failed to note last fall that MPs were being asked to facilitate interrogation. In his report to Sanchez, Ryder flatly declared that “there were no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” Ryder, as provost marshal, was the commanding general of all military-police units as well as of the C.I.D. He was, in essence, being asked to investigate himself.
Despite his role in having brought Miller in, General Sanchez came away unscathed.
General John Abizaid – in charge of Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A mounting body of evidence around the world suggests that abuses did not stop at Abu Ghraib or even in Iraq, that the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war from beatings and humiliation were being routinely flouted in an environment where, as at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, almost anything can happen because almost no one is held accountable. According to U.S. military pathologists, two Afghan detainees died of "blunt force injuries" to "the lower extremities" and "legs" at Baghram in December 2002 and another Afghan prisoner died at a U.S. military camp in Kunar province in June 2003. Yet 18 months after the first deaths, a military investigation is still incomplete, and no broad inquiry like the Taguba probe has been launched into conditions at Baghram
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld – According to the New Yorker, Secrecy and wishful thinking are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break.”
Rumsfeld insisted last week that the U.S. military has observed the Geneva Conventions regarding POWs and civilians in Iraq. But in his public statements (at least until last week), Rumsfeld has also declared that Geneva Conventions rules do not necessarily mean that all detainees—especially so-called unlawful combatants—will get all the rights and privileges normally accorded prisoners of war. And in recent months, NEWSWEEK has learned, some senior members of Congress have been given highly classified briefings, indicating, in the words of one official, that U.S. interrogators were not necessarily "going to stick with the Geneva Convention."
Nigel Rodley, who was the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and has written an authoritative book, "The Treatment of Prisoners Under International Law," dismisses Rumsfeld's claims that the Geneva Conventions have been observed. Rodley says that even some interrogation practices the Pentagon acknowledges using are "clearly violations both of international human-rights law and international humanitarian law as codified in the Geneva Conventions." He adds that the problem "goes back to the whole process of essentially creating legal black holes where people are held in the dark and secret reaches of state power. When that happens it breeds a sense of impunity and people do things that they shouldn't do."
One British critic has stated, “Any defense secretary who disparages the Geneva Conventions and then fails to read a damning report detailing its violation by U.S. forces seems to me to have no option but to resign.” Niall Ferguson in Slate.com
President Bush
Many critics say the Bush administration routinely uses the global war on terrorism as a blanket justification for all sorts of human-rights violations. One American intelligence officer admitted as much, telling NEWSWEEK: "The U.S. government and military capitalizes on the dubious status [as sovereign states] of Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and aircraft carriers, to avoid certain legal questions about rough interrogations. Whatever humanitarian pronouncements a state such as ours may make about torture, states don't perform interrogations, individual people do. What's going to stop an impatient soldier, in a supralegal location, from whacking one nameless, dehumanized shopkeeper among many?"
Friday, May 14, 2004
Here is an interesting article in the LA Times regarding military lawyers. Apparently, when the Bush administration rewrote the rules on interrogating prisoners, they went to civilian lawyers and left the military lawyers out of the loop. The military lawyers complained that the Pentagon was creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity."
Some international law experts, as well as some Senate Democrats, said the loosened rules violated the Geneva Convention, which forbids soldiers to use physical force to obtain information from detainees.
But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the rules had been examined and approved by lawyers for the administration.
Apparently, the military lawyers from the Army Judge Advocate General's office were not involved.
Some international law experts, as well as some Senate Democrats, said the loosened rules violated the Geneva Convention, which forbids soldiers to use physical force to obtain information from detainees.
But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the rules had been examined and approved by lawyers for the administration.
Apparently, the military lawyers from the Army Judge Advocate General's office were not involved.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
The Economist magazine will be running a series on crucial swing states in the upcoming election. There was an article this week in that looked at Ohio in depth. The only poll I have for Ohio showed Kerry leading in March, but it is stale. However, The Economist's analysis shows the state much closer than that. It had no actual poll number other than to say that local poll numbers show a dead heat. It also shows that Bush is only 8 points ahead in the south of Ohio, which is the Republican stronghold, and needs to be 16 points ahead to balance the heavily Democratic north. Ohio is a must-win for Bush. No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. Also, Ohio has picked the winner in every election since 1964. I will move this from Kerry to Toss-up, but it is a state worth watching.
Here are some new poll numbers by the American Research Group I found. These were done on April 21, before the Iraqi prisoner abuse issue surfaced:
A new Oregon poll shows bush and Kerry neck and neck in at 45% each with 5% going to Nader. Without Nader, Kerry leads 48% to 46%. This is one example of Nader's effect on the election. The favorability/unfavorability ratings are lopsided in favor of Kerry. Bush's favor/unfavor ratings are 47%/42%. Kerry comes out better with 48%/29%. The head-to-head numbers in Oregon are tied, but the favorability ratings come out well in Kerry's favor. This is a good indication that things will cut towards Kerry in the end, but not enough to take it out of the undecided column.
In Florida, this are as tight as anyone else has shown with 46% for Bush, 45% for Kerry and 3% for Nader. Without Nader, the race is even tighter, with 47% each for Bush and Kerry. Bush's favor/unfavor ratings are 48%/45%. Kerry's don't look good for him at 44% favorable, 45% unfavorable. This is bad new for Kerry in Florida. Nader looks worse. His rating was 17%/53% on March 4 and has fallen to 8%/70%.
In Iowa, Kerry leads Bush by a statistically insignificant margin 47% to 46% with 3% going to Nader. Taking Nader out makes little difference, with 48% going to Kerry and 47% to Bush. Bush's favor/unfavor ratings are 48%/44%. Kerry's are better with 42%/34%. As a footnote, Nader's ratings are 4%/72%. That means that almost everyone who had a favorable rating of Nader would voter for him.
A new poll in New Jersey by the Newark Star-Ledger confirms Kerry's lead over Bush in that state 43% to 37%. The edge is smaller than other polls, but it is still enough to put NJ squarely in Kerry's column. The most interesting thing about it is the large proportion of undecideds. I have noticed that the number of undecideds in this race seems to be much lower than in previous elections. So far, I show only four states with an undecided or other column larger than 10%. Normally, undecided voters tend to go for the challenger.
What the small number of undecided voters means in this election is that it is being decided early. The country is already polarized. Many observers have already commented that the 2004 election is picking up where the 2000 election left off. Compare this election and the likely electoral map to other elections such as 1992 or 1996 and you find that the map looks almost exactly like the 2000 election. There are some states that are still up in the air, but those states were battleground states in 2000 as well.
As the Star-Ledger pointed out, "Kerry is leading in New Jersey even though one-third of voters have no opinion of him. Bush has become a polarizing figure, and the election is turning into a referendum on him in the Garden State." This is true across the nation. For this reason it may be more important to see each state's favorability rating of the President, rather than the head-to-head polls that are easier to come by. Pollsters are doing those types of polls, but they don't make them available for free.
In one state that such numbers are available, Oregon, a poll by the American Research Group shows a 47% favorability rating for Bush, but a 42% unfavorability rating! Compare that to Kerry's numbers and he gets a 48% favorability but only a 29% unfavorability. The remaining 23% undecided shows that people just haven't made up their minds about Kerry. Put that together with low favoribility ratings for Bush and it doesn't look good for for the President.
Bottom Line: Kerry 220 Bush 213 Undecided 105
Needed to win: 270
Here are some new poll numbers by the American Research Group I found. These were done on April 21, before the Iraqi prisoner abuse issue surfaced:
A new Oregon poll shows bush and Kerry neck and neck in at 45% each with 5% going to Nader. Without Nader, Kerry leads 48% to 46%. This is one example of Nader's effect on the election. The favorability/unfavorability ratings are lopsided in favor of Kerry. Bush's favor/unfavor ratings are 47%/42%. Kerry comes out better with 48%/29%. The head-to-head numbers in Oregon are tied, but the favorability ratings come out well in Kerry's favor. This is a good indication that things will cut towards Kerry in the end, but not enough to take it out of the undecided column.
In Florida, this are as tight as anyone else has shown with 46% for Bush, 45% for Kerry and 3% for Nader. Without Nader, the race is even tighter, with 47% each for Bush and Kerry. Bush's favor/unfavor ratings are 48%/45%. Kerry's don't look good for him at 44% favorable, 45% unfavorable. This is bad new for Kerry in Florida. Nader looks worse. His rating was 17%/53% on March 4 and has fallen to 8%/70%.
In Iowa, Kerry leads Bush by a statistically insignificant margin 47% to 46% with 3% going to Nader. Taking Nader out makes little difference, with 48% going to Kerry and 47% to Bush. Bush's favor/unfavor ratings are 48%/44%. Kerry's are better with 42%/34%. As a footnote, Nader's ratings are 4%/72%. That means that almost everyone who had a favorable rating of Nader would voter for him.
A new poll in New Jersey by the Newark Star-Ledger confirms Kerry's lead over Bush in that state 43% to 37%. The edge is smaller than other polls, but it is still enough to put NJ squarely in Kerry's column. The most interesting thing about it is the large proportion of undecideds. I have noticed that the number of undecideds in this race seems to be much lower than in previous elections. So far, I show only four states with an undecided or other column larger than 10%. Normally, undecided voters tend to go for the challenger.
What the small number of undecided voters means in this election is that it is being decided early. The country is already polarized. Many observers have already commented that the 2004 election is picking up where the 2000 election left off. Compare this election and the likely electoral map to other elections such as 1992 or 1996 and you find that the map looks almost exactly like the 2000 election. There are some states that are still up in the air, but those states were battleground states in 2000 as well.
As the Star-Ledger pointed out, "Kerry is leading in New Jersey even though one-third of voters have no opinion of him. Bush has become a polarizing figure, and the election is turning into a referendum on him in the Garden State." This is true across the nation. For this reason it may be more important to see each state's favorability rating of the President, rather than the head-to-head polls that are easier to come by. Pollsters are doing those types of polls, but they don't make them available for free.
In one state that such numbers are available, Oregon, a poll by the American Research Group shows a 47% favorability rating for Bush, but a 42% unfavorability rating! Compare that to Kerry's numbers and he gets a 48% favorability but only a 29% unfavorability. The remaining 23% undecided shows that people just haven't made up their minds about Kerry. Put that together with low favoribility ratings for Bush and it doesn't look good for for the President.
Bottom Line: Kerry 220 Bush 213 Undecided 105
Needed to win: 270
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
In the last week, polls in four states have come out in that have confirmed my current predictions, including one in Alabama that is the most lopsided I have seen so far. The Alabama poll by SurveyUSA.com shows Bush with 55% and Kerry with a mere 36%. The next runner-up was a poll in Kansas on March 5 that had Bush at 57% and Kerry at 39%.
The other polls out in the last week showed Kerry leading in Michigan (47% to 43%) and Wisconsin (45% to 41%) by four points. A poll in Arkansas shows Bush and Kerry neck and neck at 45% each. The Arkansas and Wisconsin polls were done by Rasmussen Reports and the Michigan poll was done by SurveyUSA.
Bottom Line: No Change
Electoral Votes: Kerry 252 Bush 213 Undecided 73
Needed to win: 270
The other polls out in the last week showed Kerry leading in Michigan (47% to 43%) and Wisconsin (45% to 41%) by four points. A poll in Arkansas shows Bush and Kerry neck and neck at 45% each. The Arkansas and Wisconsin polls were done by Rasmussen Reports and the Michigan poll was done by SurveyUSA.
Bottom Line: No Change
Electoral Votes: Kerry 252 Bush 213 Undecided 73
Needed to win: 270
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