Friday, September 10, 2004
A Failed Investigation `
Washington Post publishes new criticism of the Abu Ghraib investigations. Despite some investigators (clearly illegitimate) attempts to whitewash the situation, significant revelations have been made.
"Ghost prisoners" numbering not zero (as previously claimed), not one (as previously claimed), not several (as previously claimed), but dozens, were hidden from the Red Cross and sometimes the CIA, at least one on direct personal order of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "an order that two former secretaries of defense, James R. Schlesinger and Harold Brown, testified was 'not consistent' with international law".
"Mr. Rumsfeld has frequently boasted of the number of Pentagon investigations into the abuse scandal and has maintained that no others are necessary. Yet the senior officer in charge of one of those probes, Gen. Paul J. Kern, told the Senate Armed Services Committee of two major areas that remain unexplored," namely the Ghost Prisoners and they way that documents from the Pentagon civilian leadership that advocate illegal torture techniques "found their way into documentation that we found at Abu Ghraib."
More from Gen. Kern: "those techniques were 'way out of bounds'; 'inappropriately' classified memos... show that professional military lawyers opposed them from the beginning because 'they violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they violated international law and they would get our people in trouble.'
"The only investigation" outside the CIA is by the Army Inspector General, Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek. You might consider the fact that he "already delivered one report purporting to find no evidence of such detainees" as a statement of incompetence, dereliction or a simple conflict of interest. But save the latter for the fact "Mikolashek himself commanded ground forces in Afghanistan at a time when ghost detainees were being held."
The post concludes by endorsing the recommendation of eight former generals and admirals to establish and independent 9/11-style commission to investigate further. The Pentagon and Army reports cite "systematic" and "leadership" failures. If those bodies are unwiling to act even on the basis of those damning reports, it is clearly necessary for outside oversight to step in.
"Ghost prisoners" numbering not zero (as previously claimed), not one (as previously claimed), not several (as previously claimed), but dozens, were hidden from the Red Cross and sometimes the CIA, at least one on direct personal order of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "an order that two former secretaries of defense, James R. Schlesinger and Harold Brown, testified was 'not consistent' with international law".
"Mr. Rumsfeld has frequently boasted of the number of Pentagon investigations into the abuse scandal and has maintained that no others are necessary. Yet the senior officer in charge of one of those probes, Gen. Paul J. Kern, told the Senate Armed Services Committee of two major areas that remain unexplored," namely the Ghost Prisoners and they way that documents from the Pentagon civilian leadership that advocate illegal torture techniques "found their way into documentation that we found at Abu Ghraib."
More from Gen. Kern: "those techniques were 'way out of bounds'; 'inappropriately' classified memos... show that professional military lawyers opposed them from the beginning because 'they violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they violated international law and they would get our people in trouble.'
"The only investigation" outside the CIA is by the Army Inspector General, Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek. You might consider the fact that he "already delivered one report purporting to find no evidence of such detainees" as a statement of incompetence, dereliction or a simple conflict of interest. But save the latter for the fact "Mikolashek himself commanded ground forces in Afghanistan at a time when ghost detainees were being held."
The post concludes by endorsing the recommendation of eight former generals and admirals to establish and independent 9/11-style commission to investigate further. The Pentagon and Army reports cite "systematic" and "leadership" failures. If those bodies are unwiling to act even on the basis of those damning reports, it is clearly necessary for outside oversight to step in.
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