NEW YORK, (Apr. 27, 2009) IPS/GIN – This Tuesday, Apr. 28, will
mark five years since the world got its first look at the sickening
photographs from Abu Ghraib on the U.S. television programme “60
Minutes.”
And a month after that, on May 28, the Department of Justice,
acting under a court order, will release several thousand
never-before-seen-in-public photographs of U.S. prisoner abuse from
Afghanistan and from elsewhere in Iraq.
The recent “torture memos” – which will inform public reaction to
these new photos in a way not possible at the time of the Abu
Ghraib scandal – were also released as the result of what President
Barack Obama called an unwinnable lawsuit by the same plaintiff,
the American Civil Liberties Union, and under the same law, the
Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
While the content of the new images is not known, some members of
Congress, who viewed them in a classified setting, have said they
are far worse than the Abu Ghraib images.
Following the public release of the Abu Ghraib photos on television
in 2004, the Pentagon commissioned more than a dozen separate
investigations of what took place and why. Some 26 military
personnel, mostly low-ranking enlisted soldiers, were convicted or
reprimanded.
An Army intelligence colonel received immunity for his testimony.
The commander of the Abu Ghraib detention centre, Brigadier General
Janice Karpinsky, was demoted to colonel. She continues to insist
that she was a scapegoat.
None of the investigations pinpointed responsibility for the abuses
to any higher-ranking George W. Bush administration or military or
civilian Pentagon leader.
The investigation reports contain sentences such as, “Clearly
abuses occurred at the prison at Abu Ghraib. There is no single,
simple explanation for why this abuse at Abu Ghraib happened. The
primary causes are misconduct (ranging from inhumane to sadistic)
by a small group of morally corrupt soldiers and civilians, a lack
of discipline on the part of the leaders and soldiers… and a
failure or lack of leadership…”
One of the other investigations was headed by former Defence
Secretary James Schlesinger. He reported, “The events of October
through December 2003 on the night shift of Tier 1 at Abu Ghraib
prison were acts of brutality and purposeless sadism. We now know
these abuses occurred at the hands of both military police and
military intelligence personnel.”
“The pictured abuses, unacceptable even in wartime, were not part
of authorized interrogations nor were they even directed at
intelligence targets. They represent deviant behavior and a failure
of military leadership and discipline. Department of Defense reform
efforts are underway and the Panel commends these efforts.”
President Bush described the perpetrators in the Abu Ghraib photos
as “a few American troops who dishonoured our country and
disregarded our values.” He meant low-ranking soldiers like Private
First Class Lynddie England and Sergeant Charles Graner, who were
among those who received prison terms for their role in the
scandal.
The scope of each of the investigative assignments was determined
- and limited – by the Pentagon. Thus, the officer heading up the
first investigation was ordered to find out what happened only
within the 800th Military Police (MP) Brigade in U.S. military
prisons in Iraq, and only in Iraq.
The leader of that investigation, Major General Antonio Taguba,
concluded that “The 800th MP Brigade was not adequately trained for
a mission that included operating a prison or penal institution at
Abu Ghraib Prison Complex.”
He said, “Units of the 800th MP Brigade did not receive
corrections-specific training during their mobilization period. MP
units did not receive pinpoint assignments prior to mobilization
and during the post mobilization training, and thus could not train
for specific missions. The training that was accomplished at the
mobilization sites were developed and implemented at the company
level with little or no direction or supervision at the Battalion
and Brigade levels, and consisted primarily of common tasks and law
enforcement training.”
Nevertheless, Gen. Taguba concluded that the torture of prisoners
at Abu Ghraib went far beyond the actions of a few sadistic
military police officers. His report said 27 military intelligence
soldiers and civilian contractors committed criminal offences, and
that military officials hid prisoners from the Red Cross.
Gen. Taguba was forced into retirement by civilian Pentagon
officials because he had been ”overzealous.” ”They always shoot
the messenger,” Taguba said. He has recently accused former
President Bush of war crimes.
It was an ordinary soldier who was troubled enough by what he saw
at Abu Ghraib to photograph it and put it on a CD that he turned
over to his superiors. And it was the military itself that
announced, in 2003, that an investigation by the U.S. Army’s
Criminal Investigation Command was underway into alleged prisoner
abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Few journalists paid much attention to this investigation. Some
have since pointed out that at that time the Iraq war had just
begun and the war’s public spokesperson, former Defence Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, was something of a rock star with the press.
Due to the recent release of memoranda prepared by the Justice
Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the public has learned that
by the time the Abu Ghraib photos were released in 2003, the Bush
administration’s “enhanced interrogation” policy was already in
place and being implemented.
Regarding the photos to be released on May 28, ACLU attorney Amrit
Singh said, “These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner
abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread,
reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib.”
She says, “Their disclosure is critical for helping the public
understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for
holding senior officials accountable for authorising or permitting
such abuse.”
Since the ACLU’s FOIA request in 2003, the Bush administration had
refused to disclose these images, the ACLU said. The administration
claimed that disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and
would violate U.S. obligations toward detainees under the Geneva
Conventions.
But, in September 2008, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled that disclosure
of the photos was required, thus rejecting the Bush
administration’s position. The court ruled that there was
significant public interest in disclosure of the photographs. The
Bush administration’s appeal to the full appeals court was denied
on Mar. 11 of this year.
“The disclosure of these photographs serves as a further reminder
that abuse of prisoners in U.S.-administered detention centers was
systemic,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National
Security Project.
He told IPS, “Some of the abuse occurred because senior civilian
and military officials created a culture of impunity in which abuse
was tolerated, and some of the abuse was expressly authorised. It’s
imperative that senior officials who condoned or authorised abuse
now be held accountable for their actions.”
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