posted
A new article at SFTT just went up about the Iraqi prison disaster...the report done on these abuses is, to say the least, chilling:
Abu Ghraib: Bigger than a Mere Scandal By Ed Offley � You think those photographs of MPs abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison are bad? They are, but the words are far worse. � The AR 15-6 report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba on the activities of the 800th Military Police (MP) Brigade and a subordinate unit � the 320th Military Police Battalion, whose 372nd�MP Company was in charge of Iraqi detainees at the Baghdad prison � is a stern and harsh indictment of practically the entire U.S. Army and Central Command for its handling of Iraqi detainees. � Buried in the 53-page report, and obscured by the news media's fascination with the gruesome photographs of MPs assaulting and humiliating Iraqi males, are a number of findings that portray the U.S. military in Iraq and Army support commands back in the United States as clearly derelict in their duty to ensure that soldiers abide by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare. They include: � Ignored warnings of MP failures: � Taguba's investigation at the request of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, began on Jan. 19 as a result of an Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) probe into allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib. However, there had been multiple indications over the previous eight months that the 800th MP Brigade was an ill-prepared, poorly trained unit led by incompetent officers. � On June 9, 2003, an 800th MP Brigade guard at another detainment facility known as Camp Cropper sparked a riot that overwhelmed his fellow soldiers and led guards to shoot (none fatally) five prisoners. Taguba revealed: � "Several detainees allegedly rioted after a detainee was subdued by MPs of the 115th MP Battalion after striking a guard in compound B of Camp Cropper.�A 15-6 investigation by 1LT Magowan (115th MP Battalion, Platoon Leader) concluded that a detainee had acted up and hit an MP.�After being subdued, one of the MPs took off his DCU top and flexed his muscles to the detainees, which further escalated the riot.�The MPs were overwhelmed and the guards fired lethal rounds to protect the life of the compound MPs, whereby five detainees were wounded.�Contributing factors were poor communications, no clear chain of command, facility-obstructed views of posted guards, the QRF did not have non-lethal equipment, and the SOP was inadequate and outdated." � The on-site AR 15-6 probe into that incident also noted an earlier clash at another detainment facility under the control of the 800th MP Brigade, involving an escape attempt five days earlier where an undisclosed number of Iraqis were shot by MPs. Taguba in his report noted that subsequently "four Soldiers from the 320th MP Battalion had been formally charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) with detainee abuse in May 2003 at the Theater Internment Facility (TIF) at Camp Bucca, Iraq." � Between June 4, 2003 and Jan. 19, 2004, there were 17 separate riots or inmate escape attempts at facilities under the control of the 800th MP Brigade. In reviewing the incident reports and interviewing MPs involved, Taguba concluded that poor training, breakdowns in guard procedures and inadequate physical security contributed to most of the violence. � If that weren't enough to set off alarm bells, the U.S. military had conducted two earlier reviews of the operation of detainment facilities months before Taguba was sent in to clean up the stables. � Taguba's report notes that before launching field interviews his team reviewed the "Assessment of DoD Counter-Terrorism Interrogation and Detention Operations in Iraq" that had been conducted by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, Commander, Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO).�This review by experts in "strategic interrogation" spent from Aug. 31 to Sept. 9, 2003 reviewing "current Iraqi Theater ability to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence." � In addition, Taguba and his team reviewed a report, "Assessment of Detention and Corrections Operations in Iraq," that had been delivered by Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, the Army's Provost Marshal General, on Nov. 6. � Despite those incidents and on-site inspections, Sanchez and the rest of his staff at Combined Joint Task Force Seven (CJTF-7) headquarters remained totally clueless about the 800th MP Brigade's shoddy performance until a soldier turned over photos of the abuse on Jan. 13. It appears unlikely that even Ryder's review finally woke up the generals in Baghdad, although Taguba noted, "Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during MG Ryder's Team's assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation.�In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment." � Lack of training: The entire U.S. Army military police branch is implicitly accused of dereliction in Taguba's assessment of the performance of the 800th MP Brigade. Taguba's conclusions are extremely blunt: � * "There is abundant evidence in the statements of numerous witnesses that soldiers throughout the 800th MP Brigade were not proficient in their basic MOS skills, particularly regarding internment/resettlement operations.�Moreover, there is no evidence that the command, although aware of these deficiencies, attempted to correct them in any systemic manner other than ad hoc training by individuals with civilian corrections experience." � * "I find 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. As the Ryder Assessment found, I also concur that 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.� However, I found no evidence that the Command, although aware of this deficiency, ever requested specific corrections training from the Commandant of the Military Police School, the U.S. Army Confinement Facility at Mannheim, Germany, the Provost Marshal General of the Army, or the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas." � Failed leadership: � Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th MP Brigade, comes under a harsh spotlight in Taguba's investigation. Portrayed as a remote and distant commander who rarely visited the prison camps she ran throughout Iraq, Karpinski failed to monitor and supervise her subordinate officers, failed to issue standard operating procedures for MPs, and ignored a growing list of "accountability lapses" in her command. � Taguba is equally harsh on other officers already implicated in the scandal, calling 320th Military Police Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum "an extremely ineffective commander" and describing two of Karpinski's brigade staff officers as "essentially dysfunctional." � After a four-hour interview with Karpinski, Taguba wrote, "What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers."� � Conflicting Missions: � What directly led to the abuse of Iraqi detainees were two conflicting missions at Abu Ghraib prison, Taguba found. The 320th Military Police Battalion was in charge of guarding the detainees, but the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, under the command of Col. Pappas was in charge of interrogations. The heart of the scandal comes from allegations by soldiers that MI officials persuaded MP guards to "loosen up" Iraqi detainees by physical abuse prior to interrogations. � One MP said in a sworn statement, "In Wing 1A we were told that they had different rules and different SOP for treatment.�I never saw a set of rules or SOP for that section, just word of mouth. � Corporal Granier � stated that the Agents and MI soldiers would ask him to do things, but nothing was ever in writing he would complain (sic). Also the wing belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse." Taguba concluded that "[T]here was clear friction and lack of effective communication between the Commander, 205th MI Brigade, who controlled FOB Abu Ghraib (BCCF) after 19 November 2003, and the Commander, 800th MP Brigade, who controlled detainee operations inside the FOB.�There was no clear delineation of responsibility between commands, little coordination at the command level, and no integration of the two functions.�Coordination occurred at the lowest possible levels with little oversight by commanders." That's probably how the CIA managed to stash their infamous "ghost detainees" � prisoners whose whereabouts were unlogged and identities cloaked � inside a U.S. Army facility. None of this happened in a vacuum. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Abu Ghraib and met Karpinski in a highly-publicized event. There is a clear chain of command linking the lowest-ranking MPs to Lt. Gen. Sanchez and his subordinate generals. CENTCOM commanders in the fall of 2003 were anxious to roll up the former regime leaders still on the lam, including Saddam Hussein, and clearly pressed interrogation experts such as Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller to incorporate stronger techniques to get Iraqi detainees to talk. � A number of officers and senior enlisted men from the 800th MP Brigade have already been relieved of command and received letters of reprimand. Investigators are still looking into the activities of the 205th MI Brigade. Accountability will not stop there, nor should it. There should be courts-martial. � This appalling incident does more than undercut the progress of our mission in Iraq. For years, people familiar with the U.S. military have decried the gap between actual capabilities and the unceasing mission overstretch battering a force slashed by 40 percent after the end of the Cold War. For years, compliant military commanders have covered up the worsening situation with adjectives and adverbs. � What Tagabu's report shows us in unrelenting candor is that the critics were right: the U.S. military is in danger of coming apart at the seams. A scandal such as Abu Ghraib is merely how it plays out. � Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at [email protected]. Please send Feedback responses to [email protected]. � 2004 Ed Offley.
MY COMMENTS: The most frightening aspect of this report to me is how the chain of command seems to have unraveled here. Someone needs to demand serious accountability for this disaster (this whole business is WAY beyond a mere scandal).
BTW I heard reports that those pictures published are just the tip of the iceberg; there are supposedly not only more photos but videos of abuses as well. Oh, for those who are interested, SFTT has put the entire AR 15-6 report online for your perusal.
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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Frankly, I don't care too much WHAT the surrounding circumstances were. Lack of guidance, poor training, outdated procedures, unfamiliarity with the Geneva Convention, NONE OF IT excuses this shit. I also don't care WHAT those soldiers went through or WHAT their superiors told them, if you are so fucked up in the head that you would EVER treat another human being like... THAT... if you can't even understand torture is WRONG, then you belong in a mental institute for the rest of your LIFE. And that goes for ANYONE in ANY military force.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
But the MP's were just letting off steam and we should give then a break.
Or so says Rush.
quote:RUSH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Apparently Mr. Bush did not see the pictures of this until he saw it on television.
But it seems that people were trying to warn Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld for a while.
quote:BROKEN PROCESS OR OFFICIAL POLICY?....Apparently everyone's been trying to warn Bush and Rumsfeld about possible abuse of prisoners in Iraq for months now. And not just the usual bleeding hearts:
David Kay: "I was there and I kept saying the interrogation process is broken. The prison process is broken. And no one wanted to deal with it. It was too, too distasteful. This is a known problem, and the military refuses to deal with it."
Paul Bremer: "Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall � both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as 'kicking and screaming' about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained."
Colin Powell: "According to eye witnesses to debate at the highest levels of the Administration...whenever Powell or [Richard] Armitage sought to question prisoner treatment issues, they were forced to endure what our source characterizes as 'around the table, coarse, vulgar, frat-boy bully remarks about what these tough guys would do if THEY ever got their hands on prisoners....'"
Well, maybe these folks really did try to get everyone to pay attention to this issue or maybe they're just covering their own asses after the fact. Who knows?
Besides, Mr. Bush ran as the CEO president, because his previous stints as CEO were so successful.
Can we now add his current office to his list of CEO failures and move on?
Because if the CEO president does not listen to people who are trying to warn him, AND surrounds himself with incompetents who can neither do the task the CEO president has delegated to them or refuse to pass up pertinent information from other subordinates, AND refuses to replace these incompetents � WHY would anyone vote to give the bumbler another try at the office.
This ain�t Arbusto you know.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Oh, and you can see in that second link that Rush thinks the only reason we're sensitive to this is because of the "feminization" of our culture. I guess he should talk to Anne Coulter, who thinks the exact opposite: the reason the torture happened was partly because women are too "vicious" to be allowed in the military. Not to mention that women are apparently weaklings.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Apparently, the worst is yet to come. NBC said the pictures/videos contain the raping of women and young boys, as well as more of what we've seen. Can this get any more disgusting?
quote:Originally posted by Cartman: Frankly, I don't care too much WHAT the surrounding circumstances were. Lack of guidance, poor training, outdated procedures, unfamiliarity with the Geneva Convention, NONE OF IT excuses this shit. I also don't care WHAT those soldiers went through or WHAT their superiors told them, if you are so fucked up in the head that you would EVER treat another human being like... THAT... if you can't even understand torture is WRONG, then you belong in a mental institute for the rest of your LIFE. And that goes for ANYONE in ANY military force.
Well said, Cartman, well said. US Military procedure is very explicit on this point when it notes that torture is not only inhumane but ineffective as well for interrogation.
The problem I see is that the only people who might be punished will be the soldiers involved; in fact there are reports that private contracters were conducting some of these sessions. Will they be held accountable?
IMHO there should be a widespread crackdown on those commanders who turned a blind eye toward these atrocities or worse, implicitly encouraged such behavior. Those officers who were involved should be cashiered and jailed. The civilian contracters and companies involved should also be punished to the fullest extent of US law.
Also SecDef Rumsfeld should resign; between his handling of the war and his ignoring indications of the atrocites in these prisons, he has destroyed any credibility he has had. His apolgy he made today was far too little too late.
-------------------- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I know I'm going to stir up a hornets nest with this.
First of all I don't agree with doing that to prisoners. I frankly could find something better to do with my time.
That being said, I also don't give a rats ass. Some of them got the crap kicked out of them and some of the were humiliated by having pictures of them taken while they were naked. Boo Hoo. If I got caught by the Iraqis and that is all they did to me I'd feel damn lucky. It seems to be perfectly acceptable for the Iraqis to kill our troops and civilians then mutilate their corpses as they drag them around the town. But by god we humiliate some of them by stripping them naked and suddenly we are the devils right hand.
Screw that, we are still at war and unfortunatly bad things happen in war. Suprise, suprise people die in war, if that isn't the worst thing to happen to a person I don't know what is. If you want to see how bad things can really get do some research on Vietnam. The things we did to prisoners in Vietnam makes this look tame.
Veers I found no comments anywhere it that link that says that women and young boys were raped. Nor have I heard any such comments on any of the news programs that I watch.
-------------------- The Poster formally known as Tec.
Registered: May 1999
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posted
Originally posted by Epoch: "It seems to be perfectly acceptable for the Iraqis to kill our troops and civilians then mutilate their corpses as they drag them around the town. But by god we humiliate some of them by stripping them naked and suddenly we are the devils right hand."
Well, it turns out one of those Iraqis shown in the pictures was picked up by American forces last year for being in a stolen car. (Read this article.) He was left in prison and then had this happen to him. This man was not a killer and mutilator--at worst a car thief. How many others were tortured for petty crimes?
Originally posted by Epoch: "Veers I found no comments anywhere it that link that says that women and young boys were raped. Nor have I heard any such comments on any of the news programs that I watch."
I never said those details were in the article. I posted the link saying "there was worse to come," and then said I said NBC (as in "NBC Nightly News") reported that the pictures contained US soldiers raping women, young boys, and posing "inappropriately" with a dead body. Granted, these were from "military sources," but what is there to contradict this report?
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"I know I'm going to stir up a hornets nest with this."
Good, then you won't mind what I'm about to post.
First, who THE FUCK said that what the Iraqis did and do to troops and civilians was perfectly acceptable?
Second, the difference between the Iraqis "mutilating corpses as they drag them around the town" and the soldiers "humiliating some of them by stripping them naked" is that the soldiers are supposed to be there in the name of HUMAN RIGHTS. How THE FUCK does brutally torturing and KILLING their prisoners make them any better than Saddam? HOW?
Third, just because bad things happen in war doesn't mean you should accept PEOPLE BEING TORTURED TO DEATH BY YOUR OWN FORCES as a fact of life, EVER. Who THE FUCK cares if the things you did to Vietnamese prisoners were even worse by comparison? Does that justify any of these actions somehow?
Fourth... if you'd rather be put in a torture chamber than take a bullet to the head in the field, you're even more ignorant than I already think you are.
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
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