The abuses at Abu Ghraib don't compare to the beheading of an American civilian, but minimizing them does not forward the democratic cause.
Published May 13, 2004
As the investigations into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners widen, it is important to remember that the abuses came to light because some U.S. personnel, such as Abu Ghraib military police Joseph Darby and Matthew Wisdom, were sickened by what they saw and came forward to report it to their superiors. A top military officer, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, then prepared a detailed and unflinching report of some of those abuses. This points out one of the profound differences between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and terrorist acts such as the beheading of American Nicholas Berg: Our government has systems of justice to investigate and punish criminal acts and violations of accepted military behavior, and many people of honor can be counted on to expose the wrongdoing of a few. The terrorists know no law or morality.
Unfortunately, top officials of the Bush administration still seem more interested in distancing themselves from the political fallout of the prison scandal than in cooperating with military and congressional panels trying to get to the bottom of it. This week, the administration dispatched Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, to the Senate Armed Services Committee in an effort to undercut some of the most damaging findings of the Taguba report. Cambone, following the lead of his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tried to rewrite history by claiming the Pentagon had decreed from the start of the war that the Geneva Conventions would apply to all detainees in Iraq. Yet Cambone and other Pentagon officials have acknowledged that officially approved interrogation techniques in Iraq have included hooding prisoners, depriving them of sleep and forcing them into positions of stress for prolonged periods. These and other commonly used techniques clearly violate the Conventions.
The Taguba report details the ways in which military intelligence officers, acting under Pentagon authority, took control at Abu Ghraib. They encouraged the abuse and humiliation of prisoners when they instructed MPs to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." Cambone claimed the military intelligence officers were in charge of Abu Ghraib - but weren't in charge of its MPs. His semantic distinction was unconvincing.
In any case, there is ample additional evidence that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was part of a broader pattern. Well before the Abu Ghraib horrors came to light, a Red Cross report detailed similar violations at many other prisons in Iraq. Detainees in Afghanistan reported being subjected to some of the same techniques of abuse and sexual humiliation long before the incriminating photos from Abu Ghraib became public. And members of Congress Wednesday began viewing hundreds of additional images that depict even uglier and more widespread episodes of abuse. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called the photos and videos "significantly worse than anything that I anticipated."
Even at that, the abuses do not sink to the depths of the worst terrorist atrocities, but that is not the standard to which a great democracy should hold itself. The White House and Pentagon officials who continue to try to minimize these abuses and deny their own accountability do a disservice to the honorable soldiers who came forward to speak the truth.
