Military Times Blames Rumsfeld, not GIs

[Texsox]

Military newspaper blames Rumsfeld, Myers for "professional negligence"

 

The editorial said the soldiers caught in photographs and videos abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison are referred to around the Pentagon (news - web sites) as "the six morons who lost the war."

 

 

"But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons," it said.

 

 

Responsibility, it said, "extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership."

[JUGGERNAUT]

I agree. No matter how this is spun & no matter how hedonistic & sadistic the GI's were the fact that this war was much more about propaganda than bullets means that Rumsfeld dropped the ball.

 

You can not go into a propaganda war & expect the rules & regulations alone to maintain law & order. People have to BELIEVE in those rules in order to respect them.

Belief comes from both knowledge & fear of consequences. Rumsfeld did very little

in that regards & neither did the Pentagon chiefs.

[Texsox]

I have a hard time blaming Bush for this. What I can compare is having untrained employees (soldiers) in key positions. In the civilian sector a good supervisor watches these employees to make certain they are following work place rules, being safe, productive, etc. As a CO, you cannot take a mechanic, call him a prison guard, then leave him alone. The commanding officers must take responsibility. How high, I do not feel qualified to say. But I do know some in country supervisors need to accept responsibility. These were not one time events.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Military newspaper blames Rumsfeld, Myers for "professional negligence"

While the ultimate responsibility for this mess lies squarely at the feet of Donald Rumsfeld it is by no means a problem of his creation. Those "soldiers" in the photos claim they are being set up and that they were just reluctantly following orders. Lets look at their defenition of "reluctantly following orders.

 

-In all the photo's PFC England is seen as smiling as though what she's doing is funny including the one where she's pointing at an Iraqi man's genitals and laughing.

 

-Or how bout the one where England is seen in front of a pile of naked Iraqi's with a big wide grin on her face with her buddy standing behind like he's "the s***".

 

I give the "soldiers" in question most of the blame for this mess because they knew damn well that what they were doing was wrong, so what did they do? Did they report it? Did they refuse to obey? Nope, they made a big joke out of it and took photos for the folks back home to see. They looked like they were enjoying themselves pretty well and now they are crying about being scapegoats. That isint gonna fly with me or too many other folks outside their own families.

 

There was one soldier who had some integrity and reported it to the CID and that's why the abusers are being punished and we're having this whole conversation.

[Texsox]

There was one soldier who had some integrity and reported it to the CID and that's why the abusers are being punished and we're having this whole conversation.

And I hope this doesn't hurt his/her career.

 

I am not certain how we can take this all the way to Rumsfeld and not then to the President. If Rumsfeld kept it from the President, Rumsfeld should be gone. I believe Rumsfeld was not aware of these abuses, and I'm not certain he should have until the reports surfaced.

 

Moral and ethical blame and punishment will be different than political responsibility and punishment. The administration will offer someone's head to satisfy the political debt. I believe, before this is done, Rumsfeld will be gone. Probably by annoucing he will be accepting a position in the private sector and not be a part of the next cabinet. I like the guy; but in an election year, and judging by the severity of the abuse, it will be a cabinet level resignation.

[FlaSoxxJim]

There is an outstanding piece in today's New Yorker by investiggative journalist Seymour Hersh that gets at some of the complexity of what happened and how it was allowed to happen. He was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition today as well, which id how I came to know of the story. The piece is lengthy but really informative. Here is an extracted set of hilight paragraphs in sequence but quite a lot of detail left out...

 

....Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break,” he said. ....

 

NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and ‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ ....

 

In the privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively. By mid-2002, he and his senior aides were exchanging secret memorandums on modifying the culture of the military leaders and finding ways to encourage them “to take greater risks.” One memo spoke derisively of the generals in the Pentagon, and said, “Our prerequisite of perfection for ‘actionable intelligence’ has paralyzed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before every question can be answered.” ....

 

The Pentagon’s impatience with military protocol extended to questions about the treatment of prisoners caught in the course of its military operations. Soon after 9/11, as the war on terror got under way, Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly made public his disdain for the Geneva conventions. Complaints about America’s treatment of prisoners, Rumsfeld said in early 2002, amounted to “isolated pockets of international hyperventilation.” ....

 

The relationship between military policing and intelligence forces inside the Army prison system reached a turning point last fall in response to the insurgency against the Coalition Provisional Authority. “This is a fight for intelligence,” Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, told a reporter at a Baghdad press briefing in November. “Do I have enough soldiers? The answer is absolutely yes. The larger issue is, how do I use them and on what basis? And the answer to that is intelligence . . . to try to figure out how to take all this human intelligence as it comes in to us [and] turn it into something that’s actionable.” The Army prison system would now be asked to play its part.

 

Two months earlier, Major General Geoffrey 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. 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. General Taguba fearlessly took issue with the Sanchez orders, which, he wrote in his report, “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.”

 

Taguba also criticized Miller’s report, noting that “the intelligence value of detainees held at . . . Guantánamo is different than that of the detainees/internees held at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq. . . . There are a large number of Iraqi criminals held at Abu Ghraib. These are not believed to be international terrorists or members of Al Qaeda.” Taguba noted that Miller’s recommendations “appear to be in conflict” with other studies and with Army regulations that call for military-police units to have control of the prison system. By placing military-intelligence operatives in control instead, Miller’s recommendations and Sanchez’s change in policy undoubtedly played a role in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. General Taguba concluded that certain military-intelligence officers and civilian contractors at Abu Ghraib were “either directly or indirectly responsible” for the abuses, and urged that they be subjected to disciplinary action. ....

 

In late March, before the Abu Ghraib scandal became publicly known, Geoffrey Miller was transferred from Guantánamo and named head of prison operations in Iraq. “We have changed this—trust us,” Miller told reporters in early May. “There were errors made. We have corrected those. We will make sure that they do not happen again.”

 

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 General Miller’s report, Taguba wrote, 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. He wrote, “Recent intelligence collection in support of Operation Enduring Freedom posited a template whereby military police actively set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews.”

 

The photographing of prisoners, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, seems to have been not random but, rather, part of the dehumanizing interrogation process. The Times published an interview last week with Hayder Sabbar Abd, who claimed, convincingly, to be one of the mistreated Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib photographs. Abd told Ian Fisher, the Times reporter, that his ordeal had been recorded, almost constantly, by cameras, which added to his humiliation. He remembered how the camera flashed repeatedly as soldiers told to him to masturbate and beat him when he refused.....

 

“He’s [Taguba] not regarded as a hero in some circles in the Pentagon,” a retired Army major general said of Taguba. “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.”

[JUGGERNAUT]

The gist of the information in that article has already appeared in the investigations & local newspapers. Rather than discredit the New Yorker I will simply say the bias is clear in the article.

 

No where does the article mention the difficulties in processing charges once the abuse is reported. No where does it discuss the time that it normally takes in the armed forces not just in the cases of prisoner abuse but likewise in the cases of sexual assault which occur here in America. This was touched upon last week in during the investigation when members of Congress brought it to America's attention that the codes & conducts in this area is over 47 years old & has yet to be upgraded. Rumsfeld expressed this dilemma last week in that they simply don't know how to efficiently prosecute the abuse & push the news up the chain of command.

 

It's not hard to imagine why. Suppose one of the 6 is found to be not-guilty. That opens the doors for a civil suit against the US armed forces & his/her superiors. So there is a real conflict there. Not just in the armed forces but in homeland security as well. The Congress has yet to deal with that conflict: the need to expedite information up the chain of command vs the need to properly prosecute a case.

 

That being said as reports suggest Bush was not aware of this reports.

The buck stopped with Rumsfeld & he either didn't take it serious or choose to keep it from the president. With what we know today Bush is to blame for trusting Rumsfeld to do the best job possible. Rumsfeld on the otherhand is simply to much of a detail-oriented person to be excused. Perhaps he did know the seriousness of the matter & did take the charges seriously. Perhaps politics in the Pentagon & familiar relationships created a sense of trust in the Pentagon to do the right thing. In any case, in the chain of command his word was as good as the Pres. himself. There is no higher up. Bush delogates authority he doesn't exercise it.

 

In determining whether Rumsfeld should resign here's the question you should ask:

If Rumsfeld makes a clear & definitive public statement in 2002 (after Shock & Awe) with respect to the treatment of POW's is there less likely a chance this abuse occurs?

 

If you answer yes then he should resign. In my opinion it's pretty cut & dry.

I feel he should resign.

[Texsox]

Here's a small problem I see if Rumsfeld resigns. Just to be clear, I like the guy, he seemed trustworthy, and I think he has done a better than average job. I would hope that if he resigns, the public and military doesn't think that solved the problem.

 

We need to update policies and training in dealing with detainees. The face of war has changed and we are getting in some strange situations. We were there to help liberate these people. We cannot take soldiers trained to be mechanics and make them responsible for prisoners without real and constant supervision.

 

While we understand that most 99.9% of US soldiers are of moral character, these six just confirmed to the world the image we have in some corners of the globe. That hurts us.

 

A couple dozen Iraqis drag corpses through the street and we cry for blood. A few hundred Hamas members wave AK47 and threaten death to all Jews and some want blood. It is easy for me to see why some Iraqis feel threatened and distrustfull of US soldiers.

[JUGGERNAUT]

Here's a small problem I see if Rumsfeld resigns. Just to be clear, I like the guy, he seemed trustworthy, and I think he has done a better than average job. I would hope that if he resigns, the public and military doesn't think that solved the problem.

 

We need to update policies and training in dealing with detainees. The face of war has changed and we are getting in some strange situations. We were there to help liberate these people. We cannot take soldiers trained to be mechanics and make them responsible for prisoners without real and constant supervision.

 

While we understand that most 99.9% of US soldiers are of moral character, these six just confirmed to the world the image we have in some corners of the globe. That hurts us.

 

A couple dozen Iraqis drag corpses through the street and we cry for blood. A few hundred Hamas members wave AK47 and threaten death to all Jews and some want blood. It is easy for me to see why some Iraqis feel threatened and distrustfull of US soldiers.

If they disclose the fact that the good majority of the 18000 cases Rumsfeld cited deal with actions of abuse against US soldiers & not POWs I think those procedures & many others will be updated.

 

Can someone explain to me what a woman 5 months pregnant is serving duty in Iraq?

I might have heard it wrong but as I understand one of the smiling women in the pics is 5 months pregnant with her corporals baby. He's implicated as well.

[Texsox]

President Bush was shown classified photographs Monday depicting acts of apparent abuse of prisoners in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, the White House said. Bush saw the images at a Pentagon meeting, after which he praised under-fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for doing a superb job in leading the war on terror

 

As I was looking at this picture in the story involving Bush seeing all the photos I realized how diverse the top brain trust is. Isn't this a cross section of America?

[Reddy]

I'm a die hard bush hater but honestly this isnt his fault at all. Rumsfeld is entirely to blame and needs to step down. He was recorded saying he didnt care about the Geneva conventions and these situations are entirely his fault. End of story

[LowerCaseRepublican]

While the ultimate responsibility for this mess lies squarely at the feet of Donald Rumsfeld it is by no means a problem of his creation.  Those "soldiers" in the photos claim they are being set up and that they were just reluctantly following orders.  Lets look at their defenition of "reluctantly following orders.

 

-In all the photo's PFC England is seen as smiling as though what she's doing is funny including the one where she's pointing at an Iraqi man's genitals and laughing.

 

-Or how bout the one where England is seen in front of a pile of naked Iraqi's with a big wide grin on her face with her buddy standing behind like he's "the s***".

 

I give the "soldiers" in question most of the blame for this mess because they knew damn well that what they were doing was wrong, so what did they do?  Did they report it?  Did they refuse to obey?  Nope,  they made a big joke out of it and took photos for the folks back home to see.  They looked like they were enjoying themselves pretty well and now they are crying about being scapegoats.  That isint gonna fly with me or too many other folks outside their own families.

 

There was one soldier who had some integrity and reported it to the CID and that's why the abusers are being punished and we're having this whole conversation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...11&in_a_source=

 

A story came out in the Brit press discussing how one of the smiling douchenozzles in the photos actually has a history of abusing prisoners. So of course he's put in charge a prison. Great move.

 

With the Taguba report, Rumsfeld knew months ago about the torturing going on and didn't do a damn thing until these photos came out. Either that's deceit in wanting to cover it up or just plain stupidity in not handling the situation. It's his responsibility.

 

Let's hear it for the good troops like Hugh Thompson (Vietnam...the one who exposed My Lai) and the guy that exposed this torture bulls***. If the Taguba report is to be believed then this torture was vast, expansive and is the fault of Rummy if he knew about this previously, which a lot of information coming forth seems like he did and yet waited to deal with it.