In his weekly radio address on May 8, President Bush responded to the use of torture by American forces in Iraq by stating, "In recent days, America and the world have learned of shocking conduct in Iraqi prisons by a small number of American servicemen and women." [1]
The official spin coming from the White House is that "what took place in that Iraqi prison [Abu Ghraib] was the wrongdoing of a few." [2]
Two days later, Bush visited the Pentagon to thank Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld for his leadership, "You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You're doing a superb job. You are a strong Secretary of Defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude." [3]
While prosecution begins against a "few" individuals directly responsible for the acts of torture documented in the photos shown on 60 Minutes II on April 28 [4] , the ultimate responsibility falls on the Secretary of Defense and the President on the United States. The abuse seen in the photos circulating around the world does not happen in a vacuum. Despite what the White House would like us to believe, such conduct does not take place without the consent--if not explicit, then implicit--of the military leadership in command, leadership that emanates from the Commander-in-Chief and runs through the Secretary of Defense.
Regardless of the "official" stated policy, the crucial question to probe is how an institutional culture arises where such egregious abuses are allowed to happen in the first place, and continue unabated until photographs finally reach the eyes of the world community.
Beyond the cases shown recently on 60 Minutes II, widespread abuse has been documented by the International Committee of the Red Cross over the past year. A confidential ICRC report released in February 2004 to Paul Bremer and Lt-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and recently leaked to the Wall Street Journal [5] , states, "Since the beginning of the conflict, the ICRC has regularly brought its concerns to the attention of the CF [coalition forces]. The observations in the present report are consistent with those made earlier on several occasions orally and in writing to the CF throughout 2003. In spite of some improvements in the material conditions of internment, allegations of ill-treatment perpetrated by members of the CF against persons deprived of their liberty continued to be collected by the ICRC and thus suggested that the use of ill-treatment against persons deprived of their liberty went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered as a practice tolerated by the CF."
The toleration of abuse in the case of Abu Ghraib encompasses at least Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade in charge of the prison. This was detailed in a military report written by Major General Antonio Taguba [6] , who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 11, and said that the problems stemmed from "failure in leadership from the brigade commander on down, lack of discipline, no training whatsoever, and no supervision." [7]
While the highest level of command investigated in the Taguba report was the brigade commander Karpinski, investigation into the widespread institution of abuse condoned at Abu Ghraib must not stop there. It is crucial to investigate the failure to address Geneva Convention violations pointed out by the ICRC, and to examine not only the explicit policy sanctioned by the administration in its no holds barred war on terror, but also the culture implicit in the Bush Doctrine that positions the US above international law such as the Geneva Convention and the International Criminal Court.
That adherence to the Geneva Convention is reconsidered by the administration in each conflict it engages in (and that the letter of the Geneva Convention has been deemed inapplicable to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay [8] ) sends a strong negative signal to the world and reverberates through the institutional hierarchy of a military establishment embroiled in an illegal war of occupation justified under false pretenses.
The outrage at the recently documented treatment of Iraqis should raise even more concerns about the treatment of detainees held elsewhere, from Guantanamo to Afghanistan to California. The American public must not be satisfied with just the courts-martial of a "few" who embodied extreme instantiations of an involved culture of abuse.
As Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) said in the Senate hearings on May 11, "All of those up and down the chain of command who bear any responsibility must be held accountable for the brutality and humiliation they inflicted on the prisoners, and for the damage and dishonor that they brought to our nation and to the United States armed forces." [9]
At the top of the chain of command we find the tone set by the administration in its militarized foreign policy and disregard for international law. In between, we find a culture of abuse that is at best, tolerated, and at worst, encouraged. Rather than simply describing the seven soldiers implicated in the Abu Ghraib controversy as a few bad apples, perhaps a better description is that they are instruments of an apparatus inflicted with an ends-justifies-the-means mentality emanating from the Bush administration itself.
Lawyers for the female soldier implicated in the Abu Ghraib photos, Private Lynndie England, intimated in a May 11 article run by the Press Association of the UK [10] that "the photos may have been made at the direction of civilians in the CIA." The article quoted Rose Mary Zapor, one of England's lawyers, to say, "They [the soldiers] were told the photographs were successful in gathering information."
Entwined with the traditional military personnel pro forma in charge of prison operations at Abu Ghraib are civilian intelligence operators and private contractors employed by the military in Iraq. In a May 9 article in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes, "Private companies like CACI and Titan Corp. could pay salaries of well over a hundred thousand dollars for the dangerous work in Iraq, far more than the Army pays, and were permitted, as never before in U.S. military history, to handle sensitive jobs." [11] In a press release, Human Rights Watch expressed its concern "that these contractors operate in Iraq with virtual impunity--exempt by the terms of their engagement with the U.S. military from prosecution by Iraqi courts, outside the military chain of command and thus ineligible for court-martial, and not subject to prosecution by U.S. courts." [12]
As investigations continue into leadership failings and mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, the first court martial is set to begin in Baghdad on May 19. Specialist Jeremy Sivits, who falls squarely under the jurisdiction of military law will be tried for his role in the abuse detailed in the recently seen photos from Abu Ghraib. Yet, according to a May 11 article in the New York Times, "At worst, Specialist Sivits faces a year in confinement, a demotion, fines and a bad-conduct discharge." [13] What will happen to those higher up in command, those outside the military hierarchy, and yes, the leaders in Washington such as Rumsfeld who ultimately run the show and are responsible for establishing a culture of abuse implicitly accepted as an unwritten modus operandi in Iraq and beyond?
Since the Bush
administration renounced the United States' signature in May 2002
in the establishment of the International Criminal Court, those
Americans involved in conducting torture effectively fall outside
the ICC. It is up to the American public to ensure accountability
to the international community for these actions, and it will be
a travesty if US justice falls short of indicting those at the top
responsible for inculcating the culture of abuse that led to the
toleration of these crimes. Americans must demand full investigations
that go well beyond Abu Ghraib and demand full accountability of
all involved, including elected officials. The crucial step will
then come in November when the Bush administration in its entirety
must be sent away so that we can bring the United States back within
the fold of international law as a respected member of the international
community.
____________________________
Notes:
1. George W. Bush in President's Radio Address on May 8, 2004.
2. George W. Bush in President's Radio Address on May 8, 2004.
3. George W. Bush in a Statement by the President at the Pentagon on May 10, 2004.
4. "Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners Probed," CBS News, April 28, 2004.
5. "Report
of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment
by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected
Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq during Arrest, Internment
and Interrogation," February 2004. Leaked excerpts reported
by the Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2004. Text
of report published by the Guardian, May 11, 2004.
Note also, the ICRC's
May 7, 2004 press release upon word that the Wall Street Journal
published excerpts of the confidential report..
6. Executive summary of Article 15-6 investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. Published May 4, 2004 by MSNBC.
7. Senate Panel Hearings on Iraq Abuses, (text published in the New York Times), May 11, 2004.
8. "U.S.: Geneva Conventions Apply to Guantanamo Detainees," Human Rights Watch, January 11, 2002.
9. Senate Panel Hearings on Iraq Abuses, (text published in the New York Times), May 11, 2004.
10. "Soldier Accused of Abuse 'Was Ordered to Pose," Press Association, Scotsman.com, May 11, 2004.
11. "Chain of Command: How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib," by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, May 17, 2004 [released May 9, 2004].
12. "Iraq: U.S. Prisoner Abuse Sparks Concerns Over War Crimes: Investigation Should Probe Role of Superiors, Private Contractors," Human Rights Watch, April 30, 2004.
13. "First Baghdad Court-Martial May Set Table for Later Ones," by Adam Liptak, New York Times, May 11, 2004.