A high-level report has placed indirect blame for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal on the Pentagon’s top civilian and military officials, saying their neglect allowed a culture and environment to develop in which such abuse could take place.
The report, released yesterday _ one of 11 separate inquiries into abuses at the jail near Baghdad _ is the first to criticise Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, and his closest advisers over the debacle.
The panel does blame the Pentagon for confused instructions about interrogation techniques and for not paying sufficient attention to how interrogations were carried out. “Institutional and personal responsibility” stretched “right up the chain of command in Washington,” Mr Schlesinger said.
But it does not hold Mr Rumsfeld and his colleagues legally responsible for what happened. Nor does it contend that the Pentagon actually issued orders explicitly encouraging or condoning the brutal mistreatment of prisoners.
For that reason, the report is unlikely to dispel charges of a whitewash by the Bush administration, and complaints that the reservists seen in the infamous photographs of naked prisoners have been made scapegoats, while higher officials escape unscathed.
So far, only eight soldiers at Abu Ghraib have faced criminal charges. But up to two dozen others are expected to be named in a separate report today.
According to The Washington Post, this second report, by Major General George Fay, will detail more instances of abuse at Abu Ghraib. It will also contain fresh evidence that military intelligence officials deliberately kept no records about some prisoners, concealing their existence from the Red Cross.
A marine reservist became the first American soldier to face a court martial for causing the death in June 2003 of an Iraqi prisoner. Sgt Gary Pittman is accused of kicking the prisoner, crushing his windpipe and suffocating him. His defence says the Iraqi, Nagem Sadoon Hatab, died of natural causes.
Rumsfeld implicated in Abu Ghraib abuse by damning report
Another WhiteWash from the Whitehouse, that crook Rumsfield with his usual smug smile the kind you see on a criminal that got away with his crime gets away with another crime just like the rest of these well known liars and mass murderers like Bush, Blair and Sharon.