• Sadism at Abu Ghraib Sadism at Abu Ghraib During Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule, the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad was the place where the dictator’s thugs tortured and executed people. Now we discover to our shame
• Sadism at Abu Ghraib
Sadism at Abu Ghraib
During Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule, the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad was the place where the dictator’s thugs tortured and executed people. Now we discover to our shame that American troops engaged in what a U.S. general called “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses” against Iraqis at the very same prison.
It is almost beyond comprehension that U.S. men and women could be involved in this kind of brutality. Worse, it appears that the disgusting acts were part of a systematic attempt by military intelligence officials to get prisoners to talk. Worse still, the pictures of the sexually charged torture of Iraqi men have badly damaged the United States’ credibility across the Middle East.
How many times has President George W. Bush said that the United States invaded to shut down Saddam’s torture chambers? Now U.S. forces are found to be operating their own.
Mr. Bush said Friday that he shared the “disgust” expressed across the Arab world in reaction to pictures of smiling U.S. military police stacking naked Iraqi prisoners on top of one another, and another photo of a hooded Iraqi with wires attached to his fingers, toes and other extremities. Mr. Bush called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday to stress the importance of punishing U.S. soldiers responsible for these “shameful and appalling acts.”
The message doesn’t seem to have made it across the Potomac. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC on Sunday that there was “no evidence of systematic abuse in the system at all.” In fact, a Pentagon report into the abuse found quite the opposite. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba specifically said he found “systemic problems” in the treatment of prisoners. Confronted by the contradiction, Gen. Myers said he hadn’t read the report, a stunning admission for the guy in charge.
The Taguba report, written in February and disclosed over the weekend by New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh, found that Army intelligence officers, CIA agents and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”
The “sadistic” abuses that Gen. Taguba found included, “breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; . . . beating detainees with a broom handle . . .; threatening male detainees with rape; . . . sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.”
The Taguba report should set the stage for a deeper investigation into the involvement of the intelligence officials in the torture. But the Pentagon doesn’t seem up to the task. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said he wasn’t sure “military intelligence had anything to do with the individual acts of criminal behavior.” So far, six military police are charged with criminal violations, and the Pentagon announced Monday that seven other soldiers have been reprimanded.
In light of the lethargy of the Pentagon brass, Congress should step in to make sure there is a thorough, independent investigation.
The damage done to America’s image and interests is incalculable. It has reinforced Arab views about the decadence of U.S. culture. It has undermined the president’s claims about ending brutality in Iraq. It has unjustly defamed the thousands of honorable men and women fighting in Iraq. And it has put an ugly scar on the U.S. image as a protector of human rights.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
