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Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher Ups

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 05:52:34 AM EST
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The military report on the Abu Ghraib prison scandals is complete and will be presented today to Congress. The Associated Press has obtained a copy of the Executive Summary and reports:

The report by Navy Vice Adm. Albert T. Church said the pressure was not excessive. The investigation could find no "single, overarching reason" why prisoners under U.S. control were abused at the Abu Ghraib prison complex in fall 2003 and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan. Command pressure for more intelligence was to be expected in a battlefield setting, Church wrote.

"We found no evidence, however, that interrogators in Iraq believed that any pressure for intelligence subverted their obligation to treat detainees humanely," he wrote in a summary of his findings.

The report absolves Rumsfeld and others in the upper chain of command:

Church concluded that no civilian or uniformed leaders directed or encouraged abuse, and his report holds Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top defense leaders largely blameless on the narrow question of pressuring interrogators as well as the larger matter of interrogation policies.

"We found no evidence to support the notion that the office of the secretary of defense (or other military or White House staff) applied explicit pressure for intelligence or gave 'back channel' permission to forces in the field in Iraq or in Afghanistan" to exceed the bounds of authorized interrogation practices, the report said.

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    Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher Ups | 25 comments (25 topical)
    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#1)
    by marty on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 04:16:05 AM EST
    Yup, them rascals on the night shift came up with them hi-jinks and fraternity games all on their own......just keep movin' now, nothing to see here. Keep movin, nothin' to see.... Right.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 06:22:17 AM EST
    So, um, the military concluded that none of the higher-ups in the military did anything wrong. Maybe it's just me, but there are more unexpected events in the average episode of Happy Days.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 06:33:51 AM EST
    like every other questionable and/or controversial happening during bushCo's reign you just have to ask; ?are these events that lil'ol "c" coincidence, or are we witnessing that great big'ol "C" CONSPIRACY? imo, were already so deep the only escape from "an ambush" is straight ahead full throttle, good luck mates!

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 06:49:02 AM EST
    As a former grunt, I had the Geneva Convention course in Basic as did everyone before me. I even had to sign a paper that went into my 201 file saying I had the course and understood it. Have things changed that much in 23 years? I doubt it, because the troop that took those damning digital pix with his phonecam knew what he was witnessing was wrong. But those turnkeys in Abu Ghraib weren't officers, they were either non-coms or Specialists or privates; they had an officer above them and an officers above those. The order came from somewhere. As usual, the enlisted guys will get the full shaft, and the officers (and whatever shadowy spooks they were working with) diddy-bop over the horizon scott-free.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 07:56:23 AM EST
    custom, practice and culture who needs an order

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 08:13:24 AM EST
    "Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." Abraham Lincoln is turning in his grave so fast and so often at what this country has become -- in Heaven they've nicknamed him Pinwheel Abe.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 08:14:43 AM EST
    "We [successfully] found no evidence" of anything we didn't want to find evidence of. Good times, sir. Good times.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#8)
    by wishful on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 08:20:42 AM EST
    Does this mean that it has finally been officially found that no one in a position of authority in this administration is responsible? It's about dam* time.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#9)
    by nolo on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 08:59:03 AM EST
    OT, but it appears that Judge Lefkow's husband and mother were killed by a disgruntled pro se litigant. CNN and MSNBC have stories. I took a quick look at the pleadings the guy filed (through the magical powers given to lawyers who are registered with the federal courts' electronic filing systems), and it's just a sad story.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 09:42:38 AM EST
    Mr. Gibson is re-releasing The Passion cutting out about six minutes worth of torture and brutality. I've heard that rather than just throw those six minutes of film away, Mr. Gibson has graciously donated those six minutes to be made into a training film for the U.S. Military Prisons System. Prison guards from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib will learn how to treat suspected terrorists with the same courtesy extended to the Son of God. What more could any criminal want?

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 09:56:11 AM EST
    So, How many different places has this one bad unit been? If this was the work of a few bad apples, how do you explain the fact that detainees have been mistreated in so many different parts of the world? Was Lynndie England also the woman who smeered fake menstrual blood on detainees at Gitmo? Is Charles Graner the 'newly-minted CIA case officer' that had an afghani stripped and left outside to freeze to death at the 'Salt Pit' 2 years ago? Nothing to see here, move along...

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#12)
    by soccerdad on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 11:07:13 AM EST
    "We found no evidence, however, that interrogators in Iraq believed that any pressure for intelligence subverted their obligation to treat detainees humanely,"
    But I think this answers the wrong question. Neither the admin or Defence dept said to the interrogators "you must commit tortrure", What the memos that have come out said, was that what they were doing was not torture. Therefore the obligation did not have to be subverted and they "investigated" a non-issue. At least thats the way I read it.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#13)
    by wishful on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 11:38:27 AM EST
    Soc, exactly. Does their investigative report define "humanely"? And did the investigators take semantics lessons from Gonzales?

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 11:41:52 AM EST
    Ya..the way I understand it is that leadership basically overlooked or fostered the environment for this sort of abuse. No one insinuated that Rumsfeld picked up the phone and said "Put those guys in the jails in human pyramids". Rather, what all of us are saying, is the top brass consistently said they didn't care about abuses, didn't think a wide range of actions were abuse, and generally had poor oversight of operations. A manager a McDonald's is more likely to get fired for letting one of his workers mouth off to a customer than Rumsfeld will get for this.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#15)
    by Dadler on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 11:53:47 AM EST
    wait, this report just in: bats have been sighted flying out of the ass of admiral church.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#16)
    by Sailor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 12:24:08 PM EST
    Gee, the fact that Gen miller was assigned to gitmo when abuse occured, then assigned to Abu Ghraib and abuse occured, all subsequent to torture memos by gonzales, is all just a coincidence.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 12:59:38 PM EST
    Forget FOX, I can't find a north american news outlet giving any coverage to the story about the US using banned weapons in Fallujah. I did, however, find one in the UK. Info is here=here

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#18)
    by Rick B on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 03:02:56 PM EST
    Yeah, right. King Henry said "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" When the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was then murdered, no one told the murderers to do it. No one at fault except some low-level knights.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 03:16:48 PM EST
    Posted by nemo: "As a former grunt, I had the Geneva Convention course in Basic as did everyone before me... Have things changed that much in 23 years?" Reportedly, quite a few troops have said to reporters that they haven't had ANY training in international law, or even code of conduct in an occupation. It's all war, all the time, and total war is fine. Kill them all sound familiar? (sarcasm portion) Hallabja, Falluja...what's the difference. Hussein had the right idea; he just didn't sign off on the Jordanian pipeline like a good little dictator-for-pay.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 03:48:09 PM EST
    (*sigh*) So sad, albeit predictable, I suppose. And this is from supposed moral exemplars who prattle endlessly about "personal responsibility" and "poor choices" when it comes to sex and drugs and obscenity and decency and their other culture-war hobby-horses. That beam in yer eye, bro, is blinding you.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#21)
    by john horse on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 03:54:58 PM EST
    I don't know about knowledge of the Geneva Conventions, but one thing I know that has not changed is that military personnel still know precisely their authority and responsibilities. The military have manuals and regulations on everything, including cleaning toilets. Low-ranking personnel do not establish methods of interrogation, treatment or punishment on their own. Holding a few enlisted military personnel responsible for their leaders' mistakes is unconscionable.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 05:12:21 PM EST
    john horse is right on. (as are so many in this post) Allthough I have been out of the service some 12 plus years now, I cannot imagine that things have changed so much so that non-coms implement their own policies. Any military relies upon direction to accomplish 99.9% of all tasks. Granted, the military does encourage intitiative from it's members, but where that is demonstrated is in the depictions we're all familiar with by this point. That is: the order is to break these prisoner; you (the gaurds) figure out how. Obviously these imbeciles were delighted enough in their task to gleefully document it. We're not talking about the cream of American civilization. Stupid @#$%ing teflon administration. Stupid @#$%ing Americans who support this administration. Abe Lincoln is spinning in his grave? What about the King of Kings? What is it these hypocritical, myopic, right-wing ('I'm impotent, what're you doing in your bedroom'), nosy-ass, "my prayer can penetrate brick and mortar", so-called Christians so fond of saying? WWJD? What would Jesus do? Ummm....let's see...preemptive war? No. Kill hundreds of thousands of innocents? I'm just going to guess on this one...umm...NO! Lie? I'll venture a 'no' on this one as well. I could go on forever, but I allready feel much better after venting, thank you.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 10:05:42 PM EST
    AYM: "Obviously these imbeciles were delighted enough in their task to gleefully document it. We're not talking about the cream of American civilization." Missing the point, AYM. These photos, the shooting of innocent people, the dispersal of high-explosives, the nose-thumbing at the UN, the threats to use nukes on NON-COMBATANT civilian populations for the supposed actions of their governments, the outright fraud and theft, and the 'slips' of the tongue (like 'Crusade') are INTENTIONAL. The policy, from the start, has been maximum chaos, and civil war. There is a lot of money to be made, and WE NEED ENEMIES. 0n 911, two fighter jets hobble into the air an hour late, and buzz around aimlessly at subsonic speeds (according to the official timeline). The Secret Service fails to put the C-in-C on the phone with NORAD, fails to call for air cover for Air Force 1, and the media fails to discover their asses, cowering behind their boss' rotweiler. You call the Pentagon, and the phone is disconnected, because they have gone out of business. Washington is deserted, except for the limos of the corporations. Instead of TWO elected presidents, a criminal FRAUD. And in the distance, the sound of people screaming as they jump from windows, or watch their neighbors burn from napalm. Mission Accomplished.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 07:43:15 AM EST
    Rick B at March 10, 2005 04:02 PM
    yeah, "the Thomas Becket defense", has yet to work for me though.
    I could go on forever, but I already feel much better after venting, thank you.
    it works for me, glad it works for you.
    'slips' of the tongue (like 'Crusade') are INTENTIONAL.
    in agreement, that was no slip, a preznut who believes god personally called/talks to him, and the fund's wonder why secularism is on the rise.

    Re: Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher U (none / 0) (#25)
    by Jlvngstn on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 08:20:14 AM EST
    The report was condemned by Human Rights Watch. "This looks like another whitewash. Almost a year after the Abu Ghraib pictures, we still haven't had an independent investigation into the widespread prison abuse by someone not appointed by or subordinate to Secretary Rumsfeld," the organization's special counsel, Reed Brody, said.

    Military Report: Abuse Not Ordered by Higher Ups | 25 comments (25 topical)