Saturday, May 22, 2004
Patterns of Abuse
It appears that the famous pictures of mistreating prisoners in Iraq are only the tip of the iceberg. There were many other cases of mistreatment, in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Iraq. About eight murder investigations are being pursued. Yet it also appears that the level and flagrancy of mistreatment in a small area of Abu Ghraib was quite unusual. Clearly those directly involved in this, and activity, and this includes military intelligence officers, as well as perhaps CIA and contract persons, should be punished. Their immediate superiors and others that should have known what was going on should also get more than a slap on the wrist.
Beyond this it all gets murkier. There is documentary evidence that after 9/11 the government, specifically the Department of Justice, tried to develop ways to end run the Geneva Conventions. These efforts apparently infected the CIA, the FBI, and military intelligence. The result was the development of new interrogation limits that were applied in Afghanistan, later in Iraq (and one imagines Guantanamo Bay although little about this has come out). Such things as unclothing detainees, putting hoods on for long periods, many kinds of threats, use of dogs (at least as an implied threats) became accepted procedures — or it came to seem so for some of those involved. The military's JAG corps, which had been regularly present in interrogations in the first Gulf War, were excluded from interrogations in the second. They voiced complaints and fears and brought these to the New York Bar Association. All of this surely happened, but it was a "cultural development" and indicting persons for a cultural development may prove difficult. Incidentally, as Kristof explains in today's Op-Ed, no matter how much we may detest Secretary Rumsfeld he appears not to be a major player, nor does the President himself. Yet I do not doubt that from the top to the bottom there was a sense of "Get the information, everything else is secondary." How this played out for some in lower ranks we now know.
It appears that the famous pictures of mistreating prisoners in Iraq are only the tip of the iceberg. There were many other cases of mistreatment, in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Iraq. About eight murder investigations are being pursued. Yet it also appears that the level and flagrancy of mistreatment in a small area of Abu Ghraib was quite unusual. Clearly those directly involved in this, and activity, and this includes military intelligence officers, as well as perhaps CIA and contract persons, should be punished. Their immediate superiors and others that should have known what was going on should also get more than a slap on the wrist.
Beyond this it all gets murkier. There is documentary evidence that after 9/11 the government, specifically the Department of Justice, tried to develop ways to end run the Geneva Conventions. These efforts apparently infected the CIA, the FBI, and military intelligence. The result was the development of new interrogation limits that were applied in Afghanistan, later in Iraq (and one imagines Guantanamo Bay although little about this has come out). Such things as unclothing detainees, putting hoods on for long periods, many kinds of threats, use of dogs (at least as an implied threats) became accepted procedures — or it came to seem so for some of those involved. The military's JAG corps, which had been regularly present in interrogations in the first Gulf War, were excluded from interrogations in the second. They voiced complaints and fears and brought these to the New York Bar Association. All of this surely happened, but it was a "cultural development" and indicting persons for a cultural development may prove difficult. Incidentally, as Kristof explains in today's Op-Ed, no matter how much we may detest Secretary Rumsfeld he appears not to be a major player, nor does the President himself. Yet I do not doubt that from the top to the bottom there was a sense of "Get the information, everything else is secondary." How this played out for some in lower ranks we now know.
Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
