The Joy of Being Blameless
Editorial
New York Times
03/22/06 "New
York Times" -- -- The contrast could not have been
more stark, nor the message more clear. On the day that a
court-martial imposed justice on a 24-year-old Army sergeant for
tormenting detainees at Abu Ghraib with his dog, President Bush
said once again that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose
benighted policies and managerial incompetence led to the
prisoner abuse scandal, was doing a "fine job" and should stay
at his post.
We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since
the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world: President Bush
has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just
the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report
after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic,
and flowed from policies written by top officials in his
administration.
Just this week, Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall provided a
bloodcurdling account in the Times of how a Special Operations
unit converted an Iraqi military base into a torture chamber,
even using prisoners as paintball targets, in its frenzy to
counter a widely predicted insurgency for which Mr. Rumsfeld had
refused to prepare. In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected
of selling cars to members of a terrorist network was arrested
and beaten repeatedly. Another man said he had been forced to
strip, punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an
air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in
the stomach until he vomited. His crime? His father had worked
for Saddam Hussein.
These accounts are tragically familiar. The names and dates
change, but the basic pattern is the same, including the fact
that this bestiality produced little or no useful intelligence.
The Bush administration decided to go outside the law to deal
with prisoners, and soldiers carried out that policy. Those who
committed these atrocities deserve the punishment they are
getting, but virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped
unscathed. And not a single policy maker has been called to
account.
Col. Thomas Pappas, the former intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib,
testified at the dog handler's trial that the use of dogs had
grown out of conversations he had had with military jailers from
Guantánamo Bay led by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been
sent to Iraq to instruct soldiers there in the interrogation
techniques refined at Gitmo under Mr. Rumsfeld's
torture-is-legal policy. Colonel Pappas said General Miller had
explained how to use the "Arab fear of dogs" to set up
interrogations.
What of General Miller? He invoked his right against
self-incrimination to avoid testifying, and Time magazine
reported this week that he was exonerated by an Army whitewash.
Apparently he was not responsible for the actions of soldiers
operating under rules he put in place.
About the only high-ranking officer whose career has suffered
over Abu Ghraib is Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the
commander in Iraq at the time. General Sanchez should certainly
take responsibility, but he was also a victim of administration
blunders.
General Sanchez was vaulted inappropriately from head of the
First Armored Division to overall commander because Mr. Bush
declared "mission accomplished": the war's over. He was then
denied the staff, soldiers and equipment he needed to deal with
the insurgency that quickly broke out and produced thousands of
prisoners.
Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political
appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors. Indeed, he
has promoted many of them. And this is not an isolated problem.
It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men
run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, not
matter how egregious.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
