Seymour Hersh on Abu Ghraib

[Frank Newgent]

Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder’s report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.

There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to “set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews”—a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. “Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state.” General Karpinski’s brigade, Ryder reported, “has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations.” Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to “define the role of military police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel.” The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice.

Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup.

Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. “Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder’s] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation,” he wrote. “In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment.” The report continued, “Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder’s report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to ‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”

Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”

Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” Taguba wrote, “Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this guy up for us.’‘Make sure he has a bad night.’‘Make sure he gets the treatment.’” Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, ‘Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re giving out good information.’”

When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing”—where the abuse took place—“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse.”


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

"Conditions set for favourable interviews". Which Stanley Kubrick film was that lifted from?

 

[BillyTK]

"We wuz only following orders" is never an acceptable excuse, but I suspect that those who are called to account will be the ones who are most expendable, not necessarily the ones who are most culpable.

Btw - Eyes Wide Shut, by any chance?

 

[subgenius]

"Conditions set for favourable interviews". Which Stanley Kubrick film was that lifted from?

Oh no, no, no, I seen that movie before.
I still can't figure out which way the wind is blowing. You know a good meteorologist?
I think it might be raining. Maybe I'll stick my hand out the window. But I'm kinda worried, 'cause it might be a hard rain that's gonna fall.

Traverse City is the cherry growing capital of the world. It was a bad year last year, but they have made, and stocked up on, some mighty fine cherry wine. Not as sickeningly sweet as one might expect, with a tart and succinct finish.

 

[subgenius]

THE GRAY ZONE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
Issue of 2004-05-24
Posted 2004-05-15

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, “Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.” The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ anyone.”
....
One Pentagon official who was deeply involved in the program was Stephen Cambone, who was named Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in March, 2003. The office was new; it was created as part of Rumsfeld’s reorganization of the Pentagon. Cambone was unpopular among military and civilian intelligence bureaucrats in the Pentagon, essentially because he had little experience in running intelligence programs, though in 1998 he had served as staff director for a committee, headed by Rumsfeld, that warned of an emerging ballistic-missile threat to the United States. He was known instead for his closeness to Rumsfeld. “Remember Henry II—‘Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?’” the senior C.I.A. official said to me, with a laugh, last week. “Whatever Rumsfeld whimsically says, Cambone will do ten times that much.”
...
The solution, endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents. A key player was Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the detention and interrogation center at Guantánamo, who had been summoned to Baghdad in late August to review prison interrogation procedures. The internal Army report on the abuse charges, written by Major General Antonio Taguba in February, revealed that Miller urged that the commanders in Baghdad change policy and place military intelligence in charge of the prison. The report quoted Miller as recommending that “detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation.”

Miller’s concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to “Gitmoize” the prison system in Iraq—to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in Cuba—methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in “stress positions” for agonizing lengths of time. (The Bush Administration had unilaterally declared Al Qaeda and other captured members of international terrorist networks to be illegal combatants, and not eligible for the protection of the Geneva Conventions.)
....
http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040524fa_fact

 

[zenith-nadir]

International terrorists and insurgent organizations in Iraq do not fall under the Geneva Convention. That part is correct. They are not a "High Contracting Party", they do not wear uniforms, they have not laid down their arms, they are not sick. The Geneva convention does not protect non-high-contracting non-uniformed militants. Carry on hating America, Rumsfeld and protecting the poor-old-downtrodden terrorists... ....and next 9-11 don't come crying to the administration because they couldn't rough up a few islamists to get info.

 

[a_unique_person]

Except they have just let hundreds of prisoners go because they had nothing to do with terrorist acts. Many were just there because they looked suspicious, or for straight out criminal matters like looting.

T-H-I-S W-O-U-L-D H-A-V-E T-O B-E T-H-E D-U-M-B-E-S-T post in the history of JREF, Defending what happened at Abu Graib. Feeling lonely up there, Nadir-Nadir.

 

[varwoche]

Carry on hating America, Rumsfeld and protecting the poor-old-downtrodden terrorists... ....and next 9-11 don't come crying to the administration because they couldn't rough up a few islamists to get info.

Answer: The most gung-ho, pro-war, pro-military, anti-Islamist Americans.

Question: Who's interests are most undermined by, and should be most pissed-off at, and should be demanding stern justice for, the perps surrounding the prison abuse scandal.

 

[Kerberos]

What kind of news source is the New Yorker and how reliable is it?

 

[curious]

I don't normally reads the New Yorker but IMO it's considered a credible, general interest magazine (not tabloid). Here's a little blurb on Hersh:

Seymour M. Hersh is one of America's premier investigative reporters. In 1969, as a freelance journalist, he wrote the first account of the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam. In the 1970s, he worked at the New York Times in Washington and New York; he has rejoined the paper twice on special assignment. He has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and four George Polk Awards.

He is also the author of six books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times BookAward, The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It, and The Samson Option: Israels NuclearArsenal andAmericas Foreign Policy.
http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/83/677/

 

[subgenius]

What kind of news source is the New Yorker and how reliable is it?

A highly literate mag featuring, through the years, the world's greatest writers. Fantastic cartoons and cover illustrations. Charles Addams did numerous cartoons and covers.

 

[crackmonkey]

Hersh's article - largely based on anonymous sources - has been flatly dismissed by the Pentagon, and has also been contradicted by some of the accused Baghdad prison guards themselves.
The prison has two sections; one for high-value prisoners - insurgents captured in fighting, Al Qaeda fighters, Ba'athist bigwigs - and another for the more pedestrian prisoners. The abuses happened in the high-value section. Not that this excuses it, but it wasn't practiced throughout the prison.

 

[zenith-nadir]

Hersh's article - largely based on anonymous sources - has been flatly dismissed by the Pentagon, and has also been contradicted by some of the accused Baghdad prison guards themselves.The prison has two sections; one for high-value prisoners - insurgents captured in fighting, Al Qaeda fighters, Ba'athist bigwigs - and another for the more pedestrian prisoners. The abuses happened in the high-value section. Not that this excuses it, but it wasn't practiced throughout the prison.

What I find interesting is that the Seymour Hersh articles above do not quote a single person directly, except for Rumsfeld, but rely on heresay evidence and third party statements. Anyhow...

Originally posted by varwoche Answer: The most gung-ho, pro-war, pro-military, anti-Islamist Americans. Question: Who's interests are most undermined by, and should be most pissed-off at, and should be demanding stern justice for, the perps surrounding the prison abuse scandal.

I think Americans should be pissed off. But we are talking about two seperate things, the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Seymour Hersh has conveniently connected the two so that they now are one, and most people will buy that hook, line and sinker. What happened at Abu Ghraib prison wasn't part of any program Rumsfeld signed on to or are people gonna assert some part-time Reserve soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison are the Defence Department's "frontline interrogators" of prisoners in Iraq.

Conversely if I had someone protecting my country I would want them to do everything in their power to stop attacks or another 9-11, and that does include roughing people up during interrogation. Sorry, the Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl incidents should teach anyone with half a brain what kind of enemy we are dealing with.

 

[crimresearch]

"...Charles Addams did numerous cartoons and covers."

Great cartonist...also afflicted with severe mental illness...how is he a verification of the the New Yorker's inability to print anything but the truth?

 

[subgenius]

"...Charles Addams did numerous cartoons and covers."

Great cartonist...also afflicted with severe mental illness...how is he a verification of the the New Yorker's inability to print anything but the truth?

Never said that it was. Just trying to give our Danish friend a picture of the mag.
My mind boggles at the concept of the "inability to print anything but the truth."
I'd like to subscribe to whatever you're referring.

 

[subgenius]

On second thought, any periodical that has this as its cover is incapable of printing anything but the truth:

 

[Mona]

What I find interesting is that the Seymour Hersh articles above do not quote a single person directly, except for Rumsfeld, but rely on heresay evidence and third party statements.

Which is why I was very skeptical when I read it, that, and Hersh is known to be slipshod on occasion, especially in service of his anti-military beliefs. However, this from Newsweek is more fulsome and feels very credible.

If it is the case that only high-value terrorists were subjected to the abuses, I could go along with that. Many reasonable people accept that the "ticking time bomb" theory of justified torture is morally acceptable, if not an imperative. But is that the case here? And why, then, hang all those low-level soldiers carrying out the orders out to dry?

If it is defensible, make the case. If it was not, then not only Lynndie England should go down.

 

[demon]

ZN:
"Sorry, the Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl incidents should teach anyone with half a brain what kind of enemy we are dealing with."

Interesting that; no doubt many terrorists (and those who solicit sympathy and support for them) say pretty much the same thing: "Surely the Afghanistan and Iraq incidents, two illegal and unprovoked assaults on virtually defenceless countries, should teach anyone with half a brain what kind of enemy we are dealing with."

Quite how you see US actions in Iraq as "protecting my country" escapes me, too. Before the invasion, America's intelligence agencies were as one in warning the Bush Administration that an attack on Iraq would increase the risk of terrorism againt the US, not diminish it. The attack now seems even more foolish, give that (official) international terrorism was at a 30 year low.

Those agency predictions have now come true and the Al-Qaeda connection, fiction prior to the invasion, may well now be a fact. Some defence.

 

[Bjorn]

However, this from Newsweek is more fulsome and feels very credible.

If I had been a religious man, I would have prayed to God the last weeks that these were the actions of a few bad men and women, not a part of a larger picture. It seems like God would have answered my prayers with a firm 'NO'.

There was a time when we tried to agree upon a 24-hour rule on this board - let's wait and see what comes up before we make up our minds to firmly. Maybe we should do that. At the moment, however, my bets are on Rik voting Kerry. I sincerely wish it was the other way around.

 

[demon]

Is that the best you can do to defend torture?
You'd have something to complain about if, say, the Vietnamese had killed 3 million US civilians:

"...if I had someone protecting my country I would want them to do everything in their power to stop attacks or another 9-11."

That`s exactly what some muslims are doing, trying to stop the US and its client states from attacking them, killing tens of thousands of their fellow citizens, stealing their oil and selling off their country?

Given your twisted logic, you should be applauding the Iraqi resistance, not whingeing.

What's remarkable is that US policy virtually begs countries to resort to "terrorism". The US has announced to the world that it is not subject to international law and that it will do anything to maintain its global dominance; including attacking countries which have something it wants or pose a threat to its preeminence (rather than survival or security). This, taken with the US's almost unstoppable military means that nations which think they're on the US's list of targets must use whatever methods of self-defence remain -terrorism or, in the case of S. Korea, some crude nuclear capability.
A good example of this is South Africa. In December 2002, the S. African health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, admitted that S. Africa was spending money that should have gone on HIV/Aids relief in order to buy submarines to deter the US. 'Look at what Bush is doing,' said Tshabalala-Msimang, 'He could invade.' (Guardian 17th December 2002). If even South Africa fears the US and has to divert money from desperately needed health case to defence, it's hardly any wonder that other groups -without the finance- will resort to terrorism.

As for "roughing people up", try roughing up the cia instead......they might know rather more than the average grunt, islamist or otherwise.

 

[Bjorn]

Conversely if I had someone protecting my country I would want them to do everything in their power to stop attacks or another 9-11, and that does include roughing people up during interrogation.

If you would want them to do 'everything' you don't need to mention what it includes. Is there anything 'everything' does not include?

Sorry, the Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl incidents should teach anyone with half a brain what kind of enemy we are dealing with.

By torturing prisoners we become 'that kind of enemy'.