Outside Panel Faults Top U.S. Officials For Iraq Prison Abuse

[Nambe]

By ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times

A high-level outside panel reviewing U.S. military detention operations has concluded leadership failures at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, defense officials said Monday.

The report, to be released today, does not explicitly blame Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the misconduct or for ordering policies that condoned or encouraged it.

But it implicitly faults Rumsfeld and his top civilian and military aides for not exercising sufficient oversight over a confusing array of policies and interrogation practices at detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said. ..

In contrast to the half dozen military inquiries into aspects of the Abu Ghraib scandal, including the roles of military police and military intelligence officials, the four-member panel headed by James R. Schlesinger, a former secretary of defense, was appointed by Rumsfeld to identify gaps in the reviews. ..

In addition to Schlesinger, the panel members are Harold Brown, another former defense secretary; Tillie K. Fowler, former Florida Republican congresswoman and chairwoman of last year's investigation into sexual misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy; and Gen. Charles A. Horner, a retired four-star Air Force officer who led the air campaign in the 1991 Gulf War. ..The committee has held a series of hearings into the scandal, but none since May 19, as many Republicans in the House and some in the Senate have voiced fears that keeping the issue alive on Capitol Hill could hurt President Bush's re- election prospects in November.

Ride Don’t Drive * * It’s Global Cool

[TahitiNut]

1. Hey, what's a crime against humanity or two ...

... compared to the importance of stealing another election? This is the poison of partisanship.

[ixion]

2. Since Rummy himself declared * the sole commander and chief

I would say that point directly at him.

There should be war crimes charges, according to international law, IMO.

[struggle4progress]

3. Abu Ghraib Tactics Inspire Torture in Neighbour Egypt

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Jun 22 (IPS) - In what may be the first concrete example of the effects of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal in Iraq, lawyers and human rights groups in Egypt, a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, say that local police are increasingly resorting to new torture tactics similar to those used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Several lawyers and human rights groups told IPS in phone interviews over the past two weeks that the Egyptian State Security Police used methods that mirrored those in Abu Ghraib, like stripping some detainees naked -- a rare practice in Egyptian prisons, even though the country has a long record of human rights abuses and prison torture.

Other practices include taking pictures or threatening to take pictures of prisoners naked, which the groups say was a hugely uncommon occurrence in the past; and blindfolding and handcuffing detainees for long periods of time, which also prevented them from fulfilling their religious obligations, such as praying five times a day.

But perhaps most disturbing to domestic human rights groups is the growing use of the name "Abu Ghraib" by officers to threaten further torture of detainees, and its significance as a code term for applying electricity to the genital area.
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http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=24311