Focus: Iraq prison abuse scandal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212697,00.html
Catastrophe
The White House faced its biggest crisis over Iraq last week, but its origins lie in practices that may have been routine. We reveal how the abuse of prisoners began long before the sickening images which have outraged the world appeared
Peter Beaumont in London, Paul Harris in New York, and Jason Burke in Baghdad
Sunday May 9, 2004 --The Observer There are two versions of what Specialist Sabrina Harman, a US military police officer, was doing with a camera in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. According to her mother, the former assistant manager of Papa John's pizza restaurant in north Virginia was collecting evidence of improper treatment in the jail.
Robin Harman told yesterday's Washington Post that when her daughter told her what she was doing during her two weeks' leave at home last November, she told her to stop. 'We got into an argument about it at 4 am. Sabrina said she had to prove this. I told her to bring the pictures home, hide them and stay out of it.' It is not an explanation accepted by military investigators probing Harman's role in the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Neither is it an explanation seemingly borne out by the digital photographs seized from Harman's laptop. Among the hundreds of pictures found is one taken before her unit got to Abu Ghraib last October - a gruesome trophy photograph showing Harman crouching by a decaying corpse giving the camera a thumbs-up and a grin.
------snip-------
Suddenly an administration that seemed immune to bad news from Iraq has been forced on the defensive as the images of Harman and her colleagues cheerfully abusing prisoners in their charge have emerged as a metaphor for the coalition's failures in Iraq.
That it has been a catastrophe for US foreign policy is asserted by usually robust senior Pentagon officials who claim privately that Iraq policy is now '97 per cent disaster' and the war is no longer being planned but crisis-managed from day-to-day. And catastrophe was the word used by the beleaguered Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during his humiliating appearance before Congress. ---------snip---------
But if Rumsfeld thought that was the end of it, he was dead wrong. At least three senior White House officials, with the President's authority, then leaked the scolding to the media. Karl Rove, Bush's political guru, took the lead in spinning the story. Rove had been furious to see Bush 'blindsided' due to Rumsfeld's failure to alert the White House to the crisis.
As he scanned Thursday's morning headlines, Rumsfeld knew his future was on the line. One defence official last week went so far as to say that Rumsfeld was 'white as a sheet' that day. But by then the White House was in full crisis mode. Shortly after the Wednesday morning meeting with Rumsfeld, crews from two Arab networks arrived and began setting up equipment in the Map Room. Bush had scooped a hole in his busy schedule to speak directly to the Arab world.
The interviews began at 10 am, each lasting 10 minutes. Several senior aides had advised Bush to apologise, as Rice had done the day before. But when the interviews ended, stunned officials were still left waiting for the magic 'I'm sorry'. Onlookers from the State Department were horrified.
They had included a strong recommendation Bush apologise for the Abu Ghraib abuses in a so-called 'talking points' memo to the President.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
