The Abu Ghraib Scandal
A similar silence can be heard on the much similar Abu Ghraib scandal. The Abu Ghraib scandal was possibly the worst public relations distaster for the American army and it’s government in the entire war. It has certainly been a turning point in changing America domestic opinion about the conduct of the war. People were suddenly made aware of the harsh reality of torture, committed by their forces, captured on film. Memories of war crimes committed in Vietnam quickly sprang to mind, and the entire chain of command in Iraq was held accountable by Americans themselves.
How the story came out itself is worthy of note. It was one of the 372nd reservists that came out with tapes of the torture practices and showed them to military police in Januari 2003. This was four months after the torture had started with assistance of special forces, and even had White House approval. Condolissa Rice herself, who was National Security Advisor at the time, had even gone out of her way to compliment the prison authorities. Soon after the media frenzy had brought about an enquiry in the scandal, it became relatively quiet again.
In fact, there were 3 subsequent enquiries, all investigating the army reservists who were involved with the tapes. No attention was given to prior orders given by their ranking officers, and even higher up in the chain of command up to Donald Rumsfeld.
Press conferences were given in April in which the Bush administration emphasized their rejection of torture. President Bush insisted that treatment of prisoners was always within the framework of American law as this excerpt from the G8 summit in June 2004 shows:
Q: Mr. President, the Justice Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that as Commander-in-Chief you have the authority to order any kind of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any time?
THE PRESIDENT: No, the authorization I issued, David, was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That’s the message I gave our people.
Q: Have you seen the memos?
THE PRESIDENT: I can’t remember if I’ve seen the memo or not, but I gave those instructions.
Q: Returning to the question of torture, if you knew a person was in U.S. custody and had specific information about an imminent terrorist attack that could kill hundreds or even thousands of Americans, would you authorize the use of any means necessary to get that information and to save those lives?
THE PRESIDENT: Jonathan, what I’ve authorized is that we stay within U.S. law.
Q: Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we’ve learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that’s not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?
THE PRESIDENT: Look, I’m going to say it one more time. If I — maybe — maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We’re a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of — from me to the government.
President Bush hereby says that American law does in fact support torture if it’s interpreted in a certain way. What’s also important is what is not being said. He does not answer the reporters questions in full, but gives one short answer on three separate questions. He does not answer the ‘moral question’, or leaves it for the reporter to figure out for himself and any conclusion he takes can easily be refuted by the administration. We see that one strategy of the White House is not to engage in dialogue but instead appease the media with simple answers.
The White House spinners had a field day with the affair though. Rumsfeld himself was now in the picture, and with him the entire administration. The one strength of the Bush administration is however it’s constistency in standing together. As was expected President Bush stood up for Rumsfeld as the following excerpt shows of an interview of President Bush in May 2004 from the official White House website: (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040505-5.html)
Q: Evidence of torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. personnel has left many Iraqis and people in the Middle East and the Arab world with the impression that the United States is no better than Saddam Hussein regime. Especially when this alleged torture took place in the Abu Ghraib Prison. What can the U.S. do, or what can you do to get out of this?
THE PRESIDENT: First, people in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent. They must also understand that what took place in that prison does not represent America that I know. The America I know is a compassionate country that believes in freedom. The America I know cares about every individual. The America I know has sent troops into Iraq to promote freedom — good, honorable citizens that are helping the Iraqis every day……That stands in stark contrast to life under Saddam Hussein. His trained torturers were never brought to justice under his regime. There were no investigations about mistreatment of people. There will be investigations. People will be brought to justice.
Q Mr. President, in a democracy and a free society, as you mentioned, people investigate, but at the same time, even those who are not directly responsible for these events take responsibility. With such a problem of this magnitude, do we expect anyone to step down? Do you still have confidence in the Secretary of Defense?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, of course, I’ve got confidence in the Secretary of Defense, and I’ve got confidence in the commanders on the ground in Iraq, because they — they and our troops are doing great work on behalf of the Iraqi people. We’re finding the few that wanted to try to stop progress toward freedom and democracy. And we’re helping the Iraqi people stand up a government. We stand side-by-side with the Iraqis that love freedom. And — but people will be held to account. That’s what the process does. That’s what we do in America. We fully investigate; we let everybody see the results of the investigation; and then people will be held to account.
Q If your State Department issues a human rights report about practices around the world and abuses, and we call upon countries every once in a while to try to put pressure on them to allow International Red Cross to visit prisons and detention center, would you allow the International Red Cross and other human rights organization to visit prisons under the control of the U.S. military?
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, we’ll cooperate with the International Red Cross. They’re a vital organization. And we work with the International Red Cross. And you’re right, we do point out human rights abuses. We also say to those governments, clean up your act. And that’s precisely what America is doing. We’ve discovered these abuses; they’re abhorrent abuses. They do not reflect — the actions of these few people do not reflect the hearts of the American people. The American people are just as appalled at what they have seen on TV as the Iraqi citizens have. The Iraqi citizens must understand that. And, therefore, there will be a full investigation, and justice will be served. And we will do to ourselves what we expect of others.
President Bush is rather famous for his rethorics, and some of it is clearly visible in this last interview. Orwellian use of words is amply visible in the use of the word ‘freedom’, which means the exact opposite for many Iraqis. To divert attention to Saddam’s ‘trained torturers’ is also interesting to note, since this implies that America does not employ trained torturers. Something that lies at the base of the Abu Ghraib incident and to which I will later return.
PFC Lynndie England and six other enlisted reservists, among which her boyfriend, were arrested and they have since been sentenced to jail. The ‘full’ investigation that was promised by President Bush was not as full as it should have been though. It was not independent either. To expect the world to give any credit to this investigation is a lot to ask, let alone the Iraqi people. To later enquiries about accountability Bush responded to the Washington Post that the American people had supplied the accountability needed by electing him. In other words, somehow the American people did not need a court or investigation but had pardoned the entire chain of command by putting renewed faith in it and the case appeared to be closed.
Donald Rumsfeld himself, however, is in a real sense responsible for the scandal at Abu Ghraib. He himself had publicly attested right after 9/11 that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to terrorists, and in 2002, when he visited Abu Ghraib on an inspection tour, he failed to clarify guidelines on torture, and in fact wanted to ‘push the envelope’ in torturing prisoners by, for instance, ordering them to stand for prolonged periods of time. Major General Miller then aggravated the situation by ordering the detainers to “actively engage in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees”, which is about as ambiguous as it gets. Interpretation of this guideline can go anywhere, as it did in Abu Ghraib. General Miller was later put in the position to ‘clean up the prison act’, and to make sure distasters like this would not happen again. Again, an order that can be interpreted in two ways.
There is much much more information to be collected though. Cases of rape, killing, and child prisoners have been mentioned in the media, but not brought together in a single case against the U.S. military. There is however one movement that is actively trying to keep the topic alive, which is the Centre of Constitutional Rights. The CCR is an American non-profit non-governmental organisation that keeps a check on all violations of human rights and the U.S. constitutional rights.
It started with the Washington Post when it published a report on how the CACI had won a 23 million dollar contract extension with the U.S. military to continue interrogation and torture in Iraq. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ A41215-2004Aug4.html) The CACI is an intelligence organisation based in Britain that is still involved in a judicial dispute with the Centre of Constitutional rights who charge the CACI to “scheme to torture, rape, and in some instances summarily execute plaintiffs”. Not a light accusation.
CACI was in control of the Abu Ghraib interrogations, although they still don’t confirm it. They had 29 employees at Abu Ghraib, according to Senate testimony during the trials. However, they could not be held accountable, because their work is classified and cannot be made public. The investigative report that was made up clearly accuses two civilian CACI employees to be part of the torture practices, but CACI protects it’s employees by saying that they were under orders of the military, and that their people were highly trained — implying there was some cilivity in their torture practices perhaps? (http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/corporate/ caci_internatonal/) When trying to get information on the current status of the lawsuit against CACI I came across the official statement as quoted by their lawyer John F. Connor:
“This motion is just the latest effort by a group of unprincipled lawyers to twist and invent facts in an attempt to dictate the United States’ policies in Iraq, and to defame and extort financial compensation from CACI. CACI has at all times provided highly qualified interrogators in support of the United States’ mission in Iraq and is proud of the patriotic service its employees have rendered. Indeed, plaintiffs’ motion deceitfully fails to acknowledge that the interrogators provided by CACI without exception satisfied all of the qualifications set forth in the Statement of Work issued to CACI by the United States government.
“By way of example, all of the interrogators provided by CACI are United States citizens with a minimum Secret or higher security clearance, meaning that they have undergone extensive background investigations in the course of obtaining such clearances. Among the clearest principles of American law is that decisions relating to the composition, training, equipping and control of a military force are professional military judgments with which the federal courts will not interfere.
“Therefore, we are confident that the Court will deny the plaintiffs’ latest in a long string of frivolous and disingenuous filings in this action.”
Interestingly the Centre of Constitutional rights won the dispute, and as of September 2005 the CACI was forced to withdraw it’s employees from Iraq. It is currently pursuing the case to make cases against Donald Rumsfeld, as you can read in this quote from the CCR website:
CCR President Michael Ratner, who traveled to Berlin to file the complaint, said “From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of Iraq policy must be investigated and held accountable. It is shameful that the United States of America, a nation that purports to set moral and legal standards for world, refuses to seriously investigate the role of those at the top of the chain of command in these horrible crimes.” “Indeed,” Ratner added “the existence of ‘torture memos’ drafted by administration officials and the authorization of techniques that violated humanitarian law by Secretary Rumsfeld, Lt. General Sanchez and others make clear that responsibility for Abu Ghraib and other violations of law reaches all the way to the top.”
This does not hide the fact that the media is still not giving it the attention it deserves. Again an example of how ‘ommitting news’ is a vital instrument in media spinning. At this moment two human rights groups are trying to build cases against Donald Rumsfeld based on his actual orders with regards to prisoner treatment, and the concept of command responsibility. We do not hear much about the process of the trials, and the entire person of Donald Rumsfeld has virtually disappeared from the media playgrounds. So, unlike the media silence would have us believe, the Abu Ghraib story is not over yet, and it will be interesting to see how it will end.
The CIA has since continued their ‘practices’, and the latest on this that it is now officially become known as torture. Former CIA employees have stepped forward themselves, and news agencies have reportedly got information from inside sources as well, regarding the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. These include, according to AFP: (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usattacksprisonsciainterrogation)
Attention Grab, Attention Slap, Belly Slap, Long Time Standing, Cold Cell, Water Boarding:
- In “Belly Slap,” interrogators deliver “a hard open-handed slap to the stomach” intended to cause pain but not internal injury.
- In “Long Time Standing,” prisoners are forced to stand handcuffed and shackled for more than 40 hours.
- In “The Cold Cell” a prisoner is made to stand naked in a cell kept near 10 degrees C (50 degrees F) and is continually doused with cold water.
- Water Boarding brings results within seconds, the sources said. A prisoner is tied onto a board with his feet higher than his head, and his face is wrapped in cellophane. When water is poured over him, he begins to gag and begs to confess.
Human Rights Watch is one of the organisations that is actively pursuing to bring these practices to an end, by in effect take the CIA to court. According to John Sifton of Human Rights Watch “The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.” The CIA itself “would neither confirm nor deny the accounts. They simply declined to comment,” according to ABC. A report made by CIA inspector general John Helgerson however describes 10 techniques authorised and used by the U.S. military that violate the international Convention Against Torture, according to current and former officials in the Bush administration.
There is currently much ado about the CIA torture practices that are conducted outside of the U.S. in countries where torture is not illegal. How these trials will eventually be staged is as yet unclear. I’m curious myself as to how the media will pick up on it, as there’s a shift of public opinion towards opposition against the war in the U.S. itself. Perhaps this will induce newsagencies to stick their necks out a little bit more, and help build public awareness about crimes committed in their name.
Well, of course that’s another talking point: is it a crime? Is the U.S. torturing P.O.W.’s, or are they merely using “unique and innovative ways to extract information legally from terrorists who are not P.O.W.’s.”? A lot of it is semantics: Define ‘war’. Define P.O.W. Define ‘torture’. Define ‘legal’. And try to define all of these terms, in each different report you read about this topic.
The discussion has been going on in the background since the Abu Ghraib scandal, but at the start of 2006, when new pictures and films were shown of prison brutality, the discussion is again forced in public. This time new footage and images come from Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are shown covered in feces, threatened by dogs, humiliated, and in a word: tortured. And again there is outspoken criticism, again an investigation. But this time it is even UN secretary Kofi Annan that says the practices at Guantanamo are illegal, and the facility must close.
The top US envoy for public diplomacy however defends Guantanamo, as well as Secretary of State Rumsfeld, saying that the investigators have not visited Guantanamo and hence can not judge correctly. The investigators say in their turn that they were only allowed restricted access to the facility, which led them to the conclusion that Guantanamo has to be closed. The US is not going to do that though, as is made clear by Secretary Rumsfeld (3 feb 18, AP),
