United States Human Rights Violations:
Abu Ghraib and Beyond, by Scott C. Smith
Conservatives have been working overtime to portray the eventsat Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as nothing more than fraternity pranks, and not blatant violations of the Geneva Convention. The right-wing pundits, like Rush Limbaugh, would like to sweep under the rug any investigation into prisoner abuse, whether it is at Abu Ghraib or at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's all an isolated incident involving a few soldiers, they say. The problem with that analysis is this: it's not true.
And while the death of Ronald Reagan may have given the Bush administration a brief reprieve from events, investigations into the abuse continue.
One of the recent developments, according to ABC News, was the decision by a military judge to declare Abu Ghraib a crime scene. The move by military judge Colonel James Pohl to declare Abu Ghraib a crime scene effectively blocks a promise George W. Bush made to demolish the prison.
Conservatives may not be taking the abuse scandal seriously; everyone else involved is.
A furious effort is underway to pass the buck of responsibility, which, so far, has not been accepted by George W. Bush or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The question remains: who is ultimately responsible for policy at Abu Ghraib that allowed for torture in violation of the Geneva Convention?
On June 17, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the officer at Abu Ghraib who oversaw interrogations, testified to U.S. Army investigators that he was told last September that White House staffers, according to the June 20 USA Today, wanted to "pull the intelligence out" of the interrogations being conducted at Abu Ghraib.
The abuse has attracted worldwide attention. The group Human Rights Watch released a scathing report, The Road to Abu Ghraib, and placed the blame directly on the policies of the Bush administration.
Revelations about abuse continue to surface. Time Magazine is reporting on accusations of abuse that go beyond the sexual humiliation already reported. Classified portions of abuse testimony by Maj. General Anthony Taguba include a report on the abuse of two female prisoners by members of military intelligence. Another detainee testified he had been taken from his home outside of Baghdad and sent to Abu Ghraib, where he claims military police applied electric shock to his genitals three times, resulting in a ruptured vein. The man was later released, according to Time Magazine, and told by a U.S. civilian that he had been wrongly accused by military police. Whoops.
Charges of abuse are not exclusively aimed at America. British forces also face charges of abuse in Iraq. According to the Guardian of London newspaper, military police are investigating charges that British soldiers mutilated the bodies of Iraqi insurgents following a firefight last month. A British Army spokesman dismissed the charges as "absurd" and said, "Such claims are an insult to the whole British army and an attempt to stain the image of men who are putting their lives at risk every day to secure Iraq for the Iraqis."
The situation in Abu Ghraib clearly is not just an isolated incident involving a few U.S. soldiers. The question is, will the buck of responsibility find its way to the person who is ultimately responsible, Donald Rumsfeld? It's doubtful. Most likely is a lower-level civilianofficial will take the fall for Rumsfeld.
As of June 2, the U.S. Army was investigating 91 claims of abuse at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an issue that cannot be swept under the rug, and it will not go away no matter how many times Sean Hannity says on his radio or television show that the scandal is overblown and over reported. The only question that remains is, will we learn the full truth, and will those at the top be held responsible? This close to an election, and I'm going to guess the answer to be no.
-- Scott C. Smith, June 2004
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