[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Abu Ghraib, the Next Step

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Abu Ghraib, the Next Step

August 27, 2004
 


 

For months, John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, has been gamely resisting pressure from
Republican leaders to call off his hearings on the Abu
Ghraib prison disaster - the only real sign of life on
Capitol Hill on this important issue. Mr. Warner was
patiently awaiting the outcome of a set of Pentagon
investigations, including one by the Army and one by a
civilian panel set up by Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld. Both issued reports this week, and it's clear
that Mr. Warner still has work to do. 

The Army report did a painfully professional job of
criticizing its own enlisted men and officers, including
the three-star general who commanded American forces in
Iraq at the time of the prison brutality and his two-star
deputy. But it was not up to the Army to review the actions
of the policy makers in Washington. It was also pretty
obvious that Mr. Rumsfeld's panel - two former secretaries
of defense, a retired general and a former Republican
congresswoman - was not going to produce a clear-eyed
assessment of responsibility. 

The two new reports do make it starkly evident that
President Bush's political decision to declare the war over
far too prematurely and Mr. Rumsfeld's subsequent bungling
of the occupation set the stage for the prison abuses. But
the panel announced that it did not see any need to hold
the secretary accountable, or even to subject him to any
real direct criticism - even though its members thought the
events warranted criminal charges against dozens of
uniformed men and women. 

At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Warner was careful
to leave open the possibility that his committee would
disagree with the panel's conclusions and that Congress
would need to investigate Abu Ghraib on its own. He even
pointedly reminded Mr. Rumsfeld that the secretary of
defense is "captain of the ship," and "ultimately has to
take responsibility." But Mr. Warner has set a schedule for
further action that does not promise to lead to a real
investigation, or to produce any satisfying answers for the
public about Abu Ghraib, before the election. 

Mr. Warner scheduled a hearing on the civilian panel's
report for Sept. 9, when the committee's 25 members will
get about eight minutes each for questions and comments.
After that hearing, and after the Defense Department reacts
to the report, and after the Pentagon finishes the
investigations still under way, Mr. Warner said it would be
time to decide what to do next. It's understandable that
the courtly and loyal Mr. Warner would not want to push his
party's leaders too far this close to an election. But the
public has waited for months while Mr. Rumsfeld's team
withheld documents from Congress and stonewalled senators'
questions. 

The Senate Armed Services Committee should call upon the
Congressional leadership of both parties to form an
investigative committee, with subpoena powers, to review
this disaster, which has damaged the reputation of the
American military and the United States around the world. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/opinion/27fri1.html?ex=1094634546&ei=1&en=bcd7a3fa04a68252


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