Neo-Conned! Again

by D Liam O'Huallachain

  Karpinski and a “Few Rotten Apples”?

  The only general officer to be punished thus far in conjunction with the abuse at Abu Ghraib is Janis Karpinski, formerly a brigadier general and now an Army colonel. The results of the investigation by Lt. Gen. Stanley E. Green, the Army Inspector General (IG), recommending her punishment were released by anonymous Army spokesmen late on a Friday – April 22, 2005. The IG report, “designed to be the Army's final word on the responsibility of senior leadership in relation to the abuses” (emphasis mine),2 exonerated the other general officers higher up the chain – Wojdakowski, Fast – along with Col. Mark Warren, the CJTF-7 Staff Judge Advocate, calling “unsubstantiated” the suggestion that they failed to prevent or stop abuses. Interestingly, the findings of the Green investigation exactly reflect the prediction made to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, over a year ago, regarding the probable results of earlier investigations. Scott Horton, an international law and human rights expert, and a New York City Bar Association official who has interacted with numerous military and legal professionals as the detainee abuse story has developed, told Hersh, “Rumsfeld has completely rigged the investigations. My friends say we should expect something akin to the [earlier] Army IG report – 'just a few rotten apples.'”1

  Not surprisingly, the April 2005 announcement prompted yet another plea for an investigation capable of looking up as well as down the chain of command. In a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union, Executive Director Anthony D. Romero commented:

  These findings only show that the President must appoint a special counsel – who is not beholden by rank or party and who is able to look up the military chain of command …. The Army has released thousands of pages of internal documents – after months of stonewalling – that clearly show that the command breakdown that led to these abuses was more than the work of one scapegoated officer.2

  To his credit, Senator Warner also issued a statement, pointing out how it is “absolutely essential to determine what went wrong, up and down the chain of command, both civilian and military.”3

  It was widely reported in the media that, as a result of Green's investigation, Karpinski was “recommended for punishment for the failures that led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison”4 and that she was in fact demoted to colonel – approved by President Bush on May 5, 2005 – “in the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.”5 In spite of the exoneration of her seniors, many have considered her punishment as at least a step towards holding someone accountable for the abuses that occurred. The strange fact is, however, that though Karpinski's performance of duty was found to be “lacking,” the statement released by the Army on May 5 indicated that “the investigation determined that no action or lack of action on her part contributed specifically to the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib” (emphasis mine).1 She was reprimanded instead for an as yet unexplained “dereliction of duty,” and – believe it or not – for shoplifting.

  Josh White noted in his Washington Post report that it seems “Pentagon officials are trying to have it both ways.” They want credit for taking the Abu Ghraib scandal seriously, without conceding that a general officer who was removed from the day-to-day running of the prison could be held truly accountable for what went on in the prison. Such a concession might implicate those well above Karpinski. Her lawyer, Neal A. Puckett, agreed: “I think they're trying to have it both ways. They are severing the chain of command right at her eyeball level, and not letting it go higher.”2

  Aside from Karpinski, several other officers either have been or will be reprimanded. According to the Army:

  … 27 officers, including Karpinski, received punishments ranging from court-martial to letter of reprimand.

  The officers include one colonel, four lieutenant colonels, three majors, 10 captains and six lieutenants.3

  In addition, several lower-ranking enlisted have or will receive punishments, ranging so far from 10 years of confinement to forfeiture of a half-month's pay. These punishments, along with Karpinski's demotion and the high-profile trials of individuals such as Jeremy Sivits, Charles Graner, Ivan Frederick, Javal Davis, Megan Ambuhl, Lynndie England, and Sabrina Harman, are signals to many of the Army's willingness to hold individuals accountable. A Christian Science Monitor article from early June 2005 reports some 370 U.S. government investigations into abuses resulting in roughly 130 punishments of varying severity.4 The narrow focus of these numerous criminal and disciplinary proceedings, however, begs the question of what official policy was when these so-called “few rotten apples” committed various forms of abuse. In the case of Col. Thomas Pappas, the former commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade who was fined, reprimanded, and relieved of command for dereliction of duty, his punishment was the specific result of just “two instances relating to interrogation operations at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in late 2003 and early 2004.”1 In spite of the political usefulness of his punishment, it would be a stretch to suggest that it represents a real acceptance of accountability by senior government officials. If anything, the facts would bear a contrary interpretation. It – along with Karpinski's demotion and the other soap-opera-like trials of the junior enlisted (a May 10, 2005, New York Times piece said appropriately that England's trial was “a spectacle worthy of As the World Turns”) – seems more like a convenient distraction. Regardless of who did what – indeed all of these individuals may in fact be guilty of specific violations – hammering a few dozen folks for a few dozen specific actions seems to miss the point.

  The frustration many no doubt feel in watching the abuse scandals unfold – along with the candidly flawed approach to investigating them – was well captured by a New York Times editorial that appeared a month after the exoneration of Karpinski's colleagues:

  The administration has provided nothing remotely like a full and honest accounting of the extent of the abuses at American prison camps in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It has withheld internal reports and stonewalled external inquiries, while clinging to the fiction that the abuse was confined to isolated acts, like the sadistic behavior of one night crew in one cellblock at Abu Ghraib. The administration has prevented any serious investigation of policy makers at the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon by orchestrating official probes so that none could come even close to the central question of how the prison policies were formulated and how they led to the abuses.2

  Probable Cause

  The impetus behind calls for a significant and serious investigation into the responsibility of the highest authorities for Abu Ghraib and similar misconduct is not in any way nullified by any of the judicial or non-judicial punishment that has been or will be meted out. There is plenty of evidence that the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib during the latter part of 2003 were indeed the result of a specific policy, if not concrete direction, from individuals at the top of the chain of command. Regardless of whether a few “bad apples” went overboard, the question that remains, and that is perhaps most of interest to average people, is whether the self-professed “good apples” might have been out of bounds as well. And no trial that is obsessed with just “two specific instances” and one individual at a time is going to determine that.

  Numerous facts, reports, and statements from individuals close to the Abu Ghraib events point to the involvement of senior officials in decisions that indirectly or even directly contributed to abuse. Notwithstanding the memos produced by DoJ and DoD, which in and of themselves are incriminating, there are a number of compelling reasons why the “few bad apple” line is not persuasive, and why senior individuals should be investigated with the power and independence to do so fully.

  The “bad apple” line – firstly – doesn't make a lot of sense. Karpinski related a number of reasons why during the course of her very credible and persuasive interview with The Signal, which she gave on July 4, 2004.1 The military police (MPs) in her command were thoroughly trained at their mobilization stations on GC requ
irements as part of their pre-deployment training. They also trained occasionally throughout the year – training which included sessions by included Karpinski's brigade and battalion JAG officers. Interestingly, Karpinski relates that her MPs frequently questioned her JAGs “[b]ecause their prisoners [were] asking questions. And the reasons they were asking questions was because every prisoner was provided with a copy of the Geneva-Hague conventions in their language” (emphasis mine).2 Copies of GC requirements were posted on the wall of the cellblocks in each one of the compounds, and even on the concertina wire, she noted. Lack of familiarity with their requirements hardly seems feasible.

  The dates of the pictures of abuse didn't make sense to her either. Assuming the photos that were made public were taken in October 2003, the MPs guarding the wings where the abuse took place would have been there only three weeks, as they were newly assigned to Abu Ghraib at that point.

  “[They] served successfully in another location for about eight months,” Karpinski said, and “moved to Abu Ghraib … but that would mean that in three weeks, [they] get their feet on the ground, go to work, and decide that they could do these things and get away with it because they felt so comfortable with their surroundings? I don't believe it.”3

  Their assignment to the cellblocks where the abuse took place – 1A and 1B – was odd as well, she said. Normally individuals would be allocated by squad according to the judgment of the first sergeant, who would know the strength of the different squads. In the case of 1A and 1B, “That didn't happen it was two from the first squad, three from the second squad.” This suggests that the individuals were “hand picked” for interrogation support, as outlined by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller during his visit to the prison from August 31 to September 9, 2003. Karpinski says convincingly:

  … I know, sincerely, I know in my heart, that these MPs were instructed to do what they did, what has been widely published in photograph form. And they believed that the orders that they were being given, were being given by people authorized to give them those orders.

  Critics of Karpinski's point of view suggest the MP's “should have known better,” no matter if they were ordered to do what they did or not (implicitly acknowledging that they probably were ordered to do something they shouldn't have).1 But, as an interesting Washington Monthly article on Abu Ghraib noted in November of 2004, how likely is that any of the junior enlisted personnel – or even the junior officers – would have felt comfortable questioning orders, especially given that “the memoranda from the White House [had] stamped the interrogation tactics with the imprimatur of legality”?2

  It may be unrealistic to expect that a junior enlisted soldier such as England, or even her immediate supervisor, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, would have the knowledge or the temerity to contradict [orders to interrogate prisoners coercively] when they were given. The effect of the Bush administration's exhaustively creative research into breaking the rules was virtually to ensure that every player in this tragedy went along and followed orders.3

  As noted earlier, the investigations into the treatment of detainees take as a given the legality of this Bush-administration position. The most recent report (Schmidt-Furlow), dealing with the FBI allegations of abuse at GTMO, exonerated most of the individuals investigated on the grounds that their acts were not “in violation of Army Field Manual 34–52 and DoD guidance.”4 But interrogations conducted within the parameters of that guidance in fact resulted in a “high-value” detainee being subjected to

  160 days of segregation from other detainees, 48 of 54 consecutive days of 18-to 20-hour interrogations, and the creative application of authorized interrogation techniques [such as r]equiring the subject … to be led around by a leash tied to his chains, placing a thong on his head, wearing a bra, insulting his mother and sister [they were called “whores”], being forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator for five minutes, and using strip searches as an interrogation technique ….1

  Although the Schmidt-Furlow investigation concluded that the “cumulative effect” of these actions constituted “degrading and abusive treatment,” it also said that they “did not rise to the level of prohibited inhumane treatment,” and that “every technique employed … was legally permissible.” Gen. Schimdt followed this up by asserting, at the July 13, 2005, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing convened to hear testimony on his report, that “no torture occurred.”2 But if the law itself was the enabler in this case for technically “legal” treatment which Schmidt and Furlow – somewhat contradictorily – said Gen. Miller should have “limited,” the responsibility rests clearly with those who promulgated the law, and not with those who followed it. As Senator Levin put it during the hearing, “It is clear from the report that detainee mistreatment was not simply the product of a few rogue military police in a night shift.”3 That's also the perspective of one of the soldiers accused of the prisoner abuse detailed by Tim Golden for the New York Times: “I just don't understand how, if we were given the training to do this, you can say that we were wrong and should have known better.”4

  Aside from the commonsense objections to the “bad apple” approach, there is also a plethora of eyewitness and second-hand reported testimony about the involvement of very high authorities within DoD. This is not to say that senior generals committed acts of abuse. But they may quite credibly have ordered or at least consciously created the conditions for it. (The point was hinted at with some wit by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) when, during an April 28, 2005, Congressional hearing on defense intelligence, he raised a question about the Army's plan to release a revised interrogations manual barring techniques employed in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. McCain didn't see how the Army and DoD could acknowledge, implicitly, that doctrine and leadership played a role in the prison abuses – by revising the manual and specifically addressing the Abu Ghraib techniques – while at the same time refusing to admit any failing on the part those at the top of the chain of command. As the senator put it to Under Secretary Cambone during the hearing: “So we didn't do anything wrong, but we won't do it again.”1 McCain's skepticism is probably warranted: the approval authority for the new Army manual, thanks to her position as head of the Army Intelligence Center in Arizona, is Barbara Fast, who “played an extensive role in developing policies and practices for the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib.”2)

  As noted above, Maj. Gen. Miller and another general officer told an FBI agent plainly that they got their marching orders from Rumsfeld. Importing interrogation techniques to Abu Ghraib, in order to improve intelligence collection, lay behind Miller's personal visit to the prison. (GTMO interrogations reportedly employed methods unrestricted by GC protections, under the assumption that detainees there were not entitled to GC prisoner of war status.) “Rumsfeld pointed out [in a summer, 2003, intelligence briefing]3 that Gitmo was producing good intel,” a Newsweek report stated.

  So he directed Steve Cambone, his under secretary for intelligence, to send Gitmo commandant Miller to Iraq to improve what they were doing out there. Cambone in turn dispatched his deputy, Lt. Gen. William (Jerry) Boykin – later to gain notoriety for his harsh comments about Islam – down to Gitmo to talk with Miller and organize the trip.4

  This is confirmed by a Washington Post report indicating that the trip was authorized by “a memo signed on Aug. 18, 2003, [by] the Pentagon's Joint Staff, acting on a request from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top intelligence aide, Stephen A. Cambone.”5 It was also recently confirmed by Maj. Daivd Dienna, testifying at an Article 32 hearing for soldiers accused of prisoner abuse in Iraq. “We understood that [Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense,” he said, and that training teams were sent to Abu Ghraib “to take these interrogation techniques, other techniques they were using in Guantánamo and try to incorporate them in Iraq.”6 Scott Horton, in expert testimony submitted to a German court in Karlsruhe on January 31, 2005, for a lawsuit against senior U.S. officials filed by the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR) in New York, confirms the visit and its origin as well. “[T]his simple fact,” he writes, “well known to many senior officers involved in the process, is consciously suppressed in all official reports issued by DoD.”1 Drawing out the consequences of the meeting with Rumsfeld and Miller's assignment, Horton continues:

  … the decision to introduce the Guantánamo techniques (or “Gitmoize”) – consciously crafted in evasion of the requirements of the GC – and to introduce them to Iraq, where the Conventions clearly applied, rested on the express and unlawful order of Rumsfeld.2

  Karpinski attests to Miller's visit as well. “Gen. Miller was one of several visitors that we got that came for a review of our operations,” she said.

  But … Gen. Miller came to visit the military intelligence officer of the headquarters; that was Brig. Gen. [Barbara] Fast. And he was there to help them enhance and improve their interrogation operations. The reason we were included at any point in his visit was because he wanted to visit several of my prison facilities ….

  [D]uring the in-brief, he made reference several times to his plans to “Gitmoize” the interrogation operations. And he was the commander down at Guantánamo Bay; he was extremely successful, apparently, in getting actionable intelligence from the interrogations that were being conducted there. And he was going to use that template of operations in Iraq.3

  Interestingly, DoD's own Schlesinger report records that during his visit to Iraq, Miller brought with him the interrogation guidance approved for GTMO (the April 16, 2003, memo from the secretary of defense), and noted specifically that it applied to “unlawful combatants” and not to Iraq, where GC protections were recognized by the U.S. The report further notes, however, that Sanchez's September 14, 2003, memorandum authorized interrogation techniques even beyond those authorized for GTMO.4 Perhaps this subtle willingness to approach the interrogation of combatants in Iraq the way that interrogation of GTMO “unlawful combatants” was conducted is exactly the kind of “uncertainty” as to “adversary status” that Gonzalez referred to in the memo cited in January 2005 by the military JAGs. First hand testimony suggests that this uncertainty existed among the rank and file, and contributed to its share of abuse.5 Detainees in Afghanistan were also treated “exceptionally” based on the belief that GC protections didn't apply there, according to recent reports.1 Most troubling is the fact that this uncertainty as to detainees “status” should never in the first place have been construed by the U.S. as authorizing an exemption, in the case of so-called “enemy combatants,” from the duty of interrogators and military police to refrain from subjecting detainees to torture or to cruel, degrading, or inhumane treatment. As a recent Boston Globe editorial puts it, “international and U.S. anti-torture laws allow no such exemptions.”2