Untarnished brass
After months of intensive investigations - including taking sworn statements from 37 people who were directly involved - officials representing the office of the United States Army Inspector General announced April 22 that four top and seven lesser officers have been cleared of wrongdoing in connection with the prisoner abuse scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. The officials who disclosed the findings of the investigations did so on condition of anonymity because Congress had not yet been fully briefed on the IG’s findings.
The four officers, including Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez (three stars), Maj. Gen. Walter Wojhakowski, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, Col. Mark Warren and eight other senior officers at or above the rank of colonel, were facing allegations of leadership failures. None were facing criminal charges.
Inspector General Stanley E. Green concluded that allegations against the 11 were unsubstantiated. This, despite the fact that earlier investigations into leadership lapses and related matters pointed at Sanchez and others for errors that may have contributed to the prisoner abuse. For instance, the report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations (aka. the Schlesinger Report) said of the general and his team, "We believe LTG Sanchez should have taken stronger action in November [2003] when he realized the extent of the leadership problems at Abu Ghraib. His attempt to mentor BG Karpinski, though well-intended, was insufficient in a combat zone in the midst of a serious and growing insurgency. Although LTG Sanchez had more urgent tasks than dealing personally with command and resource deficiencies at Abu Ghraib, MG Wojdakowski and the staff should have seen that urgent demands were placed to higher headquarters for additional assets. We concur with the [Faye-]Jones findings that LTG Sanchez and MG Wojdakowski failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations."
It appears that Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, the Army Reservist in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade and fifteen detention facilities in southern and central Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) will be the only one left twisting in a shamal by the Inspector General, who concluded that allegations against her could be substantiated. As noted by Seymour Hersh in his book Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Karpinski was “quietly” suspended from her command in January 2004, though the Army has maintained that her departure was part of a normal troop rotation. Karpinski reportedly received a written reprimand, the nature of which is unknown to the public, and was demoted to Colonel on May 5, 2005 (which effectively ends her military career).
So, 11 regular service officers have had their careers salvaged, while an expendable reservist takes the weight for a scandal which, by all rights, should have triggered the rolling of many senior heads, right on up to and including those in the highest levels of the Pentagon - both military and civilian.
Though far be it for me to defend Karpinski, who is by no means without fault in the Abu Ghraib scandal and fully deserves what was meted out to her; she should not stand alone in being held accountable for the lapses which caused the abuse, torture and murder to happen. It is called a chain of command for a reason, and she was not the only weak link in that chain.
In CNN's coverage of the April 22 IG release, it noted, “…three senior defense officials associated with the Green investigations cited mitigating circumstances in the Sanchez case. That included the fact that his organization in Iraq, known as Combined Joint Task force 7, initially was short of the senior officers it required, they said. They also cited other complicating factors, including the upsurge in insurgent violence shortly after Sanchez took command and the intense pressure the military faced in hunting down Saddam Hussein, who was hiding and thought to have a hand in the insurgency.”
However, in case nobody was paying attention (apparently, they weren't), Karpinski also had her hands full. According to the Schlesinger report: "Of the 17 detention facilities in Iraq, the largest, Abu Ghraib, housed up to 7,000 detainees in October 2003, with a guard force of only about 90 personnel from the 800th Military Police Brigade. Abu Ghraib was seriously overcrowded, under-resourced and under continual attack. Five U.S. soldiers died as a result of mortar attacks on Abu Ghraib. In July 2003, Abu Ghraib was mortared 25 times; on August 16, 2003, five detainees were killed and 67 wounded in a mortar attack. A mortar attack on April 20, 2004 killed 22 detainees." (Seven-thousand detainees with only 90 personnel - that's a ratio of 77 to one. The ratio at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay is one-to-one.)
It appears that Sanchez and the 10 other poor dears had too much on their plates to be concerned with abuse, including torture and murder, happening right under their noses, and the powers-that-be have excused them for it.
There are those who called it right, right from the start - "Watch. Karpinski will be the scapegoat."
Low and behold.
R.G. McGillivray
http://www.rgmcgillivray.com/pages/1/index.htm
The four officers, including Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez (three stars), Maj. Gen. Walter Wojhakowski, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, Col. Mark Warren and eight other senior officers at or above the rank of colonel, were facing allegations of leadership failures. None were facing criminal charges.
Inspector General Stanley E. Green concluded that allegations against the 11 were unsubstantiated. This, despite the fact that earlier investigations into leadership lapses and related matters pointed at Sanchez and others for errors that may have contributed to the prisoner abuse. For instance, the report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations (aka. the Schlesinger Report) said of the general and his team, "We believe LTG Sanchez should have taken stronger action in November [2003] when he realized the extent of the leadership problems at Abu Ghraib. His attempt to mentor BG Karpinski, though well-intended, was insufficient in a combat zone in the midst of a serious and growing insurgency. Although LTG Sanchez had more urgent tasks than dealing personally with command and resource deficiencies at Abu Ghraib, MG Wojdakowski and the staff should have seen that urgent demands were placed to higher headquarters for additional assets. We concur with the [Faye-]Jones findings that LTG Sanchez and MG Wojdakowski failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations."
It appears that Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, the Army Reservist in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade and fifteen detention facilities in southern and central Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) will be the only one left twisting in a shamal by the Inspector General, who concluded that allegations against her could be substantiated. As noted by Seymour Hersh in his book Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Karpinski was “quietly” suspended from her command in January 2004, though the Army has maintained that her departure was part of a normal troop rotation. Karpinski reportedly received a written reprimand, the nature of which is unknown to the public, and was demoted to Colonel on May 5, 2005 (which effectively ends her military career).
So, 11 regular service officers have had their careers salvaged, while an expendable reservist takes the weight for a scandal which, by all rights, should have triggered the rolling of many senior heads, right on up to and including those in the highest levels of the Pentagon - both military and civilian.
Though far be it for me to defend Karpinski, who is by no means without fault in the Abu Ghraib scandal and fully deserves what was meted out to her; she should not stand alone in being held accountable for the lapses which caused the abuse, torture and murder to happen. It is called a chain of command for a reason, and she was not the only weak link in that chain.
In CNN's coverage of the April 22 IG release, it noted, “…three senior defense officials associated with the Green investigations cited mitigating circumstances in the Sanchez case. That included the fact that his organization in Iraq, known as Combined Joint Task force 7, initially was short of the senior officers it required, they said. They also cited other complicating factors, including the upsurge in insurgent violence shortly after Sanchez took command and the intense pressure the military faced in hunting down Saddam Hussein, who was hiding and thought to have a hand in the insurgency.”
However, in case nobody was paying attention (apparently, they weren't), Karpinski also had her hands full. According to the Schlesinger report: "Of the 17 detention facilities in Iraq, the largest, Abu Ghraib, housed up to 7,000 detainees in October 2003, with a guard force of only about 90 personnel from the 800th Military Police Brigade. Abu Ghraib was seriously overcrowded, under-resourced and under continual attack. Five U.S. soldiers died as a result of mortar attacks on Abu Ghraib. In July 2003, Abu Ghraib was mortared 25 times; on August 16, 2003, five detainees were killed and 67 wounded in a mortar attack. A mortar attack on April 20, 2004 killed 22 detainees." (Seven-thousand detainees with only 90 personnel - that's a ratio of 77 to one. The ratio at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay is one-to-one.)
It appears that Sanchez and the 10 other poor dears had too much on their plates to be concerned with abuse, including torture and murder, happening right under their noses, and the powers-that-be have excused them for it.
There are those who called it right, right from the start - "Watch. Karpinski will be the scapegoat."
Low and behold.
R.G. McGillivray
http://www.rgmcgillivray.com/pages/1/index.htm
posted by RG McGillivray at 10:29 a.m.
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