Impunity Continues 2 Yrs after Abu Ghraib Revelations
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- Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 23:36:01 GMT
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Impunity Continues 2 Yrs after Abu Ghraib Revelations
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
InterPress Service - Apr 27, 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8908
Impunity Endures Two Years After Abu Ghraib
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Two years after the abuse by U.S. soldiers of detainees at Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq first came to light, accountability for what turns out
to have been a widespread pattern of mistreatment at several detention
sites, including torture and at least eight homicides, remains elusive,
according to a new report released by three major human rights groups here
Wednesday.
"By the Numbers: Findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project"
says that at least 330 credible cases of abuse involving 600 U.S. personnel
and 460 alleged victims have been reported in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at the
U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since late 2001.
So far, however, only 40 troops - almost all of them low-ranking enlisted
personnel - have been given prison terms. Of these, 30 were sentenced to
less than one year's confinement, even in cases involving serious abuse,
such as the beating deaths of two detainees at the detention facility at
Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
"Two years ago, U.S. officials said the abuses at Abu Ghraib were
aberrations and that people who abused detainees would be brought to
justice," said Meg Satterwhite, who directs the Center for Human Rights and
Global Justice at New York University (NYU) Law School. "Yet our research
shows that detainee abuses were widespread, and few people have truly been
brought to justice."
Moreover, only three officers have been convicted in courts martial for
their part in detainee abuse, and none under the doctrine of command
responsibility, a principle incorporated into U.S. military law that
provides that a superior is responsible for the criminal acts of
subordinates if he or she knew or should have known of them and failed to
prevent them or punish those responsible.
"Our findings reveal a picture of military discipline from which the
doctrine of command responsibility is completely absent," noted Elisa
Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First (HRF), an attorneys'
group that includes many retired military lawyers and judges.
"This tradition has been taught as a key component of [military] leadership,
but today that doctrine seems to be vanishing, replaced by an abdication of
responsibility up the chain of command," she added.
The report found that some 20 civilians, including officers of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), have been referred to the Department of Justice
for criminal prosecution for detainee abuse. But to date, the department has
failed to indict a single CIA official. One CIA contractor has been indicted
for assault in the case of the beating death of an Afghan detainee in 2003.
The 27-page report, which was compiled by the Detainee Abuse and
Accountability Project (DAA), a joint initiative of the NYU Center, HRF, and
Human Rights Watch, comes amid a simmering debate over recent demands by
half a dozen retired generals for the resignation of Pentagon chief Donald
Rumsfeld, who explicitly authorized the use of interrogation techniques that
human rights defenders contend constitute torture or inhumane treatment.
While the generals, several of whom served in senior command posts in Iraq,
have focused their criticism on Rumsfeld's failure to heed military advice
on the number of troops of needed to secure Iraq, some, as well as many
retired military lawyers, have also cited his responsibility for the
detainee scandal.
"The national embarrassment of Abu Ghraib can be traced right back to
strategic policy decisions," wrote ret. Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who
commanded the First U.S. Infantry Division in Iraq, in the Washington Post
last week. "We provided young and often untrained and poorly led soldiers
with ambiguous rules for prisoner treatment and interrogation. ... The
tragedy of Abu Ghraib should have been no surprise to us."
Perhaps in anticipation of this week's anniversary, the Pentagon was
expected to formally charge Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the former head of the
interrogation center at Abu Ghraib, with dereliction of duty and conduct
unbecoming an officer for his role in the abuse.
If so, he would be the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib to face a court
martial for the prison abuses that so far have sent six low-ranking soldiers
to prison and resulted in reprimands, fines, and other administrative
sanctions of several more senior officers.
"We would welcome [such a prosecution] if it happens," said HRW's John
Sifton, who also worked on the DAA report. He stressed, however, that,
despite his position in the chain of command, Jordan was still not being
charged for the more serious offenses of his subordinates under the command
responsibility doctrine. "It's not as though these are serious, felony-type
counts," he said.
The DAA report, which stressed that the number of reports it has collected
is "likely an undercount," found credible reports of more than 1,000
individual criminal acts of abuse on which the 330 cases were based. At
least two-thirds of the total number of cases took place in Iraq; at least
60 in Afghanistan; and 50 at Guantanamo.
Of the 330 cases, 120 were either unresolved or went uninvestigated,
according to the report, which cited one case, originally reported by the
Los Angeles Times, regarding the alleged abuse of five Iraqi women Abu
Ghraib, in which military investigators never even interviewed the alleged
victims.
Similarly, the report cites another case regarding the detention and alleged
beatings and abuse in January 2004 of four Iraqi employees of Reuters and
NBC in which, despite several appeals by Reuters, the military closed the
case without speaking to the victims.
The 210 cases in which investigations appear to have taken place involved at
least 410 personnel, 95 percent of whom were enlisted soldiers, according to
the report.
One hundred sixty cases - involving a total of 260 personnel - appear to
have ended without any action being taken against the accused, the report
concluded.
Administrative or disciplinary action, such as demotions, fines, or other
penalties involving minimal or no prison time, appear to have been taken
against 57 personnel, while a total of 79 others have been court-martialed.
Of the 79 courts-martial, 54 resulted in convictions. Of these, 40 soldiers
were sentenced to prison time averaging four months, according to the
report, which noted that light punishments were accorded in a number of
serious cases.
One included the "mock execution" of four Iraqi youths. In that case, a
Marine was sentenced to 30 days of hard labor without confinement and a fine
of $1,056.
In another case in which a detainee was repeatedly shocked "with an electric
transformer," two Marines received dishonorable discharges and sentences of
one-year and eight-month confinements, respectively, while a third received
60 days of confinement.
The report renewed long-standing appeals for Congress to appoint an
independent commission to review U.S. detention and interrogation policies
and operations and to require each branch of the military to certify that
any officer whose promotion requires Senate confirmation has not been
implicated in any case of detainee abuse either directly or through the
doctrine of command responsibility.
*
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