In his radio address of Saturday, May 1, President Bush bragged about progress in Iraq: "At the most basic level of justice, people are no longer disappearing into political prisons, torture chambers and mass graves – because the former dictator is in prison himself."
He got it half right. True, the former dictator's in prison. But the torture of prisoners continues. The only difference is: Now it's Americans who are conducting the torture, not Saddam Hussein.
What the hell were they thinking? That's the question everyone's asking, as photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners make their way around the world in newspapers, on television and online. Didn't they realize what they were doing was wrong? Did they forget what uniform they were wearing? And why take photos?
Ever in denial, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refused to call what happened at Abu Ghraib prison "torture," but the 53-page report by Army Gen. Antonio Taguba contradicts him.
Quoting several witnesses, Taguba charges that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." Abuses included: punching, slapping and kicking detainees; arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick; positioning a naked detainee on an MRE box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes and penis to simulate electric torture.
If that's not torture, I don't know what is.
As if that's not bad enough, now we learn that the pattern of abuse is even more widespread. It wasn't limited to one prison, nor to Iraq. The Army is also investigating 25 cases of suspicious deaths of inmates in Iraq and Afghanistan, two of which have already been identified as cold-blooded murder of prisoners by American military guards.
President Bush was right to condemn the abuses. And the Army was right to file charges against six officers involved, while reprimanding seven others. But unfortunately, the damage has already been done – to the military and to the country. Other than Saddam Hussein's retaking power, nothing could be worse for the image of the United States around the world.
Does anyone doubt that those photos of nude men, forced to carry out or simulate sexual acts before the camera, are already being used in al-Qaida training videos? This shows what Americans are all about, they will say. This is why they are evil. This is why we must continue our jihad against them. And we're the ones who put that anti-American ammunition in their hands.
There's more than enough blame to go around. Responsibility rests, most of all, on the Neanderthal intelligence officers who ordered the abuse, as well as the mindless soldiers who carried it out. In a few hours, they wiped out an entire year of good deeds performed by thousands of brave men and women. Dishonorable discharge is not punishment enough. Some of them should also go to prison for violating the military code and betraying the trust placed in them by the American people.
But blame also rests squarely on the shoulders of the hapless Donald Rumsfeld, both for allowing the abuse to happen in the first place and for not acting immediately to condemn it.
The evidence of repeated criminal abuse of prisoners is just the latest, and worst, example of Rumsfeld's lack of planning for postwar Iraq. One year later, Iraq is still a dangerous war zone. Over 700 Americans have been killed and Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are united against our troops – all because Rumsfeld naively believed Americans would be welcomed as liberators. He made no plans for the occupation of Iraq and still refuses to send in more troops.
When reports of prisoner abuse first surfaced last fall, Rumsfeld, oblivious to the potential explosive damage to the nation, did nothing. He never personally inquired about conditions at the prison. He didn't notify Congress. This week, even after the shocking photos had flooded the airwaves, Rumsfeld admitted he still hadn't read Taguba's report, refused to apologize for the abuse of prisoners and insisted "the system works."
President Bush must now convince the world we will punish the guilty and never allow such abuses to happen again. If he really means it, the first thing he should do is fire Donald Rumsfeld.