Sam Pillay
Responsibility for the abuse of prisoners in Iraq reaches all the way to General Richard Myers, who is the chairperson of the joint chiefs of staff, and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to the United States Army Times online edition.
In a scathing editorial of May 17 headlined "A failure of leadership at the highest levels", the Times revealed that the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan has been responsible for at least two homicides of prisoners.
It said: "Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war ...
"But the folks at the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons."
The editorial adds: "But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.
"The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.
"In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world."
It was particularly scathing of Myers who, it said, had not read a damning report on prison abuses in Iraq but called on the US 60 Minutes TV programme to delay reporting news of the scandal on the grounds that it would put US troops at risk.
The Times report also castigated Rumsfeld for refusing to read the report. It concluded: "This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, May 26, 2004.
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