Involvement of Superior Officers at Abu Ghraib to Be Raised

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http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-dyn%2Fcontent%2Farticle%2F2006%2F05%2F21%2FAR2006052101119_pf.html


Abuse Trial Revives Old Questions
Involvement of Superior Officers at Abu Ghraib to Be Raised

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 22, 2006; A10

As the Iraq insurgency grew rapidly in the spring of 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld complained to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in the country, that he was not seeing results from the interrogations of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers.

"Why can't we figure this enemy out?" Sanchez recalled Rumsfeld asking in frustration, according to a previously unreleased transcript of a July 2005 interview by senior Army investigators. "Was there intense pressure? You bet. You bet there was intense pressure" to extract more from the interrogations, Sanchez said -- some of it self-imposed and some of it emanating from "different levels of the chain of command."

The involvement of senior Pentagon officials in policymaking associated with the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib later in 2003 will once again be debated in a military court at Fort McNair beginning today, during one of the last two trials involving Army personnel accused of the abuse recorded in photos circulated around the world.

Ten military courts-martial have essentially concluded that the acts -- including forced nakedness, the use of leashes and sexual humiliation -- were perpetrated by rogue personnel, working under poor supervision and in violation of their military orders. But the trial this week of a sergeant who threatened Abu Ghraib detainees with a military dog will for the first time include the testimony of a key military officer who carried out policy instructions issued by senior officials in Washington.