C&L:Sy Hersh on Taguba’s Abu Ghraib investigation

[cal04]

Sy Hersh joined Wolf on CNN this morning to talk about his new piece in The New Yorker: “How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.” It’s another important story that Sy has brought to our attention. The lies that were told about the Abu Ghraid scandal are staggering as this WH implemented torture into its playbook and the soul of America. (video)


http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/17/sy-hersh-on-tagubas-abu-ghraib-investigation/

HERSH: Very simply that the notion, as they told Congress, that our leader, Rumsfeld, Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense and his aides, they all went and testified in May after the stories about Abu Ghraib became public that “Oh, my god, we just didn’t know about it until — we didn’t realize how serious it was” is simply not true.

The fact is that, within a few days of the incident first getting reported internally, which was in January of ‘04, the back channel was flying. There were messages going. And the back channel showed very clearly the documents – the actual cables show that Rumsfeld and his aides and Wolfowitz and his aides and the director of the Joint staff, all these senior people at the Pentagon were getting very detailed — they didn’t see the photographs; they were getting verbal accounts of the photographs that made it very clear.

(snip)
Whether the President was told about Abu Ghraib in January (when e-mails informed the Pentagon of the seriousness of the abuses and of the existence of photographs) or in March (when Taguba filed his report), Bush made no known effort to forcefully address the treatment of prisoners before the scandal became public, or to reëvaluate the training of military police and interrogators, or the practices of the task forces that he had authorized. Instead, Bush acquiesced in the prosecution of a few lower-level soldiers. The President’s failure to act decisively resonated through the military chain of command: aggressive prosecution of crimes against detainees was not conducive to a successful career.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. How did it play on the tube?

Like, how did Leslie react and all that? Did Sy actually get to say his say?

[Spazito]

3. Blitzer was very low-key during that interview, imo

it surprised me, I expected him to be his usual, accusatory, bush admin defender but he wasn't. He didn't really interrupt Hersh while he was answering. I thought it was a good interview, not what I had expected given it was Blitzer.

[Kagemusha]

2. So Rumsfeld really didn't see the photographs. But he knew what they contained

That's something we (the public) didn't know before, and that does fly in the face of Rumsfeld's testimony that he (and 'they') did not know how bad the abuse was. They consciously avoided seeing the pictures so they'd never have to admit to having done so but, apparently they'd been told in lurid detail about the contents.

[Peace Patriot]

5. The trouble is I think we're getting the pyramid of info upside down, and I don't

blame Hersh for this, of course. He has to deal with the information he has. But that information is somewhat dictated by Rumsfeld's responses--that the issue is WHEN he was apprized of the abuse. And you end up with this upside down feeling, reading Hersh's account, that there was this huge scandal of lawlessness and inhumanity in the lower ranks that Rumsfeld first claimed he hadn't heard about, and now we know he'd "heard about it" as early as January.

What I mean by upside down is that the scandal didn't spring out of nowhere. It was DICTATED from the top. Thus, their date of being apprized of how well their torture plan was working in the lower ranks is irrelevant.

I think the general mayhem, roundups of people and torture, was cover for specific targets that Rumsfeld and Co. were after--targets that have nothing whatever to do with "keeping us safe," and likely have to do with hiding evidence of Bush Cartel money trails to Al Qaeda, 9/11 and other attacks, arms deals with Saddam, that sort of thing, as well as oil giant business interests, such a eliminating honest Iraq leaders who would do what is best for their people.

Rumsfeld's M.O. was to let the looters have fun--freedom = the freedom to loot. He operates best in chaos. So, stir up torture, crime, indency toward prisoners, amidst random roundups and random deaths, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and all over the world (they were kidnapping many people), as flak for his real targets. We get distracted by the general horror. He gets a specific set of tasks accomplished, all having criminal intent and cover up intent, nothing to do with any real "terrorism" fight.

[Gregorian]

4. There is nothing more damning!

If this doesn't take down the administration, nothing will.

[Gregorian]

6. ¥

kick