TruthNews Commentary, May 5, 2004

The news that American guards abused Iraqi prisoners is distressing not just because of the public relations disaster, but because it represents a complete breakdown in the military chain of command. The Pentagon has already announced that soldiers who committed these acts will be tried by court martial. But it remains to be seen whether any action will be taken against the officers who allowed the abuse to occur.

The abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad were first investigated when a soldier, disturbed by the goings-on at the prison, went to officials with his allegations on January 13. The next day, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, US Army commander in Iraq, launched a criminal investigation. The criminal investigation has resulted in the Army charging six military policemen with a variety of offenses. According to the Pentagon, the soldiers are still serving in Iraq, although not as military police, and will remain there until the investigations are complete. The offenses against them include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts with another.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as defended the Army's investigation. He said in an interview, "The system worked.  And it was announced publicly.  There was no secret about it.  They went right before the world in Iraq and told the Iraqi people, the American people, everyone." We agree with Rumsfeld, to a point. The system worked, once someone made a complaint. But before that, why weren't the military commanders inspecting the prison and keeping tabs on what their subordinates were doing? Why weren't they drilling their troops on the conduct expected of them? This is where the leadership failed. Commanders are responsible for the conduct of their troops. By not drilling their troops in proper conduct, by not insisting on troop discipline, by not rooting out and cracking down on misbehavior, these commanders have embarrassed the nation and endangered the mission in Iraq.

The Pentagon has announced administrative reprimands against some of the lower-ranking supervisors, who apparently knew about the prison abuses but weren't directly involved in them. But the higher-ranking commanders need to be held accountable as well. Ignorance, in this case, is no excuse, because the commanders should have been aware of what was going on in their commands and, even before that, provided the proper training to their troops. Something that was particularly disturbing about the soldiers' misconduct in Iraq is their assertion that they were taking direction from civilian contractors. This reflects, in part, the Pentagon's over-reliance on contractors; however, no commander should ever abdicate his command authority to a contractor.

Command responsibility is as old as war. The U.S. Army hanged Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita in 1946 for allowing the men under his command to commit atrocities in the Philippines during World War II. Unlike many other WWII war criminals, Yamashita was not hanged for direct complicity in war crimes but rather for not preventing them. The American prosecutors argued that the atrocities committed by Japanese troops were so widespread that Yamashita must have known of them, or, if he did not, "it was simply because he took affirmative action not to know."

When the My Lai massacre occurred in Viet Nam, everyone up to the two-star division commander was held responsible. But in recent years, the trend has been to hold no one responsible. No one was punished for the accidental shoot-down of an Iranian airliner by the cruiser Vincennes in 1988, killing 290 civilians. No one was held responsible for the security lapses that allowed the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, killing 241 Marines. And no one has been held responsible for the security failures that allowed 9/11 to occur. We still have the same FBI director, CIA director, and Transportation Department secretary that we had before 9/11.

To be sure, there's something hypocritical about the condemnation America is getting from the Arab world on the prison scandal. When Saddam Hussein murdered 300,000 of his fellow Iraqis, there was hardly a peep out of the Arab world, the UN, or the press. But this is because the world expects dictators to be homicidal maniacs. If they kill less than one percent of their nation's population, then they're considered "moderates." But America is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and democracy, so when we fall short of our ideals, we're universally condemned.

President Bush has said that the United States will punish those found guilty of abuse. "That stands in stark contrast to life under Saddam Hussein," he said. "His trained torturers were never brought to justice under his regime. There were no investigations about mistreatment of people. There will be investigations. People will be brought to justice." But the question remains -- will those in charge of the perpetrators be held accountable for their failures of leadership?