From ABC News:
Top commanders in Iraq put intense pressure on interrogators to extract useful intelligence information from prisoners, yet that does not explain the sexual humiliation and other abuse of prisoners under U.S. control, an investigation has concluded.
The report by Navy Vice Adm. Albert T. Church said the pressure was not excessive. The investigation could find no “single, overarching reason” why prisoners under U.S. control were abused at the Abu Ghraib prison complex in fall 2003 and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Command pressure for more intelligence was to be expected in a battlefield setting, Church wrote.
“We found no evidence, however, that interrogators in Iraq believed that any pressure for intelligence subverted their obligation to treat detainees humanely,” he wrote in a summary of his findings.
Church, a former Navy inspector general and now director of the Navy staff, was presenting his report to Congress on Thursday. A copy of a 21-page executive summary was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Church concluded that no civilian or uniformed leaders directed or encouraged abuse, and his report holds Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top defense leaders largely blameless on the narrow question of pressuring interrogators as well as the larger matter of interrogation policies.
James Joyner characterizes the report’s findings (as filtered through the WaPo and NYT) this way:
On the one hand, as I’ve always believed, there was no systematic policy calling for routine abuse of prisoners, including those presumed to have especially valuable intelligence. On the other hand, it’s been clear for a while that the pressure to gain actionable intelligence was, quite reasonably, strong but that the boundaries were not well specified.
…To which I reply: sure. But that’s a good thing. No sanctioning of abuse, but the strong desire that interrogators get actionable intelligence made manifest by an intentionally vague set of parameters: to my mind, this is the most forceful way to (legally) craft interrogation policy against an enemy not granted protection under the Geneva Accords. Stricter guidlelines could potentially quash evolving methods that might prove quite successful; and with an enemy beholden not to the chain of command of some national army but rather to voluntarily participating in a plan to bring about our total destruction, I’m for stretching the boundaries to the very limits allowed for under law.
But then, I’m a xenophobic neocon warmongering chickenhawk, a hater of the brown peoples. So, y’know…what did you expect?
****
More here, here, here, here, and here.
Top editors in New York and Washington put intense pressure on journalist to present useful information to the public, yet that does not explain the document forgeries and other abuse of the standards of journalism under their control, an investigation has concluded.
I get pretty brown in the summer. Will you be hating on me then?
Overheard at Abu Ghraib:
Top Commander: We are not getting the volume and quality of highly reliable intel that we need and the shit is beginning to roll down hill.. and when the shit rolls down on me..I roll it on down to you…
Interrogator:..but Sir, we’ve been using all of the techniques currently authorized by DoD.. We asked “Please”.. we’ve asked “Pretty Please”.. We’ve even modified the technique by adding ‘with sugar on top’.. we’ve talked sternly to the prisoners and in our ‘outside’ voice. We’ve even stormed out of the interrogation room and slammed the door to express our displeasure.. but no dice.. these terrorists are pros trained in interrogation resistance.
Top Commander: Enough! I dont want to hear excuses.. I want results! The Cowboy is breathing down our necks on this .. so we need to up the ante. take our techniques to the next level. Effective immediately I am authorizing use of the extreme measures to extract the neccessary intel, to include; speaking harshly and even lying to the prisoners; naming their penises funny names such as “Mr Happy” and “Pencil Dick”; Forced participation in naked cheerleading routines; The wearing of ‘Old Lady’ panties on their heads; forcing them to be “a bottom” to a butch dyke “top” and all that entails. Any questions?
Interrogator: No Sir! We’re on it Sir!
Top Commander: Good. Good. See that you are, because if our useable intel doesnt get better, the next step will be to throw the Geneva Accords out the window and do what none of us want to be forced to do…
Interrogator: Sir..you dont mean….
Top Commander: Yes, I’m afraid I do… We’ll have to stand them all up next to the mud pit near the barracks and force them to watch as several of our nubile, firm young female PFCs engage in nude mud wrestling..
Interrogator: ::Gasp:: Sir, you cant be serious.. These men are Muslims! They cant survive the sight of a naked western babe..we’ll be condemned by the whole free world like the UN & France & Germany..Amnesty International will be on us like stink on shit!
Top Commander: I know..I know.. I dont like it any better than you do.. So you better get out there and make the funny penis names work so we dont have to do the unthinkable.. Dismissed.
Turing word: military
as in: mud wrestling, military style.
So did the report account for the separation of Church and state?
Well, isn’t that special?
A.B., I love your screenplays. They always crack me up, even when I’m in them. But the military stuff is awesome.
Is the chalice light on? Because I thought that Bee was going to start talking about the oral sex. What with those freedom fighters being so pure and all.
Muslims. Cut or uncut? I’m thinking cut.
If anybody needs me, I’ll be watching TV.
Jeff, Your brilliance goes without saying.
Hey Jeff, did Hassan and Tamil go off to participate in the Lebanese ‘Syria Go Home’demonstation or are they still stuck in the bunker in Ramadi? or did they go to the Pro Syria rally to ogle the muy western babe?
Turing word: find
As in: find Tamil and Hassan in this picture of 500,000 pro Syria demonstrators all checkin out the chick.
Gail: Thanks! High praise indeed, coming from a person whose vocabulary forces me to carry a Websters dictionary and a PDA with Google on me at all times. That goes for the other Angels as well..
All Hail Shinto Jeff.
Hail.
Hail.
(Don’t piss him off. He gets so sardonic when he’s pissed.)
Hail.
I don’t care what the rules are on torture. But I do think that anyone wearing an American uniform idiotic enough to take pictures of anything even remotely torture related ought to be shot. Or maybe just tortured. And the torturers of the torturers, they too shouldn’t have cameras.
Get rid of the cameras, and the whole problem goes away.
f
I agree wholeheartedly.. Those three young, nubile PFC girls that stripped off their uniforms and did a little impromptu mud wrestling were on the right track.. though ultimately, even without their names above their pockets they were identified and are supposedly going to be punished.. I dont think shooting them would be too good for morale though..(you had to see the looks on the guys faces as they mud wrestled.. the guys would lay down their lives for them) but perhaps a sound spanking while bent over the commanders knee is in order.. after all, they have been very naughty, dirty little soldiers.
And of course, to protect their privacy, no cameras will be allowed.
Sgt Alpha Baboon
5th Special Baboon Forces (Abn)
1st Special Operations
Keyword: although
As in: Although, covert digital infrared & low light/starlight recording equipment will capture every visual detail and every smack of the palm on bare buttocks will be captured in dolby surround sound. Presale reservations will be taken for this important DVD starting June 2005