WASHINGTON – The blame for abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison lies mainly with the American soldiers who ran the notorious jail, but senior commanders and top-level Pentagon officials including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can be faulted for failed leadership and oversight, an independent commission said Tuesday.
“There was chaos at Abu Ghraib,” said James Schlesinger, the secretary of defense for the Nixon and Ford administrations who headed the four-person commission appointed by Rumsfeld.
The report described the abuse as “acts of brutality and purposeless sadism,” and said – as have others who reviewed the case – that the soldiers involved were not acting on approved orders or policies.
On the other hand, the report contradicts the Bush administration’s assertion that the problem was limited to a few soldiers acting on their own. So far, seven military police soldiers have faced criminal charges; two dozen or more military intelligence soldiers may also be charged, but it appears increasingly unlikely that top-level commanders will be disciplined.
No senior officials deserve to be punished, the Schlesinger commission members told a Pentagon news conference after briefing Rumsfeld. They said they believe the Pentagon is on a path to remedying the underlying causes of the abuse.
Schlesinger said soldiers who stacked naked Iraqi prisoners in pyramids, forced them into positions of sexual humiliation and confronted them with snarling guard dogs were renegades.
“It was a kind of ‘Animal House’ on the night shift,” he said.
The Schlesinger commission was not asked to assign legal culpability; that is being done in Army investigations, including one, known as the Fay report, scheduled to be made public today.
The Schlesinger panel, which reviewed the Fay report and other related investigations, said disciplinary action “may be forthcoming” against Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib; and Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, assigned to Abu Ghraib last year.
Karpinski contends she was not alerted to abuses at Abu Ghraib until they were brought to the attention of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, in January 2004.
The Schlesinger report aims significant blame at Sanchez, saying that while he was understandably focused on fighting a mounting Iraqi insurgency at the time of the abuses, he should have ensured that his staff dealt with Abu Ghraib’s command and resource problems.
“Commanders are responsible for all their units do or fail to do, and should be held accountable for their action or inaction,” the report said.
Associated Press
The final report issued Tuesday on mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison cites a lack of oversight by top officials.
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