IN THE NEWS
Are we now in a political, moral, and military mess of our own creation? Or is this just a necessary but messy phase of a war we needed to fight? The timeline can answer this question:
After 9/11, the Bush Administration, with the support of Congress, declares that the United States is now engaged in a war on terrorism, “a war like no other we have faced.”The Administration asks for new tools to fight a new enemy. While the reorganization of various agencies into the Department of Homeland Security takes a while to get underway, the legal and prosecutorial changes happen almost immediately. The PATRIOT Act, indefinite detention of terror suspects not just in Guantanamo Bay but also in US federal prisons and INS facilities, and various surveillance measures are, according to the Administration, vital to defeating international terrorism. Concerns about civil rights violations, the tainting of evidence, and the political backlash in the Muslim and Arab worlds are downplayed, or justified as a cost much lower than letting future 9/11s happen. At no point is the question of whether extraordinary measures are even needed, or if instead existing law enforcement measures just need to be carried out more effectively.
The anthrax scare heightens public anxiety. The FBI never arrests anyone, although suspicion falls for a short time on a weapons lab scientist. Although the notes sent with the anthrax talk of jihad, the possibility remains that a domestic individual or group may have been the source of the attack (and the notes just a red herring).
The United States invades Afghanistan and begins the process of (1) indefinitely detaining “enemy combatants” outside any jurisdiction other than the Department of Defense, and (2) giving military intelligence the responsibility for interrogating “high value” detainees, and (3) removing many safeguards, including both US law and the Geneva Conventions, designed to prevent the abuse of detainees.
After the Afghan invasion, the Bush Administration turns its attention to Iraq. As one of the three members of the purported “axis of evil,” Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program is both a danger if Iraq itself uses these weapons, or if it provides these weapons to anti-American terrorists. The Bush Administration also accuses Iraq of funding, training, and providing other forms of support to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
The United States invades Iraq. Having put a smaller force into combat than the Joint Chiefs had requested, US and allied troops are spread thinly across the country.
Once widespread looting breaks out, the undersized Coalition force in Iraq is helpless to prevent it. In the eyes of Iraqis, the first of many blows to US credibility as a liberator occurs.
Rather than destroy Abu Ghraib prison, the United States takes over as the new warden of this facility. The worldwide network of detention facilities now expands into Iraq. These secret prisons include a number of "ghost detainees" with no trail to trace their identity, location, or alleged involvement with terrorism. The CIA and Department of Defense moves many of these detainees to Abu Ghraib.
Paul Bremer replaces Jay Garner as the chief occupation administrator. Bremer disbands the Iraqi military and security forces. Both the police and intelligence capabilities of the former regime are now unavailable to the Coalition. Later efforts to rebuild the police make little headway, hitting problems ranging from insurgent attacks on the police training facility during graduation exercises, to the retreat of the police during the the Fallujah sweep.
Guerrilla attacks on Coalition forces begin. The United States is in a difficult position, having too few troops to secure all of Iraq (particularly urban areas), and also too few “intelligence assets” (such as Arabic language skills) available. Emboldened by the first wave of attacks, the insurgents escalate the number and scale of attacks.
In polls, a large percentage of Americans demonstrate confusion over the basic facts about Iraq and 9/11. A majority of Americans falsely believe that there is substantial evidence of a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. These misimpressions go as far as a widespread belief that many of the hijackers were Iraqis. The Administration, as well as its allies in Congress and the media, do nothing to dispel this mistake.
The Bush Administration downplays domestic terrorism to the point of almost being silent about it. Meanwhile, domestic terrorist plots continue, most recently in the case of the “Project 7” group in Montana. Public fears of terrorism continue to be focused on foreign sources.
Prisoners sent to Abu Ghraib and other facilities now under US control remain in indefinite custody, without access to lawyers or family. As in Guantanamo Bay, the United States justifies this treatment because (1) many of the prisoners are alleged to have important information about the insurgency, weapons of mass destruction, or terrorist groups, and (2) the United States needs to fight “a war like no other” with all means available.
The Coalition sweep of Iraq discovers no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, or even an active WMD program. Equally damaging is the absence of any link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. (Unlikely in any case, given the hostility between Islamists and Hussein.) However, the Administration insists that both the weapons and the terrorist links will be found.
Counterinsurgency sweeps of Iraqi cities create a growing number of prisoners to be interrogated. The percentage of prisoners who were innocent of involvement with the insurgency remains unknown, but Red Cross sources cite figures as high as 70% to 90%.
Prisoner abuse begins. Rather than immediately stopping the abuse, the troops involved continue hearing that “softening up” is an important step in getting vital information that the prisoners supposedly have.
Reports of abuse in these prisons begin as early as 2003 in Iraq, and earlier in Afghanistan. However, the US government takes no visible action to investigate or stop these abuses. Reports from Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and even the US military itself (the Taguba report) result in no action other than a legal investigation.
Abu Ghraib, Baghdad airport, and other detention facilities undergo some major changes. Military intelligence increasingly takes over the interrogation of “high value” prisoners. At the same time, given the manpower shortfall, contractors fill in slots as both guards and interrogators. An increasing proportion of the military and contractor (mercenary) staff have no training for guard or interrogator duties. The Defense Department removes the Judge Advocate General (JAG) observers who normally act as a safeguard against the abuse of prisoners. The result is a blurring of accountability, oversight, and the chain of command in these facilities.
British troops carry out a parallel interrogation effort, founded on the same “R2I” principles that US troops use. Similar abuses result.
Complaints of similar types of torture and humiliation mount from detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The existing insurgency intensifies (for example, with the suicide attack in Karbala), and the United States becomes involved in conflicts with new groups, such as al-Sadr’s “Army of the Mahdi.”
The abuse of prisoners continues and expands to the level where interrogators and guards begin distributing digital photographs of torture and humiliation to one another—even using them as background graphics on PCs. Whistle blowers report the abuses to military investigators and leak the photographs to CBS News.
JCS Chairman Myers asks the producers of 60 Minutes II to withhold their story about the prison abuse, including the photographs, for two weeks. The current siege of Fallujah, Myers argues, could turn into a nation-wide revolt if the pictures are released at this time.
The delayed release of the photographs occurs. Top civilian and military officials say that they were aware of the abuse and had already started taking action to shut it down, even though most of them had not read the Taguba report or seen the photographs.
In short, we could easily have avoided looking like we had ousted one set of torturers in Abu Ghraib to install our own. Whether you think that’s a fair perception or not, it’s the perception many people in Iraq—and the rest of the world—now have of us. We fought a war to create a political outcome, which of course hinges on how we’re perceived. Unfair or not, the perception is the truth we have to face.
The Bush Administration, since 9/11, has been pushing hard for the removal of Constitutional, legal, and administrative constraints, based on the “war like no other” principle. These “constraints” include safeguards to prevent atrocities like those that occurred in Abu Ghraib.The Bush Administration has failed to dispel falsehoods about the terrorist threat and Iraq. In fact, top Bush Administration officials have heightened the anxieties these misimpressions created, citing WMDs and Iraq/al Qaeda connections that did not exist. These misimpressions extend to the interrogators in Abu Ghraib, who apparently thought their prisoners had information on WMDs.
By fighting the war in Iraq as it did—without the kind of alliance that existed in 1991, and without the troops that US military chiefs requested—the Bush Administration has placed our troops in a state of constant siege. In the minds of troops in Iraq, anyone in a crowd could be an assassin; any crossroads could contain a bomb; any sweep could end in a bloody ambush. This chaotic, deadly situation has led to a distrust and even hostility to average Iraqis.
The Bush Administration’s fetish for privatization of the military has made accountability impossible. Worse, privatization has intensified the drive to throw someone, anyone into situations where the people involved lack the training or motivation to do difficult jobs like prisoner interrogation or patrolling dangerous areas.
An Iraqi prisoner, innocent or guilty of involvement in the insurgency, is therefore someone suspect from the very beginning of his interrogation. US troops feel the pressure of finding WMDs, or the people who have killed their fellow soldiers. They don’t understand Iraq, or even Arabic. They’re encouraged to be sloppy in their treatment of prisoners, starting from the time when US forces claimed they lacked the manpower to “process” and release innocent people, held for weeks or months without contact with the outside world. Whatever you believe the percentages to be, significant portions of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere are petty criminals or people innocent of any crime whatsoever--not insurgents.
The Bush Administration continues to set a poor example for how important it is to understand the culture and society of a nation we’re now occupying. Most recently, Bush’s apology to King Abdullah of Jordan shows this callous disregard. Why Bush made an apology to the first available Arab leader, even though he’s not an Iraqi, remains a mystery.
The Bush Administration hasn’t merely been slow to respond to the abuse allegations. It has demonstrated its indifference to them. The fact that top Administration officials hadn’t read the Taguba report or reviewed the photographic evidence until after CBS release the now-infamous pictures is only the final brick in this wall of indifference.
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