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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Bush & Rumsfeld blame the military for problems in Iraq
(New York Times, May 12, 2004)
The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team. . . . A few Republican senators loyally followed the script, like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who offered the astounding comment that he was "more outraged by the outrage" than by the treatment of prisoners. After all, he said, they were probably guilty of something. . . . These silly arguments not only obscure the despicable treatment of the prisoners, most of whom are not guilty of anything, but also ignore the evidence so far. . . . General Taguba's testimony, and a Red Cross report from Iraq, made it plain that the abuse of prisoners by the American military and intelligence agencies was systemic. . . . The Red Cross report, published by The Wall Street Journal, said that Iraqi prisoners — 70 to 90 percent of whom apparently did nothing wrong — were routinely abused when they were arrested, and their wives and mothers threatened. . . . It was alarming yesterday to hear General Taguba report that military commanders had eased the rules four times last year to permit guards to use "lethal force" on unruly prisoners. The hearing also disclosed that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander in Iraq, had authorized the presence of attack dogs during interrogation sessions. . . . These practices go well beyond any gray area of American values, international law or the Geneva Conventions. . . . All the senators, government officials and generals assembled in that hearing room yesterday could not figure out who had been in charge at Abu Ghraib and which rules applied to the Iraqi prisoners. How were untrained reservists who had been plucked from their private lives to guard the prisoners supposed to have managed it? . . . General Sanchez did give some misguided orders involving the Abu Ghraib prison and prisoners in general. But the deeply flawed mission in which he participates is the responsibility of the Bush administration. It was Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld, not General Sanchez, who failed to anticipate the violence and chaos that followed the invasion of Iraq, and sent American soldiers out to handle it without the necessary resources, manpower and training.

[COMMENT: If a fish stinks, it stinks from the head down. This big fish called America really stinks right now, and it most certainly stinks from the head down.]

posted by Lorenzo 9:48 AM