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General Told troops to "treat prisoners like dogs" - Troops blamed, General Cleared

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 30 April 2005
5 comments

The Pentagon has got to be kidding.

It turns out that only those rogue enlisted men and women, and one woman general, are to blame for the horrifying treatment of prisoners and detainees of the Iraqi war, according to Lt. Gen. Stanley Green, the Army Inspector General.

He cleared four senior Army officers of any responsibility for the abuse of prisoners at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison after reviewing the results of 10 separate inquiries into the prison abuse, some of which the world was able to view though photos.

The responsibility ultimately lies with President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — then White House counsel — who decided that the Geneva Conventions on Humanitarian Treatment of Prisoners of War didn’t apply in the "war on terrorism."

Among the military hierarchy, only Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve officer who commanded the military police unit at Abu Gharib, has paid a price. Karpinski, who was relieved of her command and given a written reprimand, claims she is a scapegoat and plans to fight the charge.

In a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Karpinski pointed to the role of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been sent from his duty at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison — known as "Gitmo" — to Iraq where his orders were to "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib.

Miller told officers there "to treat the prisoners like dogs."

Green exonerated Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who headed the command in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004. Green said charges against Sanchez and three of his senior deputies were "unsubstantiated."

So, once again, it’s those GI renegades whose imaginative abuse of prisoners ran to nakedness, stacking nude men in a pyramid and using leashed dogs to intimidate during questioning.

Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU executive director, denounced the latest Army inquiry giving the topside of the Pentagon a clean bill of health.

"The government cannot ignore the systemic nature of the torture that implicates the military chain of command to the very top," he said.

Oh, yes, it can. It already has done so.

http://www.militaryproject.org/arti...

Forum posts

  • Do you know how many of our soldiers are alive right now because of those interegations? Those soldier’s families that have their love ones back know and we are all proud of everyone of them...Thank a soldier for being able to read this message. God Bless America

    • Did you also know that torture has *never* produced any useful intelligence, because the victim will tell you whatever you want him to tell you, no matter what it is? Then truth does not matter, only what you want to hear. In fact, the more you torture, the less likely you are to get the truth.

      If you believe otherwise, you are probably no more than a sadist yourself. And then I can do no more than pity you.

    • Must be Gardis, he believes any shit Bushco puts out. He is a parrot for Bu$hco’s propaganda. Wonder if he knows that 1600 young Americans are dead and 20,000 are maimed and thousands are still at risk for a totally unnecessary immoral war started by a thug connected to the oil and weapons business.? And even more Iraqi citizens have been killed and broken and their lives destroyed for nothing? He always likes to pretend that someone is "safer" by this mess of a war and the complete disaster created by that thug who coereced the "intelligence" community into making up lies for him to justify his warmongering. He keeps trying to justify this immorality by claiming all of this is somehow making us safer which of course any thinking person can see iis just the complete opposite of reality. Bush is the biggest recuriter for terriorism in history and he likes it like that so people like Gardis can soak up his lies and radiate them around like nuclear waste.

    • Isn’t Helen Thomas great. Bush has barred her from any White House press conferences. Only those reporters that print the party line are allowed in. This 80 something woman is such a threat to Bush he won’t allow her to come near him, meanwhile he allows a gay male prostitute unlimited access to those press conferences and to the White House where he is so well known that they don’t even make him sign in or out (Jim/Jeff Gurkett/Gannon) because the fag only asks goofy pro bush questions and bashes the democrats while he is at it (paid troll). But you won’t get this from the MSM, they are too busy pumping out tabloid news and Bush plastic appearances before pre-approved audiences. Has anyone noticed they are keeping Rummy out of sight, they only allow him to go cheerlead for Bush in Iraq (Bush probably hopes he will take a stray bullet) and we NEVER see ol’Halliburton himself...too busy counting his piles of money.

    • Anyone who has ever been a soldier knows full well that under torture prisoner will tell you anything that he thinks you want to know. hence for every life "saved" by prisoner blurting something dozen could be lost due to the false information. Torture is no use in warfare, even nazis found that out and seldom resorted to it. Besides, didn’t we hang thpousands of Nazis for torturing prisoners?