[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 58 (Thursday, May 5, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E895]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ``THE BIG SHOTS WALK''

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                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 5, 2005

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, many Americans continue to 
be gravely embarrassed by our country's failure to address in a 
forthright manner the abuse of human rights which occurred at Abu 
Ghraib prison under our control. Clearly the great majority of 
Americans who have served in Iraq are innocent of any such pattern of 
abuse, but it is simply a defiance of common sense and the facts to 
hold accountable only a handful of low-level military personnel on the 
scene, while exonerating those in charge who are in various degrees 
culpable for either encouraging or allowing this to happen.
  Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times on April 27 makes this 
point forcefully, noting that ``under Commander in Chief George W. 
Bush, the notion of command accountability has been discarded. In Mr. 
Bush's world of war, it's the grunts who take the heat. Punishment is 
reserved for the people at the bottom. The people who foul up at the 
top are promoted.''
  Mr. Speaker, our country deserves better of its leadership, and so do 
the men and women in the armed services who should not see a small 
number of their comrades held accountable for their actions while those 
in charge suffer no such penalty. I ask that Bob Herbert's thoughtful 
discussion of this matter be printed here.

                   On Abu Ghraib, the Big Shots Walk

                            (By Bob Herbert)

       When soldiers in war are not properly trained and 
     supervised, atrocities are all but inevitable: This is one 
     reason why the military command structure is so important. 
     There was a time, not so long ago, when commanders were 
     expected to be accountable for the behavior of their 
     subordinates.
       That's changed. Under Commander in Chief George W. Bush, 
     the notion of command accountability has been discarded. In 
     Mr. Bush's world of war, it's the grunts who take the heat. 
     Punishment, is reserved for the people at the bottom. The 
     people who foul up at the top are promoted.
       It was a year ago today that the stories and photos of the 
     shocking abuses at Abu Ghraib prison first came to the 
     public's attention. It was a scandal that undermined the 
     military's reputation and diminished the standing of the U.S. 
     around the world.
       It would soon become clear that the photos of hooded, naked 
     and humiliated detainees were evidence of a much larger 
     problem. The system for processing, interrogating and 
     detaining prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq was 
     dangerously out of control, and the command structure 
     responsible for it had collapsed. Detainees were beaten, 
     tortured, sexually abused and, in some instances, killed. 
     Many detainees should never have been imprisoned at all, as 
     they had committed no offenses.
       So what happened? A handful of grunts were court-martialed, 
     a Marine major was cashiered, and the Army plans to issue a 
     new interrogation manual that bars certain harsh techniques. 
     There was no wholesale crackdown on criminal behavior.
       We learned last week that after a high-level investigation, 
     the Army had cleared four of the five top officers who were 
     responsible for prison policies and operations in Iraq. The 
     fifth officer, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the Army 
     Reserve, had already been relieved of her command of the 
     military police unit at Abu Ghraib. (She has complained, and 
     not without reason, that she was a scapegoat for the failures 
     of higher-ranking officers.)
       As Eric Schmitt wrote in The Times: ``Barring new evidence, 
     the inquiry by the Army's inspector general effectively 
     closes the Army's book on whether the highest-ranking 
     officers in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, should 
     be held accountable for command failings described in past 
     reviews.''
       This is the way atrocities are dealt with in Mr. Bush's 
     world of war. The higher-ups responsible for training, 
     supervising and disciplining the troops--in other words, the 
     big shots who presided over a system that ran shamefully 
     amok--escaped virtually unscathed.
       The abuses at Abu Ghraib, which seemed mind-boggling at the 
     time, turned out to be symptomatic of the torture, abuse and 
     institutionalized injustice that have permeated the Bush 
     administration's operations in its so-called war against 
     terror. Euphemisms like rendition, coercive interrogation, 
     sleep adjustment and waterboarding are now widely understood. 
     Yes, Virginia, it is the policy of the United States to 
     kidnap individuals and send them off to regimes skilled in 
     the art of torture.
       Two things are needed. First, a truly independent 
     commission, along the lines of the bipartisan 9/11 panel, 
     should be set up to thoroughly investigate U.S. interrogation 
     and detention operations and make recommendations to correct 
     abuses.
       Second, the U.S. government should make it clear, beyond 
     any doubt, that torture and any other inhumane treatment of 
     prisoners is wrong, just flat wrong, and will not be 
     tolerated under any circumstances.
       ``In our contemporary world, torture is like the slave 
     trade or piracy was to people in the 1790's,'' said Michael 
     Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, which is 
     suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the prisoner 
     abuse issue. ``Torture is a crime against mankind, against 
     humanity. It's something that has to be absolutely 
     prohibited.''
       If the president made it clear that men and women up and 
     down the chain of command would be held responsible for the 
     abuses that occur on their watch, the abuses would plummet. 
     Instead, the message the administration has sent is that its 
     demands for accountability will be limited to a few hapless, 
     ill-trained grunts.
       The big shots who presided over behavior that has shamed 
     America in the eyes of the world can count on this 
     president's embrace.

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