The commander of Abu Ghraib prison, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, has spoken out for the first time about the appalling abuses that took place on her watch. She has told the BBC that orders came from the top echelons of the US military that her prisoners “be treated like dogs”.
In specifically implicating the top US commander in Iraq, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, in the war crimes at Abu Ghraib, Karpinski would seem to have blown apart Washington’s defense that they were perpetrated by a few renegade soldiers, who are being court-martialed for them. Karpinski, who is suspended from duty, has not yet been charged with any offense, but she told the BBC she was being made “a convenient scapegoat.”
The fact that she has not been charged suggests that the Pentagon already knows that her defense would be that she was only following orders. Further support for her assertion of high-level complicity is emerging from Washington, where position papers that have come to light consider the degree to which prisoners could be mistreated as part of their softening up for interrogation.
If Karpinski is not merely trying to cover up her own dereliction of duty, then Abu Ghraib is coming back to haunt the Bush White House. It could have a serious effect on the standing of the US commanders within the Multinational Force (MNF) that will come into existence when sovereignty is returned to the Iraqis. If Sanchez actually ordered the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, it is unthinkable that his own orders did not come from the Pentagon. If they came from the Pentagon, did the Pentagon’s instructions come from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld? And if they came from him, were they originally agreed in the Oval Office?
Washington must address this issue head on immediately. Else it will be suspected of compounding its behavior by dumping on minor players in this scandal while covering up the role of those far higher up the chain of command. If someone, somewhere decided that it was appropriate to tear up the Geneva Conventions dealing with the rights of prisoners, then they need to be called to account. If the decision was made to treat any detainee, whether captured fighter or suspected Baath Party hood in defiance of all decent norms expected of a civilized society, then the people involved must be brought to book. The longer Washington holds out, the greater will be the suspicion that the ultimate responsibility for a policy of barbarism reaches all the way to the top.
The only thing that the United States has going for it in this horrific business is that it is a society where when a great wrong has been done, the truth can sometimes be established even if the guilty party is the president — as witness the fall of Richard Nixon. The sooner the facts are known and all those responsible punished, the better. If the MNF is to have a future in Iraq, the overwhelming US contingent must be seen to be accountable. If the reputation of the United States of America is to have any future at all, the cleanup must begin now.
