Author of abuse report pressed on accountability (Church testifies to Sena

[Cocoa]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-prisonerabuse0310,1,7069041.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines&ctrack=2&cset=true

WASHINGTON -- Senators pressed the author of the latest Pentagon report on treatment of prisoners to explain his conclusion that the pressure on interrogators to produce information was not to blame for abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report, by Navy Vice Adm. Albert T. Church, said the pressure was not excessive, and found no "single, overarching reason" why prisoners under U.S. control were abused at the Abu Ghraib prison complex in fall 2003 and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Church's report "doesn't fill many of the significant gaps left by earlier investigations regarding the nature and causes of detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere."

"I can only conclude that the Defense Department is not able to assess accountability at senior levels, particularly when investigators are in the chain of command of the officials whose policies and actions they are investigating," he said.

[Roland99]

1. Good to see someone's on this report with a critical eye.

There's no way the DoD is going to expose itself or the administration.

[Trillo]

2. define pressure = follow orders or go to brig?

The entire military doctrine is one of chain of command: Follow orders, or else your life will be hell.

The only way a lame excuse such as 'pressure was not excessive' is that in the civilian sector, if you don't follow orders, at worst you'll be fired, and often not even that, hence this report is likely viewed as something that'll be accepted by the general population.

What about Gonzales's legal brief laying out a rationalization to ignore the Geneva Convention? Oh, right, he was given the top legal job in the whole country!

No excessive pressure? Right. This is just the top boys and girls shirking responsibility for what they damn well know they created.