The Abu Ghraib Whitewash Not Mentioned

The local paper, the Times Union, recently wrote an editorial claiming the Army investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal appeared to be a whitewash because four top Army officers were exonerated of any wrong doing in the abuse and torture of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. I was compelled to write the following letter to the editor that wouldn't be published for public consumption. Don't keep it to yourself pass it on to your friends.

An editorial in your paper last week suggested that the Army’s exoneration of four top officers of criminal abuses which occurred at Abu Ghraib smacked of a whitewash because powerful institutions cannot be entrusted to investigate accusations against themselves. In addition you implied that an “inquiry like the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks…” would have precluded a whitewash.

Yet hardly anyone should be surprised by the foregone conclusion of the Army investigation of itself for committing crimes against humanity in Abu Ghraib. In fact it was the very type of “inquiry” similar to the one investigating 9/11 (which you claim would prevent a whitewash) that was in fact the very model for all investigations of criminality committed at home and abroad by the current administration.

Indeed our sons and daughters wouldn’t even be in Abu Ghraib had the 9/11 “inquiry” found anyone responsible or held anyone accountable for the death and destruction that occurred on that sunny September morning in 2001 at what is now called Ground Zero.

That “inquiry” not only permitted George Bush to testify together with Dick Cheney but also did not require either of them to testify under oath. What better example of a whitewash when the man in charge of protecting this country gets reelected for failure, his cast of culpable characters, his advisors, were either promoted or given the medal of freedom for following the course and the phrase “faulty intelligence” was born into the political lexicon to legitimize a whitewash which would result in the consequences that now confront us in Iraq.

The most recent example of a “powerful institution” producing a whitewashed report occurred when a commission consisting of people hand picked by the very institution being investigated concluded that the invasion of Iraq was based on faulty intelligence. Once again insuring much like the 9/11 “inquiry” that no one is held responsible and no one is accountable for the deaths yesterday, today, and tomorrow of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Iraq including our own men and women.

Meanwhile the British press reported that in July of 2002 a few weeks after meeting with George Bush, Tony Blair summoned his closet aides to prepare Great Britain for war with Iraq. In fact the British press published evidence that the head of British intelligence reported that George Bush made up his mind to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

It was the abject failure of the 9/11 “inquiry” and the recent WMD “commission” to find someone responsible, hold someone accountable for those tragedies that led to our very presence in Iraq which provided the environment for crimes against humanity to be committed.

While the Army “investigation” is indeed a whitewash at least they found someone responsible and held someone accountable. Perhaps what disturbs me most is that the press is so outraged over such an obvious whitewash because four top Army officers were exonerated but neglects to mention they were following the orders of their commander-in-chief who put those men and women in harms way based on a lie. To quote your editorial’s conclusion “insult upon injury doesn’t even begin to describe it”.