Fire Rumsfeld!!!!!!!

[RandFan]

Look folks, if Rummy has done something wrong I will join you in the attempt to get him to resign. Could you,

A.) State what is fact:

B.) Provide sources and links to back up the facts.

C.) State the premises and propositions clearly.

I'm really not certain what Rumsfeld did or didn't do. The news accounts and commentary that I have witnessed today don't seem to paint a coherent picture.

Facts as I understand them.

1.) Abuses were discovered.

2.) An investigation was launched.

3.) 2 press conferences were held to inform the public.

4.) The photos and allot of the detail were witheld subject to an investigation which is normal.

So, can someone please help me out?

 

[Silicon]

Well, there is the fact that the ICRC has been warning the pentagon about this stuff for months. And those warnings went right to Rumsfeld. Prisoners kept for months without being charged or having ANY hearing, in violation of Geneva Convention. And Rumsfeld got those warnings personally, accordign to the New Yorker.

(btw, the unlawful combatants in cuba also are without hearing, so that's a violation too, but Geneva conventions have never been declared there... SHAMEFUL )

Reports now that there were prisoners that the Americans hid from the red cross.

Also reports that dead prisoners (died after beatings) were put on stretchers, and had iv's put in their arms to carry them out of the hospital, so nobody knew they were dead.


2 possibilities here, rumsfeld's fault either way.

Either: Systematic abuse that goes much higher up than enlisted personnel. A culture at the pentagon, right from the top, that human rights were a nicety that could be dispensed with.

OR: Isolated incidents due to vast understaffing and no oversite. Bad war planning, and not enough troops, because of limited resources to fight a war while we were still fighting another war.


Either way, according to the ICRC, and the New Yorker, prisoners in abu grabe WERE being held in violation of Geneva. Rumsfeld knew for MONTHS before any investigation there. And Rumsfeld did nothing.

 

[dsm]

DSM, Bjorn,

I don't understand. Can you document your accusations? It seems that you are speculating. The facts as I understand them are that the abuse was discovered and an investigation was launched and the world was notified.

What did Rumsfeld do that was wrong.

Aren't you paying attention? We're not making an accusation, we're speculating on where the problem could be just as everyone else is.

The question is, given what you say the facts are, do you let Rumsfeld (etc.?) off the hook? Given the facts that you say and the way that you say them, why do you think this has become such a firestorm (ie. speculate)?

 

[Bjorn]

It seems to me that since it was an investigation the details were confidential. Aren't you putting in something that isn't there? Can you document this claim or are you only guessing?

As you and others have shown, the investigation has been going on since January, and it hasn't been a secret.

As Rumsfeld himself is saying these days, he didn't realize how serious it was because he didn't look at the pictures.

I think he should have.

I'm not 'putting anything in that isn't there' and I'm really not claiming anything other than what Rumsfeld has been saying himself the last week ('yes, it was bad reading - no, I didn't really see how bad it was until I saw the pictures'). He is quoted this way:

"It is the photographs that gives one the vivid realization of what actually took place," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Words don't do it. The words that there were abuses, that it was cruel, that it was inhumane, all of which is true, that it was blatant, you read that and it's one thing. You see the photographs, and you get a sense of it, and you cannot help but be outraged."

As far as I can see, he sat on the info for months and didn't take it too seriously until 60 minutes showed the pictures. Bad judgement, if you ask me.

Edited to add: I have problems believing that Rumsfeld didn't have access to the pictures if 60 minutes had them for weeks before they published them.

 

[Bjorn]

CNN today:

Although the military put out a news release in January announcing an investigation into the allegations, Rumsfeld told Congress last week he did not see the full set of images until the night before his testimony Friday.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that he did not see the photographs until late in the game.

But, Hersh writes, "he knew enough about the abuses" to talk CBS's "60 Minutes II" into delaying a report on the abuses that included the photographs. The CBS report, broadcast April 28, was the public's first view of the images.

'We didn't know'.

I don't believe.

 

[RandFan]

Aren't you paying attention? We're not making an accusation, we're speculating on where the problem could be just as everyone else is.

The question is, given what you say the facts are, do you let Rumsfeld (etc.?) off the hook? Given the facts that you say and the way that you say them, why do you think this has become such a firestorm (ie. speculate)?

Since the facts have not changed since the pictures have been released I can only say that the pictures have enflamed people in a way that words could not. Do you have a different take?

BTW, thanks for the response. And I guess I wasn't paying attention. I understand better now. I don't have a problem with speculation as long as it is a given.

 

[RandFan]

As you and others have shown, the investigation has been going on since January, and it hasn't been a secret.

As Rumsfeld himself is saying these days, he didn't realize how serious it was because he didn't look at the pictures.

I think he should have.

I'm not 'putting anything in that isn't there' and I'm really not claiming anything other than what Rumsfeld has been saying himself the last week ('yes, it was bad reading - no, I didn't really see how bad it was until I saw the pictures'). He is quoted this way:

As far as I can see, he sat on the info for months and didn't take it too seriously until 60 minutes showed the pictures. Bad judgement, if you ask me.

Edited to add: I have problems believing that Rumsfeld didn't have access to the pictures if 60 minutes had them for weeks before they published them.

Well, let me just play devils advocate for a moment. Yes, it could be looked at as bad judgment. Rumsfeld he failed in this area. On the other hand he was dealing with a hell of allot of issues including soldiers dying and problems on the war front. He knew there was an investigation and he didn't know that the pictures were going to be released. I'm not sure I know enough yet to demand his head. I understand if others think differently.

 

[dsm]

Facts as I understand them.

The questions you should be asking are:

1.) Abuses were discovered.

Who failed to effectively communicate to lower echelons that abuses such as this are not acceptable?

2.) An investigation was launched.

How serious was the investigation and how effectively was that seriousness communicated?

3.) 2 press conferences were held to inform the public.

Were upper echelons informed and how seriously did they take it?

4.) The photos and allot of the detail were witheld subject to an investigation which is normal.

Why were the photos (etc.) withheld from Rumsfeld? Did he do something that caused his people to not apprise him effectively on what was happening (shades of Richard Clarke)?

As leader of the DoD, did he lead?

 

[RandFan]

Well, there is the fact that the ICRC has been warning the pentagon about this stuff for months. And those warnings went right to Rumsfeld. Prisoners kept for months without being charged or having ANY hearing, in violation of Geneva Convention. And Rumsfeld got those warnings personally, accordign to the New Yorker.

And he understood that they were being investigated and these were not the only issues on his desk.

(btw, the unlawful combatants in cuba also are without hearing, so that's a violation too, but Geneva conventions have never been declared there... SHAMEFUL )

They are combatants so they aren't entitled to hearings. I know there is another side to this argument. I don't see it as shameful.

Reports now that there were prisoners that the Americans hid from the red cross.

Also reports that dead prisoners (died after beatings) were put on stretchers, and had iv's put in their arms to carry them out of the hospital, so nobody knew they were dead.

If there were criminal acts then they should be investigated. I don't know how this is the fault of Rumsfeld.

2 possibilities here, rumsfeld's fault either way.

Either: Systematic abuse that goes much higher up than enlisted personnel. A culture at the pentagon, right from the top, that human rights were a nicety that could be dispensed with.

OR: Isolated incidents due to vast understaffing and no oversite. Bad war planning, and not enough troops, because of limited resources to fight a war while we were still fighting another war.

False dillema. This is a complex problem and is not so easily a condemnation of Rumsfeld.

Either way, according to the ICRC, and the New Yorker, prisoners in abu grabe WERE being held in violation of Geneva. Rumsfeld knew for MONTHS before any investigation there. And Rumsfeld did nothing.

Could you doccument?

 

[dsm]

Well, let me just play devils advocate for a moment. Yes, it could be looked at as bad judgment. Rumsfeld he failed in this area. On the other hand he was dealing with a hell of allot of issues including soldiers dying and problems on the war front. He knew there was an investigation and he didn't know that the pictures were going to be released. I'm not sure I know enough yet to demand his head. I understand if others think differently.

On its own, I'm not sure there is enough to "demand his head". However, there has been a pattern of problems caused by inept handling within the Administration (WMDs, tax cuts, Iraq, 9/11, and so on) that make me feel it's just about time to get rid of them. This is just one more nail in their coffin.

 

[curious]

Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who compiled a scathing report on the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, suggested a link between interrogation techniques used in Afghanistan and those used at Abu Ghraib.

Late last year, Sanchez had Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, the Army provost marshal, look at prisons in Afghanistan.

Taguba, citing Ryder's still-classified report, revealed what Hersh calls a "dehumanizing interrogation process" that was not random at all and apparently began in Afghanistan after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

. . .

In his article, Hersh says that culture extended to the treatment of prisoners. In a news conference in February 2002, Rumsfeld called complaints about how the United States treats its prisoners nothing more than "isolated pockets of international hyperventilation."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/09/hersh.iraq.abuse/index.html

 

[evil sutko]

Rumsfeld's office also refused to send Congressman Steve Buyer, an Army Reserve Colonel, to watch over the interrogation process.

Buyer had been one of the JAG's who oversaw the POW camps during the first Gulf War. Apparently, they never filled the position...

http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/144923-2580-009.html

 

[evil sutko]

This rare gem from McPaper makes it pretty clear why Rumsfeld should be on his way out:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-05-10-abuse-cover_x.htm

Some relevant captions:

Bush himself in early 2002 had ruled that terror suspects in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo would not be covered by Geneva Convention protections, though Rumsfeld said they would be treated humanely.

In December 2002, in two separate cases, Afghan detainees died as a result of blunt-force injuries delivered by their U.S. captors. Both cases were ruled homicides and are under investigation.

Beginning in March 2003, the International Red Cross began conducting spot-checks on U.S. prisons in Iraq and reported privately to the State Department, the Pentagon and commanders on the ground concerns about the ill-treatment of prisoners.

In July 2003, Amnesty International announced it had received reports of torture or ill treatment of prisoners by coalition forces in Iraq. And some weeks after a surprise visit to Abu Ghraib in October, the Red Cross reported to U.S. commanders some of the abuses that would later emerge in the criminal investigation. Rumsfeld said he could not recall hearing about this report.

None of these warning signs appear to have alerted Rumsfeld to the gravity of the developing crisis. In a day of testimony on Capitol Hill Friday, the Defense chief cited no memo, order or guidance issued by him reminding his subordinates about the importance of humane treatment of prisoners. Nor did Rumsfeld tell Congress that he had set up a system requiring Pentagon approval, sometimes his personal approval, for coercive interrogation of high-level prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to sources familiar with the system.

Rumsfeld instituted the system shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks in response to the sudden influx of detainees in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. It continues to be followed in Iraq, indicating a level of hands-on control of what was going on in the field far beyond what Rumsfeld has publicly described.

Once in Iraq, Miller made a pivotal recommendation last September. Prison guards, Miller said, should be subordinate to military and CIA interrogators and should handle prisoners in a way that "sets the conditions for (their) successful interrogation."

Miller's recommendation lies at the core of whether the abuses at Abu Ghraib in the following months were the acts of a few rogue guards on the night shift or were part of a strategy, designed by higher-ups, to subject certain high-value prisoners to humiliation and abuse in the hours leading up to morning interrogations.

But the picture is confused.

A report by Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuses at Abu Ghraib says that on Nov. 6, 2003, Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, the first officer to investigate prison conditions in Iraq, criticized the use of guards as part of an interrogation strategy. Yet two weeks later, orders placed Abu Ghraib guards under the command of military intelligence officers. It was during this time that the abuses took place. The order was later rescinded.

In testimony Friday, Rumsfeld defended the practice of subordinating guards to military intelligence officers and praised Miller, who is now in overall charge of the prisons in Iraq.

Plenty of reasons to give him the boot...

 

[Dorian Gray]

There is a difference between investigating something and knowing for a fact that it is happening. Whoever thinks the world should have reacted to the news in January is very simple. Whoever thinks that the pictures being released is a political move is very stupid. There was an investigation before. The pictures constitute proof. THAT's why there is outrage now.

Limbaugh is trying to say that this stuff is just like frat hazing, yet get all bent out of shape over the government looking over his bank statements and medical records.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I was referring to (A) the 25 deaths under investigation, two of which have already been classified as murder by the U.S. military justice system and (B) the "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." (quote from Major General Antonio Taguba in the Abu Ghraib report)
Reuters

And why would you think that someone found guilty of murder , under U.S. or millitary law, would only be faced with resignation from the millitary?

 

[RandFan]

There is a difference between investigating something and knowing for a fact that it is happening. Whoever thinks the world should have reacted to the news in January is very simple.

I don't think anyone is making that argument. I'm not. I was simply trying to find our specifically why Rumsfeld should be fired?

Limbaugh is trying to say that this stuff is just like frat hazing, yet get all bent out of shape over the government looking over his bank statements and medical records.

I don't think one obviates the other. If the government, as the ACLU claims, improperly siezed his medical records then he has a valid right to complain.

 

[davefoc]

I think Rumsfeld should be fired.

I understand, I think, RandFan's arguments that a direct linkage between Rumsfeld and the prisoner mishandling hasn't been shown and probably can't be.

For me, that's not important. Rumsfeld withheld critical information from the president (or he's falling on his sword and pretending not to have), was repsonsible for decisions regarding the prisoners and the mess happened on his watch.

Presumably the army has people trained in the handling of prisoners who are aware of techiques and precautions necessary to avoid prisoner abuse. Why weren't these people in charge of prisons or if they were why did they fail so miserably at their job? Rumsfeld had warnings that the people in charge weren't succeeding at preventing prisoner abuse and Rumsfeld doesn't seem to have done anything about that until circumstances forced him to act. If you are going to wait until you have pictures of Rumsfeld personally abusing the prisoners before you hold him responsible then why not just make the decision that nobody that obtains a position of authority can ever be fired.

But I think the best reason to fire Rumsfeld is that it would be good for country. It will make an immediate statement that the US views these problems very seriously and that the US is going to do something about it.

Even before these events, I thought Rumsfeld should be fired. For me, Rumsfeld conveys an image of somebody who enjoys war far too much when it is others that are doing the dieing. This might not be altogether bad for a secretary of defense. But Rumsfeld has been pusing into state department issues during his entire tenure where his apparent pro-war inclinations could be and perhaps have been disastrous.

 

[Silicon]

False dillema. This is a complex problem and is not so easily a condemnation of Rumsfeld.

Could you doccument?

It is indeed a complex problem. However as USA Today reports, it is a complex problem that Rumsfeld seems to have felt did not require any due diligence, or much oversight at all.

Within the Pentagon, there was a spate of fingerpointing last week. One top general complained to a colleague that the commanders in Iraq should have taken C4, a powerful explosive, and blown up Abu Ghraib last spring, with all of its “emotional baggage”—the prison was known for its brutality under Saddam Hussein—instead of turning it into an American facility. “This is beyond the pale in terms of lack of command attention,” a retired major general told me, speaking of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. “Where were the flag officers? And I’m not just talking about a one-star,” he added, referring to Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander at Abu Ghraib who was relieved of duty. “This was a huge leadership failure.”

The Pentagon official told me that many senior generals believe that, along with the civilians in Rumsfeld’s office, General Sanchez and General John Abizaid, who is in charge of the Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, had done their best to keep the issue quiet in the first months of the year. The official chain of command flows from General Sanchez, in Iraq, to Abizaid, and on to Rumsfeld and President Bush. “You’ve got to match action, or nonaction, with interests,” the Pentagon official said. “What is the motive for not being forthcoming? They foresaw major diplomatic problems.”

Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2


Sorry, my bad. It was Human Rights Watch who complained to Rumsfeld:


From Seymore Hersh's article in the current New Yorker:

Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an “imperative” security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo.

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040510fa_fact

 

[Silicon]

Breaking news:

Red Cross Was Told Iraq Abuse 'Part of the Process'

The Red Cross said it had repeatedly alerted U.S.-led occupation authorities to practices it described as "serious violations of international humanitarian law" and "in some cases tantamount to torture."

It confirmed the confidential February 4 report, which appeared on the Wall Street Journal Web Site Monday, was genuine.

The Red Cross's visit took place two months before pictures were taken of U.S. troops abusing prisoners, which later led to criminal charges against seven soldiers.

"The uncaring behavior of the CF (Coalition Forces) and their inability to quickly provide accurate information on persons deprived of their liberty for the families concerned also seriously affects the image of the Occupying Powers among the Iraqi population," it said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20040510/ts_nm/iraq_abuse_dc_38


WHO allowed this to happen? WHO does the ICRC report this information to?

How long did Rumsfeld ignore the warnings from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch?

WHO is responsible?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The report describes prison guards opening fire with live ammunition during riots and escape attempts, on detainees who "were unarmed and did not appear to pose any serious threat to anyone's life."

WTF? I guess they should have issued them weapons first ?