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And while we're at it, who's responsible?

Deciding how high up the 'failure of leadership' went at Abu Ghraib

10:57 AM CDT on Saturday, June 12, 2004

By RICHARD WHITTLE / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Seven Army Reserve soldiers have been charged with criminal acts for abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Seven officers have been disciplined.

But as Army and Pentagon investigations continue into sexual humiliation and other violations of the Geneva Conventions inflicted on detainees in Iraq and elsewhere, who to blame is still a matter of conjecture – or political taste.

"Everyone admits there was a failure of leadership; now you have to decide how high up that goes," said P.J. Crowley, a former Air Force colonel who was a spokesman for the Pentagon and the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton.

Officials including President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the top generals in Iraq have accepted "responsibility" for what they describe as a small group of Army reservists run amok. But except for Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits, 24, of the 372nd Military Police Company, no one has accepted any blame.

"I let everybody down," Spec. Sivits said through tears in Baghdad as he pleaded guilty May 19 to dereliction of duty and three other counts. His crimes: failing to stop other MPs from abusing prisoners and taking a photo of some of the abuse at Abu Ghraib on Nov. 8.

The highest-ranking person to face formal consequences in the scandal so far is one-time prison commander Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who has been suspended from her 800th Military Police Brigade command while the investigations proceed.

But as the shock waves of the scandal spread, others in the military and civilian chains of command could pay a price for what they did or didn't do in connection with the scandal. According to military analysts and political professionals, here are key figures that bear watching:

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

Leading Democrats are demanding Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. President Bush has made clear they aren't going to get it – at least not by his hand.

Aides to Mr. Bush let it be known he had chastised his defense secretary for failing to inform him of the explosive nature of the Abu Ghraib investigation. But Mr. Bush declared that he still wanted him in his Cabinet, and he went to the Pentagon to proclaim that Mr. Rumsfeld was doing "a superb job."

No one accuses Mr. Rumsfeld of knowing directly what was happening at Abu Ghraib. He has said he learned of the abuses only when the U.S. Central Command issued a news release Jan. 16 dully announcing an investigation "into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility."

But critics argue that he set the climate that allowed excesses at Abu Ghraib, and possibly elsewhere, by devaluing the Geneva Conventions while pressing subordinates to squeeze useful intelligence out of detainees.

Pentagon officials have confirmed that Mr. Rumsfeld also approved a list of severe interrogation techniques – including "mild non-injurious physical contact," according to The Wall Street Journal – for use on al-Qaeda captives held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But Army officials have testified to Congress that Mr. Rumsfeld played no role in approving harsh interrogation techniques on a list created by a captain on the Iraq headquarters legal staff.

The techniques, which included depriving detainees of sleep, forcing them to hold "stress positions" or threatening them with dogs, were listed on a document labeled "Interrogation Rules of Engagement." It said such measures could be used only with the approval of the commanding general, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

Mr. Rumsfeld told congressional committees on May 7 that he had considered resigning and would if he thought he could no longer be effective. But a few days later, during a surprise visit to Iraq, he told troops: "I'm a survivor."

How long he will survive politically, or choose to stay, remains in question.

Mr. Bush is unlikely to dump his hard-edged defense secretary, and not just because he has praised him highly in public.

For one thing, tossing people overboard isn't Mr. Bush's style.

Equally important, Democrats would seize on a Rumsfeld departure as an admission by Mr. Bush that his policies in Iraq have failed and try to use it to their advantage in this year's presidential election campaign.

Stephen Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence

Critics have focused on Mr. Cambone, a close aide to Mr. Rumsfeld, as one who may have set a tone that led to the abuses by pressing for more fruitful interrogations of detainees. He denies it.

Mr. Cambone told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that no one ever issued guidelines or policies that could have been construed as approving the sordid abuses inflicted at Abu Ghraib by members of the 372nd MP Company.

He also testified that the guidelines for interrogations in Iraq that included harsh techniques were approved "at the command level and not in the Department of Defense." A key question is what role Mr. Cambone played in a trip to Abu Ghraib last August by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then commander of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.

For critics, the trip was pivotal, for Gen. Miller afterward recommended that MPs be used in "setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees."

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who initially investigated the Abu Ghraib abuses, concluded that Gen. Miller's recommendation "would appear to be in conflict" with Army doctrine holding that MPs should play no role in interrogations.

Mr. Cambone told the Senate committee that Gen. Miller made the trip "with my encouragement" but not at his direction. With the insurgency in Iraq intensifying last summer, Mr. Cambone said he was eager to improve the "flow of information" from interrogators to field units.

Armed Services Committee member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said he and other senators still have questions for Mr. Cambone.

Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander, Multinational Force, Iraq

Gen. Sanchez told the Senate committee that he approved interrogation procedures for use in Iraq but that they excluded the harsh measures that appeared on the Interrogation Rules of Engagement document.

His spokesman in Baghdad also has denied that Gen. Sanchez was present at some interrogations and witnessed some abuse of prisoners by military police, as reported by The Washington Post, which cited a statement by a captain who served at Abu Ghraib, as quoted by a lawyer for one of the MPs facing charges.

Gen. Sanchez also told the committee that he was "fully committed to thorough and impartial investigations that examine the role, commissions and omissions of the entire chain of command – and that includes me."

Last week, Gen. Sanchez removed himself as the "reviewing authority" for what is viewed as the next key investigation – a review by Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's top intelligence officer, of the role played in the abuses by military intelligence officers – so that he, Gen. Sanchez, can be questioned along with his subordinates.

After Maj. Gen. Miller's visit to Iraq, Gen. Sanchez accepted his recommendations and ordered the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, under Col. Thomas R. Pappas, to take "tactical control" of Abu Ghraib – a decision some critics say directly contributed to the abuses.

Some of the MPs facing criminal charges have said they abused prisoners at the suggestion of military intelligence officers, who they said encouraged them to "soften up" detainees for questioning.

Gen. Sanchez testified that his order kept Gen. Karpinski in command of Abu Ghraib and was intended only to place Col. Pappas in charge of securing the facility against insurgent attacks and safeguarding prisoners.

Gen. Karpinski, however, has said the prison was no longer under her control after Col. Pappas took charge, suggesting that Gen. Sanchez's order sowed confusion that made the abuses possible.

In the meantime, Gen. Sanchez may be the first higher-up to have paid a price for the scandal, missing out on a fourth star and a chance to take over the U.S. Southern Command. The Post reported May 25 that he is not expected to get a promotion while the Abu Ghraib scandal is hot because such positions require Senate approval.

Pentagon spokesmen have said only that Gen. Sanchez has long been scheduled to depart Iraq sometime after sovereignty is transferred to Iraqis on June 30. Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said, "At some point, he will rotate back to being the corps commander in Germany, where he came from."

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, deputy commander for detainee operations, Multinational Force, Iraq

Gen. Miller's recommendation that MPs be used in "setting conditions" for interrogations at Abu Ghraib was criticized by Gen. Taguba in his report and figures largely in critics' theory that higher-ups established a climate that led to the abuses.

He told the Senate committee that his recommendation wasn't meant to suggest that guards be used to soften up prisoners for questioning, but only that they should engage in "passive intelligence-gathering," passing on to interrogators their observations of detainees.

Gen. Miller also has denied statements by suspended Gen. Karpinski that he told her he wanted to "Gitmo-ize" the prison system in Iraq, a reference to Guantánamo Bay. By presidential decision, detainees there are not legally entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions.

"No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented any time by the assistance team that I took" to Iraq, Gen. Miller testified. He added that no interrogation techniques contrary to the Geneva Conventions were used in Cuba, either.

Similarly, the U.S. spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, has denied a Post report that Gen. Miller urged the top military intelligence officer at the prison, Col. Pappas, to threaten prisoners with dogs as a means to get them to talk.

The Post said Col. Pappas told Gen. Taguba during his investigation that Gen. Miller said "that they used military working dogs at Gitmo ... and that they were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information" from prisoners.

"Miller never had a conversation with Col. Pappas regarding the use of military dogs for interrogation purposes in Iraq," Brig. Gen. Kimmitt said. "Further, military dogs were never used in interrogations at Guantánamo."

Answers to some of the questions surrounding these key figures should be contained in the Fay report, expected to be complete next month.

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