Hearings Begin in Abu Ghraib Abuse Trial(Karpinski ordered to testify)

[maddezmom]

FORT HOOD, Texas - A military judge on Saturday ordered the former commander of U.S. prisons in Iraq (news - web sites) to testify at the trial of a soldier who says he was ordered to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib.


~snip~

Davis told investigators that military intelligence personnel appeared to approve of the abuse. "We were told they had different rules," he told investigators, according to an Army report.


Karpinski has denied knowing about any mistreatment of prisoners until photographs were made public at the end of April showing hooded and naked prisoners being tormented by their U.S. captors.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Karpinski said a "conspiracy" among top U.S. commanders left her to blame for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A report issued by an independent panel of nongovernment experts blamed Karpinski for leadership failures that "helped set the conditions at the prison which led to the abuses."

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=6&u=/ap/20041204/ap_on_re_us/prisoner_abuse

[bonemachine]

1. So, who is the highest ranking

person indicted in this whole scandal to date?

[maddezmom]

2. not sure, but in an MG Barbara Fast should be charged

That report, by retired colonel Stuart Herrington, found that members of Task Force 121 had been abusing detainees throughout Iraq and had been using a secret interrogation facility to hide their activities.


"Detainees captured by TF 121 have shown injuries that caused examining medical personnel to note that 'detainee shows signs of having been beaten,'" Herrington said in his 13-page report obtained by The Washington Post.


"It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees," he concluded.


The report was sent to Major General Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer in Iraq, on December 12, about a month before detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison was exposed in an investigation by Major General Antonio Taguba.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1044743

[TahitiNut]

6. I think MG Fast covered for the Pentagon and that's why ...

... she's back at Huachuca, probably with other 'sweeteners'.

[HereSince1628]

3. Look they will sacrifice everyone below them to stop the cancer

Frankly, Karpinski's acquiesence to MI and CIA activity involving HER guards is a reasonable place to start.

Hopefully, Karpinski's corpse will not satisfy the deserved bloodlust for justice. This goes all the way to Rumsfeld at Defense, the lawyers at Justice, the whining insistence of Cheney, and to GW the BIG BS himself.

What MADE 'Watergate' was that regardless of how many low level folks were sacrificed, the sharks remainded hungry.

I can only hope that junior reporters looking to make a career move and not working for ClearChannel or Fox, will stay on the scent.

[Wordie]

4. The evidence has been there for decades that these sorts of abuses occur

in circumstances such as these. So EVERYONE higher up is implicated, imho.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was performed way back in the 70s, and had to be stopped, it grew so abusive. The lessons from it surely should have been considered and applied at Abu Ghraib, before these problems developed, if people had been doing their jobs. Read more about it here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/05/21/zimbarbo.access/
and here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/08/MNGN76IG761.DTL

And, here is a links page for lots more info on the Stanford experiment:
http://www.prisonexp.org/links.htm

[indigo5]

5. Right defends...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/bambenek/81258.html

Yeah... you knew this was coming

[Wordie]

7. I want my country to rise ABOVE this kind of ugliness, no matter WHAT ObL

does. Since when do we use the behavior of ObL or his followers as any sort of standard for OUR behavior? Isn't this guy sort of saying, "...but ObL did it first!"? Jeez. And certainly the beheading of people is WORSE, but that surely does not make what happened at Abu Ghraib acceptable!

When we say we want to "win hearts and minds" I want it to be TRUE! I don't want my country engaging in ugliness that I personally feel ashamed about.