REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Abuse and the Army

The military, not CBS, discovered the outrages at Abu Ghraib.

As President Bush and everyone else in America has said, any abuse of Iraqi prisoners is "abhorrent" and should be punished. Yet it seems to us that an overlooked story here, and ultimately the most telling, is the degree to which the U.S. military is investigating itself and holding people accountable.

This isn't a popular thought just now, with the media and politicians in one of their bonfire phases. Every accusation against U.S. troops is now getting front-page treatment. Like reporters at a free buffet, Members of Congress are swarming to the TV cameras to declare their outrage and demand someone's head, usually Donald Rumsfeld's. "System of abuse" and "cover-up" are being tossed about without any evidence of either. The goal seems to be less to punish the offenders than to grab one more reason to discredit the Iraq war.

For a sense of proportion, let's rehearse the timeline here. While some accusations of abuse go back to 2002 in Afghanistan, the incidents at Abu Ghraib that triggered this week's news occurred last autumn. They came to light through the chain of command in Iraq on January 13. An Army criminal probe began a day later. Two days after that, the U.S. Central Command disclosed in a press release that "an investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility." By March 20, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt was able to announce in Baghdad that criminal charges had been brought against six soldiers in the probe.

By the end of January, meanwhile, Major General Antonio Taguba was appointed to conduct his separate "administrative" probe of procedures at Abu Ghraib. It is his report, complete with its incriminating photos, that is the basis for the past week's news reports. The press didn't break this story based on months of sleuthing but was served up the results of the Army's own investigation.

By February, the Secretary of the Army had ordered the service's inspector general to assess the doctrine and training for detention operations within all of CentCom. A month after that, another probe began into Army Reserve training, especially military police and intelligence. Those reports will presumably also be leaked and reported on, or at least they will be if they reach negative conclusions.

This is a cover-up? Unlike the Catholic bishops, some corporate boards and the editors of the New York Times or USA Today, the military brass did not dismiss early allegations of bad behavior. Instead, it established reviews and procedures that have uncovered the very details that are now used by critics to indict the Pentagon "system." It has done so, moreover, amid a war against a deadly insurgency in which interrogation to gain good intelligence is critical to victory--and to saving American lives.

None of this is to dismiss or rationalize the abuse reports. Accountability has to run beyond the soldiers immediately responsible and up the Army and intelligence chains of command. The Abu Ghraib procedures were clearly inadequate to a situation in which interrogators were given so much control over the fates of individual prisoners. Especially in a war on terror that will be long and require effective interrogation, this is unacceptable.

Reprimands have already been issued and careers ended, but courts martial can't be ruled out. President Bush's explanation to Arab media yesterday may help our public image, especially given that their own governments rarely admit mistakes. But the best way to impress Iraqis about U.S. purposes is to show that Americans guilty of abuse are being punished, and with more than letters of reprimand.

To start impugning the entire Army and Pentagon, however, is both wrong and dangerous. The majority of American soldiers are professional, disciplined and are risking their lives to win a war. (Note to those who want to revive the draft: If this could happen in today's highly trained volunteer force, imagine the risks in Senator Chuck Hagel's Army of conscripts.)

Another bizarre notion is that Abu Ghraib happened because the Pentagon decided to hold "enemy combatants" under other than "prisoner of war" status. Those detainees are still given Geneva Convention treatment, as well as visits by the Red Cross. The Pentagon has avoided formal Geneva Convention status because it doesn't want al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners to be able to hide behind "name, rank and serial number." As terrorists who attacked civilians and didn't wear a uniform, they also don't deserve the privileges of real soldiers. In any case, the soldiers who posed in those Abu Ghraib photos were clearly too thick to know any of this.

The military has its faults and bad actors, but over the decades it has shown itself to be one of America's most accountable institutions. The Abu Ghraib episode is another test of its fortitude. But the political class would do well to heed Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, who said yesterday that "this immoral behavior in no way eliminates the justice of our cause in Iraq."

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