I recommend that if you want to know what the reports say, either check here or read the actual pdfs of each report themselves, skipping the news articles. This editorial points out how wrong the news headlines that are coming out really are about the content of these reports:
The panel said no explicit policy authorized the 66 substantiated cases of abuse. But it found that a third of those cases and five detainee deaths occurred at the hands of U.S. personnel during interrogations, not during the nighttime romps of rogue guards. “The abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline,” the group said. “There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels.”
Actually, at the highest level. Bush set the stage for abuse in February 2002 when he declared that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qaida prisoners and that the Taliban were unlawful combatants unqualified for prisoner of war status.
When the man at the top says the usual rules don’t apply, abusive excesses are a predictable result.
Leave a Reply