The worst is yet to come
Mr.
Rumsfeld told the Senate panel that photos and videos yet to be
released, apparently depicting rape, a severe beating, and in one case
a smiling soldier posing with a dead body, were more “blatantly sadistic” than those already seen.
For
Rumsfeld to call them “blatantly sadistic”, they must be nearly
psychopathic. It also means they can’t stop the photos from being
released. That means they’re losing their grip on power.
The
Washington Post quoted several senior American military officers today
as saying that the United States was prevailing militarily in Iraq but
failing, perhaps disastrously, to win Iraqis’ support.
This
is Pentagon doublespeak, like what we heard in Vietnam, “we had to
destroy the village to save it.” What lunacy. Instead of saving the
villages, of course, the US lost the war. And while history doesn’t
repeat itself, it does rhyme…
Torture. By US soldiers.
One
of the new photographs shows a young soldier, wearing a dark jacket
over his uniform and smiling into the camera, in the corridor of the
jail. In the background are two Army dog handlers, in full camouflage
combat gear, restraining two German shepherds. The dogs are barking at
a man who is partly obscured from the camera’s view by the smiling
soldier.
Another
image shows that the man, an Iraqi prisoner, is naked. His hands are
clasped behind his neck and he is leaning against the door to a cell,
contorted with terror, as the dogs bark a few feet away.
Other photographs show the dogs straining at their leashes and snarling at the prisoner.
In
another, taken a few minutes later, the Iraqi is lying on the ground,
writhing in pain, with a soldier sitting on top of him, knee pressed to
his back. Blood is streaming from the inmate’s leg. Another photograph
is a closeup of the naked prisoner, from his waist to his ankles, lying
on the floor. On his right thigh is what appears to be a bite or a deep
scratch. There is another, larger wound on his left leg, covered in
blood.
NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased
photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi
prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and
‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there
also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi
guards raping young boys.”
The rot goes to the top
No
amount of apologetic testimony or political spin last week could mask
the fact that, since the attacks of September 11th, President Bush and
his top aides have seen themselves as engaged in a war against
terrorism in which the old rules did not apply. In the privacy of his
office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior
Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively.