This, ladies and gentlemen, is a story of a clusterfuck.

[unixronin]

(As for the rest of you ... OK, OK, just kidding about that.)

rbos pointed me at this truthout.org interview by Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jeffertson School of Law, with former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski (Ret.), regarding the state of affairs in Iraq in general and Abu Ghraib specifically.  She makes some telling points, such as that the three "civilian contractors" hired by the US Justice Department and sent to Abu Ghraib to manage and oversee prisoner interrogations had all, between 30 and 60 days before, been fired by the Justice Department from positions in the Utah Correctional Facility for prisoner abuse.  She also describes how General Shinseki was fired for telling Rumsfeld that a successful invasion of Iraq could not be done with less than 300,000 men, and replaced with General Schoomaker, who saw the writing on the wall and was willing to tell Rumsfeld "Sure, we can do that with 125,000 men, no problem."

Sure, you can say that this is all sour grapes because Karpinski took the blame for Abu Ghraib.  You can also say that she was made the scapegoat, and is telling it like it is, and that the investigation was made to stop with her because if followed, the trail led directly to the Secretary of Defense and possibly to the Vice-President.  I leave that call to you.  But look at what she's saying ... there's a consistent pattern.  The officers involved in organizing and executing the Abu Ghraib abuses have been promoted and rewarded; those who blew the whistle, who cooperated with the investigation, who said it was wrong, have been punished.  General Shinseki was fired for saying the Iraq invasion could not be done with the available forces; General Cody was promoted from three-star to four-star for cutting costs by denying requests for armored vehicles and bulletproof vests for the troops deployed in Iraq.

"Anybody who confronts this Administration or Rumsfeld or the Pentagon with a true assessment, they find themselves either out of a job, out of their positions, fired, relieved or chastised.  Their career comes to an end."

...

And why are the American people turning a deaf ear to this? l We had 17 Marines killed over the course of the last three days, less than 72 hours.  And there's still people in Washington that get on, especially Sunday mornings, and they get on these news or these debate programs and they say, "Well it's only 1800 lives so far" - Only!  Only!  You know, how dare you say that!

Comments

Re: Leadership failures

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Her unit, prior to deployment, had ceased rendering basic military courtesies because people 'felt bad' about having to salute 'their friends'.

Uhhh.... I was not aware of that. It's not without precedent; everyone in the British SAS knows each other on a first-name basis, and operates that way -- it's not "Good morning, sir," it's "Morning, Bill." However, a military police unit is not the SAS.

As for Shinseki, good riddance. He fits right in the same mold with Karpinski, in his case, he decided the way to make soldiers feel 'special' was to take the black beret, which was a hard-earned honor awarded to trained members of the 75th Ranger Regiment, and give it to everybody, at great expense.

That was Shinseki's idea? I wasn't aware of that either. I heard about it, and was pretty disgusted by it, but didn't know who it came from.