Who ya' gonna call?
From the Fay report, released today by the Army, about abuses at Abu Gharib:
So, we know that there were unidentified and unaccounted-for prisoners in our custody, being interrogated with practices and procedures that are also unknown. We also know, from previous reports, that Donald Rumsfeld himself personally authorized at least one of these detentions. We now also know that the presence of these "ghost" detainees and their treatment contributed to the abuses that we've all seen pictures of, which were not only horrible in-and-of-themselves, but also have damaged American honor, credibility and status throughout the world, for decades to come.
So, to me, the "known unknowns" are, why does Donald Rumsfeld still have his job, and how soon can we expect him to face charges?
The OGA “Ghost Detainee” issue (housing of detainees not formally accounted for) was well known within both the MI and MP communities and created a mystique about what “they” were doing ... The lack of OGA adherence to the practices and procedures established for accounting for detainees eroded the necessity in the minds of Soldiers and civilians for them to follow Army rules.(For those not up on their acronyms, OGA stands for Other Governmental Agency, which the report later details to mean CIA. )
Lack of military control over OGA interrogator actions or lack of systemic accountability for detainees plagued detainee operations in Abu Ghraib almost from the start. Army allowed CIA to house “Ghost Detainees” who were unidentified and unaccounted for in Abu Ghraib. This procedure created confusion and uncertainty concerning their classification and subsequent DoD reporting requirements under the Geneva Conventions."Reporting requirements under the Geneva Conventions" include such things as letting the Red Cross know that we have the person in our prison.
So, we know that there were unidentified and unaccounted-for prisoners in our custody, being interrogated with practices and procedures that are also unknown. We also know, from previous reports, that Donald Rumsfeld himself personally authorized at least one of these detentions. We now also know that the presence of these "ghost" detainees and their treatment contributed to the abuses that we've all seen pictures of, which were not only horrible in-and-of-themselves, but also have damaged American honor, credibility and status throughout the world, for decades to come.
So, to me, the "known unknowns" are, why does Donald Rumsfeld still have his job, and how soon can we expect him to face charges?