Roguely Stated

In a new New Yorker article, long-time investigative journalist Seymour Hersh delves deep into the months before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in the media. He probes a report by General Taguba, who was responsible for investigating the role of military police in Abu Ghraib. As the war in Iraq drags on and other military actions seem to appear on the not-so-distant horizon, Hersh’s article raises a host of critical questions.

First, to what extent did the U.S. — whether military police, special military forces, or CIA — use interrogation techniques prohibited by either international convention, domestic law, or executive mandate.

Second, what is the complete reality behind the high-level cover-up described by General Taguba: what did senior DoD officials know, and when? What did they admit to knowing, and when?

Third, where should military personnel draw the line between obeying the chain of command and obeying their own moral code and that of their country, when these two priorities come into conflict?

This third question is perhaps the most important one. As the Iraq war marches on, both respect for the chain of command and respect for truthful accountability outside the military become more important. Just this Monday, General Petraeus, who is set to deliver a comprehensive report on Iraq’s progress in September, implied that fighting could last at least several years into the future. At the same time, the White House — bolstered by Senate Minority Leader McConnell — maintained its more optimistic outlook on the war and transfer to Iraqi powers. As more and more military personnel come out against the war, the tension between loyalty and accountability within and outside the military chain of command becomes ever more clear.

Pushing the envelope on interrogation

Sy Hersh’s article captures the full extent of the interrogation techniques used in Abu Ghraib. Taguba’s investigation, reports Hersh, documented “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses … inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.”

How bad did it get? Quotes Hersh:

Having male detainees pose nude while female guards pointed at their genitals; having female detainees exposing themselves to the guards; having detainees perform indecent acts with each other; and guards physically assaulting detainees by beating and dragging them with choker chains.

Hersh further cites a June 2003 secret memorandum from General George Casey, Jr. (then director of the Joint Staff in the Pentagon) to General Michael DeLong in CentCom:

CIA has advised that the techniques the military forces are using to interrogate high value detainees (HVDs) . . . are more aggressive than the techniques used by CIA who is [sic] interviewing the same HVDs.

DeLong’s reply justified the techniques as “doctrinally appropriate” and in compliance with Rumsfeld’s direction.

Also important are the most practical questions that are often overshadowed by ethical considerations in any conversation about torture: how effective is torture, and what could work better?

It’s the cover-up, not (just) the crime

This phrase seems to have become increasingly relevant — and accurate — since 2000. Hersh and Taguba assert quite a clear case of cover-up, premised on Taguba’s belief that the military police he was investigating were neither well-trained enough nor “creative” enough to do the things they did without guidance from above. Check out Hersh’s article for the full cover-up story, including a detailed timeline of then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s testimony in Congress, which Taguba believes was “simply not true,” says Hersh.

Accountability within vs. accountability without

Hersh’s article is a foundation for an important conversation about issues of chain of command, honesty, loyalty, and accountability. With the Iraq war going full steam ahead, they’re questions worth thinking about.

Is good information getting to the top? A report by former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger cites a need for a “more effective information pipeline to inform [the Secretary of Defense and senior DoD officials] of high-profile incidents.” Taguba specifically recalls one lieutenant general who refused to look at graphic evidence of the interrogations: “I don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?”

Are commands being issued down the line in a clear, accountable way? Again, Hersh’s report is instructive:

“The problem is what constituted approval,” the retired C.I.A. official said. “My people fought about this all the time. Why should we put our people on the firing line somewhere down the road? If you want me to kill Joe Smith, just tell me to kill Joe Smith. If I was the Vice-President or the President, I’d say, ‘This guy Smith is a bad guy and it’s in the interest of the United States for this guy to be killed.’ They don’t say that. Instead, George”—George Tenet, the director of the C.I.A. until mid-2004—“goes to the White House and is told, ‘You guys are professionals. You know how important it is. We know you’ll get the intelligence.’ George would come back and say to us, ‘Do what you gotta do.’

Finally, is pressure applied by senior officials to subordinates to encourage a cover-up or any illegal actions? Hersh’s article documents several instances of clear pressure from military officials.

The point here isn’t an assault on chain-of-command loyalty, or on the importance of obedience and respect for orders from higher-ranking officers. Ultimately, it’s about finding a way to resolve a battle between two loyalties, two moral codes, both in service of the national defense, even when they conflict. It’s not a question with an easy answer, though Taguba, at least, knows where he stands:

From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.