corrente

It would have been nice to see this some time back, and louder, and sharper, and on the front page. But after praising with those faint damns, I must at least give them credit for not falling for the whitewash. The prisoner abuse scandal is NOT going away.

(via WaPoEditorial)

A DAY OF congressional hearings yesterday confirmed two glaring gaps in the Bush administration's response to hundreds of cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first is one of investigation: Major allegations of wrongdoing, including some touching on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials, have yet to be explored by any arms-length probe. The second concerns accountability. Although several official panels have documented failings by senior military officers and their superiors in Washington, those responsible face no sanction of any kind, even as low-ranking personnel are criminally prosecuted. To use the phrase of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), this "is beginning to look like a bad movie."

Mr. Rumsfeld has frequently boasted of the number of Pentagon investigations into the abuse scandal and has maintained that no others are necessary. Yet the senior officer in charge of one of those probes, Gen. Paul J. Kern, told the Senate Armed Services Committee of two major areas that remain unexplored. One is the Army's accommodation of dozens of "ghost prisoners" held by the CIA and deliberately hidden from the International Red Cross in violation of the Geneva Conventions and Army regulations. Mr. Rumsfeld has acknowledged that at least one of those prisoners was held by his personal order -- an order that two former secretaries of defense, James R. Schlesinger and Harold Brown, testified was "not consistent" with international law. Gen. Kern reported that the CIA had flatly refused to provide his team with information about the ghost prisoners or their handling -- prompting Mr. McCain's acerbic comment.

Other stories today suggest that Rumsfeld is being kept off TV and out of the public/investigative eye as much as possible not, perhaps, out of well-deserved shame but because he is losing it:

(AP via WaPo)

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, responding to allegations that he fostered a climate that led to the prisoner-abuse scandal, said yesterday that the military's mistreatment of detainees was not as bad as what terrorists have done.

Asked at a National Press Club appearance whether he contributed to a climate that led to abuse, Rumsfeld said he had approved new techniques for Guantanamo but then rescinded them

Hmmm, flip-flopping, Rummy? Troubling...

and gathered lawyers to study the subject after military officers questioned them.

He said the procedures "were not torture" and were approved for use on only two people.

But Pentagon investigations in recent months have said there have been about 300 allegations of prisoners killed, raped, beaten and subjected to other mistreatment at military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay since the start of the war on terror.

He also made comments about the latest videotape released yesterday in which he repeatedly confused "Sadaam" and "Osama" as being the source. Maybe it makes it hard to concentrate when in the back of your mind you can't forget that everything you say is going to be used against you, very soon, at The Hague.