On May 7, 2004, the Senate and House armed service committees interviewed the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. He faced allegations that the maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners was wide spread and not limited to the Abu Ghraib prison; also he, together with President Bush's top officials, are believed to have known that the US soldiers treated Iraqi prisoners this way since the beginning of the occupation following random killing during the invasion. He defended himself quite well saying that as these things happened on "his watch", he was taking full responsibility for them; he added that he felt terrible about what happened to these detainees to whom he offered his deepest apologies for something that what simply, fundamentally un-American. He also said that the worse has not come out yet and that thousand more photographs and many videos are in the pipeline and will be shown. Rumsfeld admitted that he considered resigning over the issue but he did not see any good reason to do it; he apologised to the President and now to the Congress for not informing them. Formally it is Colonel Thomas Pappas, the head of the intelligence at Abu Ghraib, who was in charge of the interrogations. But an investigation is being done to know if more senior officers gave order "to soften" the prisoners before interrogation. After not finding weapons of mass destruction this is the second biggest scandal in the war and could create big problems during Bush's re-election campaign. The Democrat Senators accused Rumsfeld for a complete disregard of the Geneva Convention and of arrogance. Compensation will be offered to the victims but this will not improve the image of the USA in the Arab world in particular, but also in the whole world. We have now the proof that what Bush and his people say, and what there are doing, ate two completely different things. In other words, they cannot be trusted at all. Some top level US officials, including Paul Bremer and Colin Powell, appealed to the Pentagon to stop some practices in the prisons in Iraq. Paul Bremer talked to Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice on this subject but without result. He also asked for the release of thousand of uncharged prisoners. But this was not enough; they have no excuse, especially Colin Powell. He should have resigned over knowing such indignities were taking place with the blessing of the Pentagon and possibly the president and his closer assistants such as Condoleezza Rice.
On May 10, 2004, the US military authorities in Baghdad said that the soldiers involved in torture would be judged by courts martial whose audience will be open to the public and media but without camera. The first one is foreseen for May 19 with the trial of Specialist Jeremy Sivits.
On May 11, 2004, it was revealed that the harsh interrogation techniques used on prisoners were personally approved by Donald Rumsfeld, first for the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay then for those in Afghanistan and finally in Iraq. Mr Stephen Cambonne, the under-secretary of defence for intelligence was the person mainly involved in these decisions. Despite this he told a Senate Armed Services committee that the US soldiers in Iraq were under orders to follow the requirements of the Geneva conventions. Speaking also to the same committee, Major General Antonio Taguba, the author of a report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, said first that he did not find any evidence "of a policy or direct order given to the soldiers to conduct themselves as they did". But he added that the scandal was the result of "failure of leadership, lack of discipline, total absence of training and lack of supervision". Putting the jail under the control of a military intelligence unit instead of the ordinary Military Police, did not help either.
On May 12, 2004, we were told that about 1,800 pictures -not counting the videos- were shown to the members of the US Congress. They are not going to be made public, at least for the moment. They show dogs snarling at naked prisoners, Muslim women obliged to show their breast, hooded prisoners forced to masturbate and forced homosexual acts. The members of Congress who saw them expressed their disgust. Rumsfeld can well describe the Iraqi prisoners "unlawful combatants but treated according to the Geneva Conventions" he does not convince many Arabs or Europeans. The Americans have been behaving like pigs in Iraq after doing the same in Afghanistan, Vietnam, … The soldiers directly involved and identified, including Lynndie England, maintain that they only followed orders from "persons in their chain of command".
On May 16, 2004, the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is accused of having personally authorised the interrogation programs that led to abuses on prisoners in the Iraqi prisons. These programs foresee physical coercion and sexual humiliation to obtain information. Bush and Condoleezza Rice knew about it too. The main rules were:" Grab who you must. Do what you want". The Pentagon, as usual, denied the information but Rumsfeld is still fighting for his political career among requests for his resignation or firing. President Bush is still supporting him.
On July 22, 2004, the Pentagon admitted that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan was more spread that they admitted until now. Until now they are investigating 94 cases of death in custody, sexual and physical assault, and other mistreatment. At least 31 more cases are under review. The Pentagon also admitted that the number of prisoners in its war on terror is much higher that what was known. At least 50,000 prisoners passed through their detention centres in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001. The Pentagon, admitting that the number of abuses were high, added that there was no systematic use of torture and abuse in the jails under American control. Many human rights organisations rejected this conclusion as totally false. They maintained that abuse was widespread, systematic, and known and organised at the highest military and political level.
On August 24, 2004, a commission appointed by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld is set to publish its report on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld appointed the panel at the height of the scandal in May. Leaks suggest Mr Rumsfeld will be faulted for not exercising sufficient oversight of interrogation policies. Defence officials briefed on the imminent report told the New York Times that Mr Rumsfeld would escape direct accusations of misconduct and of ordering polices that encouraged prisoner abuse.
An independent panel that included two former secretaries of Defense and a separate investigating team led by two Army generals heaped more criticism this week on the Pentagon's handling of Iraq after the invasion. The findings dealt with the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, but they should be read as condemning more than just the sickening scenes of torture documented in widely seen photographs. The independent team rejected the Bush administration's claim that the Abu Ghraib mistreatment was the work of a few rogue soldiers. The number of military police and military intelligence specialists who will be charged with criminal wrongdoing may be limited, but the panel traced some of the blame all the way to the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The arrogant "we know best" attitude of the Pentagon's civilian leadership demands condemnation.. The reports concluded that 41 intelligence officers, CIA officials, contractors, medics and military police officers either took part in the abuses or knew of them but did nothing to stop them, should force the resignation or firing of top officials, military or civilian. At least two top officers might be facing such sanctions - Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who oversaw the military police at the prison, and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who oversaw the military intelligence personnel, are expected to receive reprimands that could end their careers. An article last week in Britain's leading medical journal, written by a University of Minnesota professor of medicine, cited government documents that he said showed military medical personnel violated medical ethics at Abu Ghraib. The article said some medical workers revived prisoners for further torture and falsified death certificates of prisoners who died during interrogation. The Pentagon strongly denied the charges, which recall abuses in Nazi Germany.
Senators examining the Abu Ghraib prison scandal criticized the CIA on Thursday September 9, 2004, for failing to provide Army investigators with documents on unregistered ``ghost detainees.'' Lawmakers indicated their frustration that Army generals who investigated the prison abuses couldn't put a specific figure on the number of ghost detainees and could only give a range of up to 100 detainees, though they said it was more likely closer to two dozen. ``This committee is still missing significant information necessary to fully understand where responsibility lies,'' Levin said. So far, only low-level military service members have been charged in the abuses, though blame goes up the chain of command and some responsibility originated at the Pentagon, said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
On November 30, 2004, an American civil rights group, the New York based Centre for Constitutional Rights and four former Iraqi prisoners filled a formal complaint in a German court alleging that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials condoned torture and human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
On December 8, 2004, US Special Operations Forces accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq threatened Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) personnel who saw the mistreatments and approved what was done. FBI agents confirmed the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison (sleep deprivation, humiliation and forced nudity). After the previous report that a senior FBI official wrote to the Army's top criminal investigator complaining about "aggressive" interrogation technique at Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002. All this shows that the abuses were sanctioned by the US government that later on tried to hide them.
On March 1, 2005, we were told that human rights lawyers are to file a lawsuit against the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of eight men who say they were tortured by US forces in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuit says that officials at the highest levels of the US government shoulder ultimate responsibility for the physical and psychological injuries sustained by the men while in American custody.
The US should name a special prosecutor to look at Donald Rumsfeld's possible role in the abuse of US military prisoners, a human rights group said on April 24, 2005. The organisation says others, like former CIA director George Tenet, should also face investigation. The Pentagon says Mr Rumsfeld did not authorise or condone any abuse.
On May 27, 2005, the Pentagon does not admit that the Muslim religious book, the Koran, has been profaned at Guantanamo Bay but it does not deny anymore that it was not. In fact it is known everywhere, except in the US, that it was used as a tool to make the prisoners talk. It is a fact.
The US military said on May 27, 2005, that it has identified five incidents in which American personnel at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp mishandled the Koran. But no credible evidence had been found that the book had been flushed down a toilet. The Newsweek report sparked protests across the Muslim world. In Afghanistan riots resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people.
On June 4, 2005, the US has given details of how guards mishandled copies
of the Koran at its Guantanamo Bay prison, including a case of one copy being
deliberately kicked. It was part of an inquiry sparked by a magazine report,
later retracted, that a Koran was flushed down a toilet. The US listed five
incidents of mishandling at the Cuban facility, including the splashing of
urine and water on copies of the Koran. The report said most of the cases
were accidental or unintentional. It also said that there were a number of
cases where detainees had desecrated the Koran by ripping pages, urinating
on it and trying to flush it down a toilet.