New Questions About Abu Ghraib

Taguba wrote in his report of "[n]umerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse." But he wasn't allowed to trace the behavior to its root cause.

Writes Hersh: "'From what I knew, troops just don't take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups,' Taguba told me. His orders were clear, however: he was to investigate only the military police at Abu Ghraib, and not those above them in the chain of command. 'These M.P. troops were not that creative,' he said. 'Somebody was giving them guidance, but I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority. I was limited to a box.'"

Hersh suspects one reason Bush was so intent on casting blame at the lowest levels was that "from the beginning the Administration feared that the publicity would expose more secret operations and practices."

Hersh notes: "Despite the subsequent public furor over Abu Ghraib, neither the House nor the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings led to a serious effort to determine whether the scandal was a result of a high-level interrogation policy that encouraged abuse . . . An aggressive congressional inquiry into Abu Ghraib could have provoked unwanted questions about what the Pentagon was doing, in Iraq and elsewhere, and under what authority."

Hersh exposes another executive-power end-run by the White House: "By law, the President must make a formal finding authorizing a C.I.A. covert operation, and inform the senior leadership of the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees. However, the Bush Administration unilaterally determined after 9/11 that intelligence operations conducted by the military -- including the Pentagon's covert task forces -- for the purposes of 'preparing the battlefield' could be authorized by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, without telling Congress."

In other words, declare the world your battlefield and the military your intelligence service -- and suddenly there's no need to tell Congress anything.

And here's one more insight from Hersh into how the White House operates: "C.I.A. officers, who were under pressure to produce better intelligence in the field, wanted explicit legal authority before aggressively interrogating high-value targets. A finding would give operatives some legal protection for questionable actions, but the White House was reluctant to put what it wanted in writing.

"A recently retired high-level C.I.A. official, who served during this period and was involved in the drafting of findings, described to me the bitter disagreements between the White House and the agency over the issue. '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."'"

The Wilkerson Explanation

Of course, this is far from the first time that it's been suggested that responsibility for the abuse of detainees lies higher up the chain of command.

Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, wrote in July 2006 for NiemanWatchdog.org (where I am deputy editor): "Documents and memos that have already made their way into the public domain make it clear that the Office of the Vice President bears responsibility for creating an environment conducive to the acts of torture and murder committed by U.S. forces in the war on terror.

"There is, in my view, insufficient evidence to walk into an American courtroom and win a legal case (though an international courtroom for war crimes might feel differently). But there is enough evidence for a soldier of long service -- someone like me with 31 years in the Army -- to know that what started with John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes at the Pentagon, and several others, all under the watchful and willing eye of the Vice President, went down through the Secretary of Defense to the commanders in the field, and created two separate pressures that resulted in the violation of longstanding practice and law."

Previous White House Statements

Here's Bush at an April 30, 2004, Rose Garden event: