U.S. News obtains all classified annexes to the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib

US News and World Report ^ | 7/9/04

[Brian Mosely]

"My first reaction was, 'Wow, there [are] a lot of nude people here'... I, myself, have never been in a prison... So I had no experience at all as far as a warden or that type of thing."

Army Captain Donald J. Reese, a reservist and salesman in civilian life, installed in October 2003 as warden of the hard site at Abu Ghraib

The most comprehensive view yet of what went wrong at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, based on a review of all 106 classified annexes to the report of Major General Antonio Taguba, shows abuses were facilitated--and likely encouraged--by a chaotic and dangerous environment made worse by constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees.

Daily life at Abu Ghraib, the documents show, included riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, filthy conditions, sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents. Troubles inside the prison were made worse still by a military command structure that was hopelessly broken.

Taguba focused mostly on the MPs assigned to guard inmates at Abu Ghraib, but the 5,000 pages of classified files in the annexes to his report show that military intelligence officers-�-dispatched to Abu Ghraib by the top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez-�-were intimately involved in some of the interrogation tactics widely viewed as abusive.

[Brian Mosely]

If it was classified, then how did they get...

Never mind...

[Logical me]

"almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents"

Idiot!!! If this were true all that would be left of the prison is a hole 12 foot deep.
And you want me to believe this crap?

[alloysteel]

There are plenty of moles in the Pentagon left over from the regime of the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001". This is the same pipeline that has been feeding out the abuse photos at Abu Ghraib prison.

There was widespread collusion from the first, with a deliberate effort to discredit the Bush Administration and create the impression that what happened there was official policy. The operation did require the participation and tacit agreement of a number of officers in the chain of command, but it was a rogue exercise, without official sanction. Nothing in the Tabuga report would contradict that assumption, although the conclusion was never explicitly made.

[Just mythoughts]

"There are plenty of moles in the Pentagon left over from the regime of the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001". This is the same pipeline that has been feeding out the abuse photos at Abu Ghraib prison. "


Not to mention the lying crooked liberals who sit on the Armed Services Committee. Hillry for one.

[TomGuy]

In her secret testimony, Karpinski, who was criticized for leadership failures in the Taguba report, said Sanchez refused to provide her with the necessary resources to run Abu Ghraib and other prisons. She said that he didn?t "give a flip" about soldiers, and she added this biting criticism: "I think that his ego will not allow him to accept a Reserve Brigade, a Reserve General Officer and certainly not a female succeeding in a combat environment. And I think he looked at the 800th Brigade as the opportunity to find a scapegoat..."

Apparently, it wasn't too secret.


GWB's biggest mistake was in not cleaning house of all appointee positions from the previous administration immediately on his taking office in January 2001.

They are entrenched in all departments and are working every day to undermine and destroy the Bush Presidency. And they have been quite effective, so far.

[mewzilla]

Didn't Hilliary have a staffer over in Iraq a while ago?

[bin2baghdad]

I don't think that even daily mortar rounds would leave a building complex of that size and construction a "hole 12 feet deep". They are rather small in their blast effect and daily doesn't mean "all day". It's harassing fire. The bad guys fire a few rounds and take off. It is somewhat unnerving to those on the receiving end, though. Of course, that's not an excuse for soldiers to act like undisciplined animals. They are soldiers and should act like soldiers.

[conservative in nyc]

If it was classified, then how did they get...

First guess: L-A-W-Y-E-R-S. A large number of the Abu Ghraib leaks have been reported by the Denver Post, which has links to Leash Girl's lawyers.

Second guess: Some Senate RAT.

Third guess: The administration finally took the (good) advice to do a document dump and get this Abu Ghraib nonsense over with once and for all.