Posted on 05/07/2004 11:02:41 PM PDT by saquin
CUMBERLAND, Md., May 7 — Ivan Frederick was distraught. His son, an Army reservist turned prison guard in Iraq, was under investigation earlier this year for mistreating prisoners, and photographs of the abuse were beginning to circulate among soldiers and military investigators.
So the father went to his brother-in-law, William Lawson, who was afraid that reservists like his nephew would end up taking the fall for what he considered command lapses, Mr. Lawson recounted in an interview on Friday. He knew whom to turn to: David Hackworth, a retired colonel and a muckraker who was always willing to take on the military establishment. Mr. Lawson sent an e-mail message in March to Mr. Hackworth's Web site and got a call back from an associate there in minutes, he said.
That e-mail message would put Mr. Lawson in touch with the CBS News program "60 Minutes II" and help set in motion events that led to the public disclosure of the graphic photographs and an international crisis for the Bush administration.
It is still not entirely clear who leaked the photos and how they got into the hands of a "60 Minutes II" producer. What is clear, however, is that the furor over the photos is unlikely to dissipate any time soon.
And it may only get worse.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disclosed Friday that there were "many more photos" and videos of abuse that have not yet become public. And he acknowledged in Senate testimony that the military might have mishandled the affair by not alerting members of Congress and the public to the growing seriousness of the military's investigation into the abuses before the images became public on "60 Minutes II."
"I wish I had been able to convey to them the gravity of this before we saw it in the media," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted Mr. Hackworth's Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for "60 Minutes II."
"The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case."
Many of the incriminating photographs appear to have been taken on a digital camera by a soldier in the 372nd Military Police Company who is now facing a court-martial. From there, they appear to have circulated among military personnel in Iraq via e-mail and computer disks, and some may have found their way to family members in the United States.
But there are still numerous unresolved questions about the photographs. One is why they were taken. Some officials suggest that soldiers wanted the photographs as souvenirs, but some relatives said they believed that the photographs were going to be shown to other prisoners to pressure their cooperation.
Then there is the question of how the photographs became public.
Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of forces in the region, testifying Friday before Congress, said he was still unclear how that happened. "It was a surprise that it got out," General Smith said.
Military officials were aware of two disks with photographs on them that were part of continuing investigations, one in Iraq and another in Washington, he said.
"That was the limit of the pictures, and we thought we had them all," General Smith said.
Producers at "60 Minutes II" are not saying exactly how they got the photographs. But Jeff Fager, the executive producer, said, "We heard about someone who was outraged about it and thought that the public should know about it."
Digital cameras have become so ubiquitous in the military that many relatives of personnel in the 372nd and other units in Iraq said they routinely received photographs by e-mail. But the photographs were usually tourist-type photographs of smiling sons and daughters, relatives said.
Officials said that the photographs showing psychological or physical abuse numbered in the hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000, with Mr. Rumsfeld hinting Friday that more may come out.
Among some prison personnel in Iraq, the photographs were apparently an open secret. "Some soldiers in Iraq had them — I'm hearing that soldiers were showing them to everybody," Mr. Lawson said. He said he did not have the original photos and did not turn them over to anyone.
The photographs have now turned soldiers like Mr. Lawson's nephew, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, and Pfc. Lynndie R. England into graphic symbols of military abuse. But for Mr. Lawson, they are evidence of a complete breakdown in training and authority in the Iraqi prison system.
He shared his frustration in his March 23 e-mail message to Mr. Hackworth's Web site, writing: "We have contacted the Red Cross, Congress both parties, Bill O'Reilly and many others. Nobody wants to touch this."
Less than five weeks later, images of his nephew — interviewed on "60 Minutes II" with Mr. Lawson's help — would be shown around the world. Far from untouchable, the story would become unavoidable.
My decision to serve my country was not predicated on who held the rank of Commander-in-Chief at the time. Sorry to disappoint you.
The only other guy don't seem to think much of in this thread is Colonel David H. Hackworth. To bad pal, because he's just the guy your kind ask to cover your ass as you run away from enemy fire.
Let me tell you a little about Col. Hackworth:
All citations for a Silver Star - America's third highest decoration for gallantry - begin with "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as…," and although the stories that follow that line are all unique and from various periods in history, they contain the same themes: leadership, bravery, courage, determination.
Throughout his military career, Col. Hackworth earned ten ( 10 ) Silver Stars for actions in Korea and Vietnam, the most Silver Stars awarded to a single person. You just keep on taking your cheap shots at your betters, pal.
But if you take nothing else away from this pal, just remember, you can't kill anything with a pen that writes like a BB gun. Be careful. Inexperience with handling your pen could lead to poking your eye out with it.
The dirty little secret of "the media" is that journalism was politics at the time of the Revolution, it was still politics when Jefferson and Hamilton were sponsoring newspapers in which to wage their partisan battles, and it is never going to stop being politics.Journalism can be spoken of as an entity because it functions as a guild whose purpose is to "square the circle" of its claim of wisdom (a.k.a. "objectivity") on the one hand and, OTOH, its nature as a
genre of nonfiction publishing. Journalism squares that circle by a massive propaganda campaign which suffuses American culture and makes it very difficult to think outside the box it constructs. The box which says, "You have a right to know."
- superficial ("there's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper" means that today's newspaper will be worthless tomorrow).
- negative ("no news is good news" is true because good news is seldom surprising enough to be considered "news").
- unrepresentative ("Man Bites Dog" is news, "Dog Bites Man" is unsurprising and thus "not news").
"To know all" is the song of Sirens who tempted sailors to their doom in The Odyssey - and Ulysses would have followed it himself, had he not lashed himself to the mast and deafened his crewmens' ears with wax so they wouldn't also hear the song. If you actually had a right to know, you could sue newspapers over what they did not publish. And since journalists obviously cannot publish absolutely everything, such a "right" would destroy freedom of the press. You have, instead,
We have no need of a "right to know" which is actually a duty to shut up and listen to the opinions of others.
- the right to your own opinion - and
- the right to publish your opinion,
- the right to pay attention to published opinions that interest you, and
- the right to ignore people who publish ideas which do not interest you.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
I think it was the Bush Administration. Better to be doing damage control in May than two weeks before the election. If they knew these photos were coming out then by releasing them, Bush could control the effect and coordinate the response.
I understand the sentiment but it doesn't answer the question: where was the Chain of Command?
You're right: An officer should not have to be there to prevent behavior like this. But it happened. Repeatedly. Over a prolonged period of time.
That said, one must question where the Chain of Command was while this was going on. Both officers and NCOs, especially at the platoon level (O-1s, O-2s, E-7s), should be on the spot leading, supervising, guiding, correcting, training, motivating, helping those guards keep things in perspective.
So I say again: Where were they? While the press is having a field day with the sensationalism of the photos and trying to embarrass the administration, I want to know: where was the Platoon Leader? the Platoon Sergeant? the Company Commander? the 1SG? Where were the Battalion Commander and CSM?
So while everybody else is clamoring for the rest of the pictures and the heads of the perpetrators, the real substance of the story is being ignored.
This whole sad episode is a colossel failure in leadership. The Army ought to be alarmed and ashamed.
Hmm... Still waiting for it to be pulled. Did you ask them to pull it because of what I said, or because of what you were thinking?
HUH? I thought they were being prosecuted because they took part in the abuse of prisoners. Whether or not the pictures were released is beside the point.
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