The Hindu Business Line : US Congressional hearings on Iraqi prisoner abuse

THERE is no doubt that the grilling of the US Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald H. Rumsfeld; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, and their aides for more than three hours by the members of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee on May 7 would be indelibly etched for a very long time in the memory of those who watched the proceedings over the TV.

The Committee had convened specially to hold hearings on the barbaric treatment of Iraqi detenus by units of the US Army at the Abu Ghraib prison. It was the place painted during the Saddam Hussein regime by the sustained propaganda barrage emanating from the US as the goriest among the chambers of horrors into which his victims were supposed to have been thrown and fed into giant shredders (this was subsequently found, like Saddam's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, to be a canard deliberately put out as an excuse for the invasion). The monstrous, if tragic, irony of the notoriety it has now acquired due to the trampling of the vaunted American values under the feet of the US Army was not lost on the members of the Senate Committee.

Regardless of whether they were Democrats or Republicans, Senators, including such famous names as Messrs. Ted Kennedy and John McCain and Ms Hillary Clinton, minced no words while expressing their indignation at the US being brought into disrepute all over the world because of the fatuity and fecklessness of a few. Here at work, in the full view of millions round the world, was the American democracy in all its vigour, vibrancy and vitality. Here was also in action the impressive built-in power that US Congress enjoyed as one of the three co-equal and independent branches to keep the Executive on its toes and to pull it up when it committed excesses.

Media's finest hour

This was also the Fourth Estate's finest hour. If the indescribable cruelties have justly met with worldwide condemnation and exposed the ineptitude and indifference of both the civilian and military chains of command in the US Department of Defence, the full credit belongs to the US media. By their vigorous espousal of the cause of justice and fair play, they have, in fact, amply atoned for `bedding with' officialdom and military commanders and becoming their mouthpieces during the Iraq war.

The CBS news channel was the first to stun the world with its heroic act of ferreting out and broadcasting the nauseating pictures of ill-treatment, brushing aside the arrogant attempt (which a senator calls `antithetical' to democracy) by Gen. Richard Myers, to gag it. The rest of the media in the US and the UK have followed it up with investigative scoops of their own, and fulfilled to the hilt their mission in a democracy of keeping the people informed.

The Washington Post, in particular, has not only turned the heat on the Government by publishing more pictures as proof of the despicable and depraved practices at Abu Ghraib but brought to light a classified document approved by the Defence Department, possibly the Defence Secretary himself, more than a year ago detailing 20 harsh interrogation techniques in detention centres aimed at "reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and sensory assault, including loud music and bright lights" and creating "physical and psychological stress" to extract information.

The existence of prior sanction for the obnoxious tactics within the Defence Department uncovered by the paper and described by The Human Rights Watch, as "cruel and inhumane," makes nonsense of what otherwise might have been accepted as spontaneous and sincere expressions of contrition by Mr Rumsfeld and Gen Myers, and their cohorts, during their appearance before the Congressional Committee.

Egregious negligence

Mr Rumsfeld and his panel at the witness table had many other ugly surprises in store for the Committee and the world audience glued to the TV screen. Among them was the admission by the Defence Secretary of the utter failure on his part and on the part of the highest military echelons in Washington to grasp the horrific nature of complaints of abuses and the revolting photographs received from conscientious soldiers. They were known to the Central Command (Cencom) of the US Army, which had jurisdiction over the Abu Ghraib prison, for more than six months, and dossiers of investigations initiated into them had worked their way up the chain of command to the Pentagon as early as January 2004. The Defence Department had also a detailed report of a senior general of the chaotic and dangerous conditions in the prison and the nightmarish practices adopted there.

In this background, the Senators were rudely shaken by Mr Rumsfeld's testimony that neither himself nor the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had looked at any of these documents until the scandal broke in late April. One could see the extreme consternation in their faces when told that there were many more photographs than what had been published so far which were far more gruesome. Neither the President nor the Congress had been taken into confidence about them.

This inexplicable negligence apart, Mr Rumsfeld was seen frequently groping for answers to the questions of the Senators on matters of which he ought to have been in full control. He was at a loss to account for the induction of private contractors as interrogators, he did not know what precisely their instructions were, he could not explain who was in charge of the whole set-up at Abu Ghraib, and he was not sure who was accountable for the dreadful treatment except to say that since it occurred on his watch, he accepted responsibility. He could not pinpoint the date(s) on which he briefed the President on the shameful events, since he did not (he said) keep any notes of his meetings and since he was in the habit of discussing with his boss any number of things on any number of occasions.

Oftentimes, he looked at Gen Myers and other subordinate aides for coming to his rescue, only to be sternly told by the Senators that they expected him, and not others on the panel, to reply. In short, he gave the impression of a person who, presiding over the world's mightiest military establishment, had only a vague and nebulous idea of what was going on right under his nose. He certainly did not come through as a person deserving of Mr Bush's thumping certificate of "doing a superb job" and being "a strong Secretary of Defence."

Perturbing

The shock and revulsion arising out of the revelations, far from abating, show every sign of turning into a raging firestorm, dragging the name of the US and its army in the mud. All the more so when the Red Cross has gone public with the statement that it had been reporting in vain to US authorities from the time of the US-led invasion abuses "tantamount to torture" of prisoners. It has also said that the actions by prison officials were not just aberrations by a few sadistic individuals but that "there was a pattern and a system". Add to this the warning of the Defence Secretary himself that the worst is yet to come in terms of disclosures of atrocities and things are going to get more terrible, and you have the ingredients of an explosive mixture that will rip apart the image of the US as a civilised nation arrogating to itself the right to eternally pontificate to others on democracy and human rights. No wonder, the US State Department has wisely put on hold the publication of its usually preachy and censorious annual report on the state of human rights in various countries.

Thus the pictures of unspeakable bestiality which have burnt themselves in the psyche of people in every corner of the globe are not the most galling aspects of this horrendous fall from grace of the self-anointed mentor of the world. What is most perturbing is the possibility that they may actually be the symptoms of a malignant malaise which stems from the megalomania of a technologically and militarily unchallengeable superpower which brooks no check or control over its whims and fancies.