Mr. Speaker, today a 24-year-old Army Reserve specialist was sentenced to do a year in jail, reduction in rank and dishonorable discharge for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. What would his sentence have been if this soldier had…
Mr. Speaker, today a 24-year-old Army Reserve specialist was sentenced to do a year in jail, reduction in rank and dishonorable discharge for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. What would his sentence have been if this soldier had served as judge, jury, prosecution and defense? Indeed, would there have been any charges filed at all if the 24-year-old soldier had investigated himself? Of course not. It would be justice denied.
Yet that is exactly what the military commanders and civilian leaders at the Pentagon are trying to pull off.
Yesterday, before a Senate committee, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top military commander in Iraq, vowed that the scandal would be investigated up the chain of command, including himself.
At a time when the world must see that no one in the U.S. is above the law, the Pentagon arrogantly acts as if it answers only to itself. The first low-ranking soldier was thrown overboard today. Other low- ranking soldiers will soon follow.
This is how Secretary Rumsfeld, Lieutenant General Sanchez and all of their minions define justice. Do as I say, not as I do. The world is watching, and the world is not buying the Pentagon justice charade.
Outside the courtroom today, an Iraqi civilian told the Associate Press, ``Those who are executing the laws and orders are not the problem. Punishment of the officials who gave the orders is what matters.''
More than anything else, these court-martials may just reinforce the mistrust and resentment against the United States throughout the Arab world.
The way the proceedings are being handled is under fire. The Pentagon allowed media to attend the court-martial but television cameras were barred, even as representatives from Middle East networks demanded access.
Apparently, it is okay for the President to go on Arab television but it is not okay for the Arab world to see an
example of justice in the United States military. Why not?
What is more, the U.S. refused to allow either Iraqi or international human rights groups to attend and observe the court-martial. U.S. military brass cited unspecified ``security'' issues for denying the request. Human Rights Watch could not even get the name of a U.S. military leader in order to lodge a complaint.
The leader of the human rights organization in the Middle East called the U.S. military's refusal ``a bad decision in its own right. It also sends a terrible signal to the Iraqis and others deeply concerned about what transpired in Abu Ghraib.''
America's credibility is on the line around the world, but U.S. military commanders deny access to a courtroom by credible, independent human rights organizations. What will it take for Secretary Rumsfeld and the military commanders to get it?
Another soldier at the prison told ABC News today, ``There's definitely a cover-up,'' and the soldier said military commanders authorized the abuse.
Several soldiers may be on trial in a military court in Iraq, but America is on trial in the world court. Denying access to human rights organizations will be seen round the world as a cover-up. Claiming this scandal begins and ends with a few low-ranking soldiers will be seen around the world as a cover-up. Claiming the military can investigate itself all the way up the chain of command will be seen as what it is, an end run around justice.
If there is nothing to hide, then get it out in the open. For the sake of every good and decent American soldier in harm's way in Iraq, this Congress must show the world that no one is above the law in America.
Every day, there are new allegations of abuses in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. The Observer, which is a London newspaper, is reporting that a British prisoner just released from Guantanamo claims there are organized American punishment units called Extreme Reaction Forces or ERFs. Prisoners fear being ERF'd. They have created a new word for this kind of abuse. There are rumors, in fact, that a member of each ERF team takes a videotape and they are there. We need to see those ERF tapes.
A woman in Iraq claimed U.S. military forces took her husband and is holding him without charges because her father was not in the house. They said, well, if your father is not here, we are going to take your husband.
The International Red Cross quoted military intelligence officers as saying between 70 and 90 percent of the Iraqis in prison were arrested by mistake.
Iraq is spinning out of control. This war has gone from crisis to calamity to catastrophe. If the President will not lead the Nation, the Congress must. We need an investigation now. We need to remove Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Cambone and Feith, for that matter. We need to do it now. Some low-ranking U.S. soldiers are not the only ones on trial. America is on trial as well.
What is fascinating about reading the American press today is that if that is all you watch, if you watch Fox TV, which is a Republican body, I mean, the guy who runs it used to be the PR director, or the National Committee Chairman for the Republican Party. Or if you read the newspapers, there is a tight control on the news that you and I get in the United States.
Now, if you pick up a foreign newspaper, you find some very interesting things. In the Guardian, on May 18, there is an article by a man named Crispin Blunt. He says, ``I voted for intervention in Iraq. Not because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction, but because of the failure to ensure the removal of Saddam Hussein in 1991 and its consequences.'' Meaning the effects of sanctions. Now, he says, I have changed my mind. We need to get out. We must get out.
``The reason for the failed policy is simple: When the British occupied Iraq following the first world war, they were greeted initially as liberators of Iraqis from the Ottoman Empire. But over time, the British came to be seen as occupiers. Iraq experts and historians predict that after 9 months or so, the American and British forces that came to liberate Iraq from the Ba'athists rule would be seen as foreign occupiers.''
My colleagues, we are there today. We are there today. We are just like the British were in 1923 or whatever.
``The insurgents in Iraq cannot be written off as a small minority led by foreign jihadis. The silent majority of Iraqis increasingly side with the insurgents, who are viewed as part of the Iraqi nation waging resistance against the foreign occupiers. However nasty their tactics, the insurgents are viewed as the `us' in this new battle to expunge the occupiers. However noble and rational the goals of the coalition, U.S. and Britain, they are perceived as the alien `them.' ''
It goes on to say ``an exit strategy is needed above all to preserve and restore in Arab eyes the moral authority of our liberal democratic values, which have been under intense assault most recently with the emergence of Abu Ghraib.''
Another article in the Guardian dated May 19, is entitled ``Former Guantanamo Chief Clashed with Army Interrogators. General's Sacking Cleared Way for Pentagon to Rewrite Rules.''
What we are seeing in those pictures that have been on the front pages of the newspapers of this country are the result of decisions made a long time ago, not by six or seven soldiers, but by people at the very top, beginning with Mr. Rumsfeld. This article reports on the sacking of a General Rick Baccus. He is the commander of the Rhode Island National Guard. He was sacked amid charges from the Pentagon that he was too soft on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Now, ``General Baccus was removed in October of 2002. That is a long time ago. Apparently, after frustrating military intelligence officers by granting detainees such privileges as distributing copies of the Koran and adjusting meal times for Ramadan. He also disciplined prison guards for screaming at inmates.''
This is why he was sacked. He was too soft on the prisoners. This goes on to say ``General Baccus' unceremonious departure offers a rare insight as to how the Pentagon rewrote the rules of warfare to suit the Bush administration's view of a radically changed world following the attacks of September 11. It also suggests what happens to military personnel slow to sign up to the Pentagon's changed view of the world.
``Eighteen months after being removed from Guantanamo, General Baccus, aged 51, and commander of the National Guard in Rhode Island, is still waiting for a new military assignment.''
Do you think he will get one in this administration? I doubt it.
Now, the connection between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib grew clearer this month when General Baccus' successor at the camp, guess who, Major General Geoffrey Miller, was put in charge of the U.S. prisons in Iraq. He was in Guantanamo, and they said, come on over here and fix up what is going on in Iraq.
``General Miller's recommendations for Abu Ghraib, merging the functions of prison guard and interrogator, as he did at Guantanamo, was cited in the Pentagon's internal report on abuse at the now notorious prison.''
This is the Pentagon's report on abuse. They said that was wrong, to merge the guards and the interrogators. You had guards who had no training whatsoever in interrogation being put in the position of being interrogators. It is no wonder we had this problem.
There is an article that talks about what happened after the Second World War and how long they trained the people before they went to Nuremberg to question the Nazis, how long it took them to prepare the interrogators to do it in a humane and professional way.
This administration, run by the Secretary of War, Mr. Rumsfeld, had no time to wait, to plan. They had to go right now. It was a war of choice. It was not a war where there was any impending danger to us. It is very clear now. But they wanted to get in and get it done as quick as possible before anybody figured out what they were up to. So they rushed in, totally ill prepared, and put these young people that they are now convicting and throwing out of the military.
I was a psychiatrist during the Vietnam era, and I saw these people coming
back from Vietnam. A lot of them wound up in the brig, and I would see them. And let me tell my colleagues something. Giving somebody a bad conduct discharge really scars them for life. Every time you go for a job, you are asked, do you have an honorable discharge? Well, no, I do not, I got a bad conduct discharge. They are going to have trouble getting jobs the rest of their lives on the basis of orders given to them by somebody who will take his very generous Federal pension and go off in real luxury for the rest of his life.
Those six or seven people that are being dumped out on their ear or will be dumped out in the near future are being treated unfairly, and everybody should know that, and everybody should be able to see it.
Now, today, there was also a story in the Los Angeles Times, because you have to read widely in this country. You cannot just read the papers here in Washington, DC. The L.A. Times carries a story by Richard Serrano entitled ``3 Witnesses at Iraq Abuse Hearing Refuse to Testify.''
``Three key witnesses, including a senior officer in charge of interrogations, refused to testify during a secret hearing against an alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves.''
They took the 5th. An officer of the United States military took the 5th, and this House does not have an investigation. We do not think it is worthwhile to find out what is going on here.
``The witnesses appeared on April 26 at a preliminary hearing behind closed doors for Corporal Charles A. Graner, who has been identified in court-martial documents as the leader of a band of military police guards who humiliated and abused Iraqi detainees and compiled a bizarre photographic record of their activities. The prospective witnesses' refusal to testify is described in court-martial documents obtained by the Times on Tuesday.
``That all of the prospective witnesses called up by prosecutors invoked the military equivalent of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination indicates the key players in the abuse scandal may be closing ranks to save themselves and one another.''
So here comes the coverup. And if the House of Representatives, with the responsibility for oversight given to us by the Constitution, shirks their duty on this issue, they are participating in the coverup as well.
There is no way the House can excuse itself from investigating this, and our leadership just laughs and says it is a frat house prank. This was no frat house prank. This has ruined our reputation in the world. It has taken away our moral authority to deal because not only did we do it, but we will not own up to it and talk about how it happened.
Just a week after the hearing on May 3, the judge, Major Dewayne McOsker, Jr., ruled there was enough evidence to proceed. He cited a CD-ROM containing photographs and videos taken inside the prison showing detainees being abused and humiliated, along with written statements from four of the other six guards implicated in the scandal. ``I believe there is enough credible evidence to establish reasonable grounds'' that Graner is guilty, McOsker concluded.
Now he went ahead and did it anyway in spite of the fact that a senior officer said I cannot talk about this because I might incriminate myself. The New York Times, May 19, ``Two Generals Deny Issuing Orders to Allow Prison Abuse in Iraq.'' Big surprise, right.
``The two generals in charge of the occupation of Iraq took responsibility today for the prison abuse scandal there, but they also denied having issued or approved any orders that they say could have been interpreted to allow humiliation or mistreatment of prisoners.''
Now if there is nothing to hide, we should have an investigation. Why do we not bring it out? That is the question that this House must face. Members cannot go out with a straight face and talk to the friends and the families and the loved ones of people who have died in Iraq and say that you have done your job as a U.S. Congressman if you have not participated in demanding an investigation.
To say that this will be handled by the Army, the Army will handle it, I guess they will.
ABC News, May 18, ``Definitely a Cover-Up. Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal.''
`` `There is definitely a cover-up,' the witness, Sergeant Samuel Provance said. `People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet.'
``Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABC despite orders from his commanders not to.
`` `What I am surprised at was the silence,' says Provance. `The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something.'
``Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret computer network used by military intelligence at the prison.''
This is not just some guy who heard scuttlebutt around someplace. He was in the unit doing the intelligence work. He said while he did not see the actual abuses, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the MP's rough treatment of prisoners.
I do not know, it sounds like a smoking gun if somebody wanted to look at it. Anybody who has been in a military organization realizes there is something called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the UCMJ. And as an enlisted person at the bottom, you are responsible to carry out the orders of your superior. Privates carry out the orders of corporals, sergeants and lieutenants and captains and major and so forth up the line. Failure to do so leads to a court-martial or to an article 15 or some kind of punishment, and everybody knows it.
So the fact that they threw this poor guy out today with a bad conduct discharge, and we will see if anything more happens. If by the end of a few weeks all we see are seven people that they threw out as rogue soldiers, the injustice and the cover-up started by the people in the Department of Defense will be clear as it is in the sunshine.
This House cannot allow that to happen. The New York Times again, ``Officers Say U.S. Colonel at Abu Ghraib Prison Felt Intense Pressure to Get Inmates to Talk.''
When they sent Colonel Thomas Pappas over there as the head of military intelligence, he was under enormous pressure from his superiors to extract more information from prisoners there, according to senior Army officers.
People knew this. This is not something that was not known, it is just that the House of Representatives does not want to ask. They do not want to look. They want to close their eyes and hope it will go away. This is not going to go away because the world is watching and looking and reacting to it. Maybe you can close your eyes until after the election is over, but you will not be able to close your eyes to the impact that it has on the United States and to our troops.
These pictures have stirred up the opposition, the people out there. All they have to do is show those pictures around, and people will say, yes, I will get them, which makes it more dangerous for our people every single day.
Being out there in a guerilla warfare is awful. I heard about it from the soldiers and sailors that I dealt with in Vietnam. I did not experience it myself. I did not have to. I know it was awful. We are making their job tougher by not saying we committed a mistake, we were wrong, we are going to right it. It is not just going to be the folks down at the bottom.
There is a wonderful movie that everybody in the House of Representatives ought to have to see, ``Paths of Glory.'' It is a story from the First World War about French troops who did not want to get up out of the trenches and charge into the fire because as they got to the top of the ladder, they were getting their heads shot off, so they failed to charge. The general called a court-martial and picked three guys at random. They shot them in firing squads, and the movie is about how they were selected, who they were, and why they were picked. These six or seven people will be those same sorts of people, while the generals sit in the back, have a steak, drink a glass of wine, take their pension and go off with their life.
This issue is too big for this House to ignore.
Mr. Speaker, as the third-ranking person in the United States of America, ahead of you is only the President and the Vice President, you are the Speaker, the one who controls the House of the people, for you to allow this to go uninvestigated is absolutely unacceptable. In this next election, the American people ought to turn out the Republicans wholesale if they do not deal with this issue because what it has cost us, never mind the money, the $200 billion we have already spent and $25 billion more they are going to ask for in a few days; the money is important, of course, but what we have done to our reputation and our ability to lead the free world may be irreparable. I hope not.
If we act quickly and decisively, I think we can change it, but it cannot be dragged along and acted as though this is all right. It is not all right, and it will not be solved by throwing seven people out of the United States Army.