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Poor leadership gets blame
11/05/2004 17:10 - (SA)
Washington - The army general who first investigated prisoner abuse in an Iraqi prison told the US congress on Tuesday the mistreatment resulted from faulty leadership, a "lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision".
Major General Antonio Taguba also left open the possibility that members of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as armed forces personnel and civilian contractors were culpable in the abusive treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.
"A few soldiers and civilians conspired to abuse and conduct egregious acts of violence against detainees and other civilians outside the bounds of international laws and the Geneva Convention," Taguba told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Janis Karpinski
Without mentioning names, Taguba pointed to Brigadier General Janis Karpinski for failed command leadership. Karpinski, a general in the reserves who had command of military prisons in Iraq, has been suspended and issued an official letter of admonishment in connection with the abuse. She has not been charged.
Taguba testified at the committee's second hearing into abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American captors, some of whom forced the detainees to assume sexually humiliating positions.
"These acts of abuse were not the spontaneous actions of lower enlisted personnel," said senator Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the panel. They were "clearly planned and suggested by others....
"All of those up and down the chain of command must be held accountable ... for the brutality and dishonour they brought" on the troops, Levin said.
- AP
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