Down, But What About Up, The Chain Of Command?
On Monday, May 22, eyes will turn to Fort Meade in Maryland where the court-martial of military working dog handler Army Sgt. Santos A. Cardona gets underway.Cardona has been charged with assault, cruelty and maltreatment and dereliction of duty for his role in the use of dogs during interrogation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.But his case should garner even more interest because of the role of higher-ups, both in the military and in the Office of Secretary of Defense, which has thus far received next to no attention in the unremitting glare of a court room.
Human Rights First attorney Hina Shamsi will be monitoring this important court martial and blogging from the proceedings
Human Rights First, together with Human Rights Watch and the NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice determined through exhaustive research that 95% of all those investigated in some way for detainee abuses have been enlisted soldiers. In the case of Abu Ghraib, Cardona is the eleventh soldier to be criminally charged.But it was only last month that the first officer, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan was charged for his part in detainee abuse.Yet it's clear from testimony of other officers that senior leaders bear significant responsibility not only for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but also throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.But according to our research only six officers in total have been criminally charged in the hundred of instances of abuses.
Cardona's lawyers are expected to call Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller to the stand.Gen. Miller has been a central figure in much of the detainee abuse scandal, with many questions not fully examined regarding his role and that of the Pentagon in establishing abusive interrogation and detention policies both in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay.In July 2005, a military investigation recommended that Gen. Miller be reprimanded for his role in the interrogation of a detainee at Guantanamo but the Commander of the U.S. Southern Command Gen. Bantz Craddock overruled the recommendation.Gen. Craddock had been Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's senior military assistant until June 2005.
Sgt. Cardona has insisted that the use of dogs in interrogations was authorized by his superiors. In March Cardona's fellow dog handler Michael Smith invoked the same sort of defense, with mixed results - Smith was found guilty on about half of the charges against him, including conspiring with Cardona to threaten detainees with their dogs causing them to urinate on themselves.
The Committee against Torture's report issued on Friday noted the failure to hold senior officials accountable for the detainee abuses, recommending that the U.S. government " promptly, thoroughly, and impartially investigate any responsibility of senior military and civilian officials authorizing, acquiescing or consenting, in any way, to acts of torture committed by their subordinates."
As a backdrop to the trial, in Washington and in Arlington, Virginia, the ongoing internal U.S. governmental debate over the new army field manual is disquieting news.Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told Senators on Wednesday that there is continuing disagreement over whether there should be a separate set of interrogation rules for detainees deemed "enemy combatants."Such talk reflects a failure on the part of the Department of Defense to learn from its abusive interrogation and detention policy, which its own internal investigations criticized in part for promulgating multiple and inconsistent interrogation policies that led to confusion over how to treat detainees.It also suggests an effort to make an end run around the McCain Amendment, which was passed into law as the Detainee Treatment Act to ensure a uniform interrogation policy that would not allow for cruel treatment, regardless of who is being questioned.
The clarity and content of the interrogation and detention policy will be what is under the microscope in the Ft. Meade courtroom.Who ordered what?What was the policy?When were interrogation approaches like the use of dogs, sleep deprivation and nudity authorized or prohibited or permitted? Did this policy and these approaches lead to the use of dogs to harass, threaten and attack detainees? Hopefully we will get some answers.Stay tuned….
Human Rights First attorney Hina Shamsi will be monitoring this important court martial and blogging from the proceedings
Human Rights First, together with Human Rights Watch and the NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice determined through exhaustive research that 95% of all those investigated in some way for detainee abuses have been enlisted soldiers. In the case of Abu Ghraib, Cardona is the eleventh soldier to be criminally charged.But it was only last month that the first officer, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan was charged for his part in detainee abuse.Yet it's clear from testimony of other officers that senior leaders bear significant responsibility not only for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but also throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.But according to our research only six officers in total have been criminally charged in the hundred of instances of abuses.
Cardona's lawyers are expected to call Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller to the stand.Gen. Miller has been a central figure in much of the detainee abuse scandal, with many questions not fully examined regarding his role and that of the Pentagon in establishing abusive interrogation and detention policies both in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay.In July 2005, a military investigation recommended that Gen. Miller be reprimanded for his role in the interrogation of a detainee at Guantanamo but the Commander of the U.S. Southern Command Gen. Bantz Craddock overruled the recommendation.Gen. Craddock had been Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's senior military assistant until June 2005.
Sgt. Cardona has insisted that the use of dogs in interrogations was authorized by his superiors. In March Cardona's fellow dog handler Michael Smith invoked the same sort of defense, with mixed results - Smith was found guilty on about half of the charges against him, including conspiring with Cardona to threaten detainees with their dogs causing them to urinate on themselves.
The Committee against Torture's report issued on Friday noted the failure to hold senior officials accountable for the detainee abuses, recommending that the U.S. government " promptly, thoroughly, and impartially investigate any responsibility of senior military and civilian officials authorizing, acquiescing or consenting, in any way, to acts of torture committed by their subordinates."
As a backdrop to the trial, in Washington and in Arlington, Virginia, the ongoing internal U.S. governmental debate over the new army field manual is disquieting news.Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told Senators on Wednesday that there is continuing disagreement over whether there should be a separate set of interrogation rules for detainees deemed "enemy combatants."Such talk reflects a failure on the part of the Department of Defense to learn from its abusive interrogation and detention policy, which its own internal investigations criticized in part for promulgating multiple and inconsistent interrogation policies that led to confusion over how to treat detainees.It also suggests an effort to make an end run around the McCain Amendment, which was passed into law as the Detainee Treatment Act to ensure a uniform interrogation policy that would not allow for cruel treatment, regardless of who is being questioned.
The clarity and content of the interrogation and detention policy will be what is under the microscope in the Ft. Meade courtroom.Who ordered what?What was the policy?When were interrogation approaches like the use of dogs, sleep deprivation and nudity authorized or prohibited or permitted? Did this policy and these approaches lead to the use of dogs to harass, threaten and attack detainees? Hopefully we will get some answers.Stay tuned….
posted by Avi at 1:33 PM
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