May 05, 2004

First steps
Posted by McQ

Today in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq made this apology:

"I would like to apologize for our nation and for our military for the small number of soldiers who committed illegal or unauthorized acts here at Abu Ghraib," Miller told Arab and Western reporters taken on a military tour of the prison.

"These are violations not only of our national policy but of how we conduct ourselves as members of the international community.

"It has brought a cloud over all the efforts of all of our soldiers and we will work our hardest to re-establish the trust that Iraqis feel for the coalition and the confidence people in American have in their military."

Good, but not good enough. It needs to go higher. It'll be interesting to see what this brings:
President Bush was to conduct brief interviews with the U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra television network and the Arab network Al-Arabiya on Wednesday to address Iraqi and Arab outrage at the photographs.
Also being done to ensure no repetition of the past events:
Miller said he asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to have a permanent presence at the prison west of Baghdad. Also, Iraq's Interior Ministry and Ministry of Human Rights will have offices here at the prison, he said.
Additionally:
Miller said he had reviewed the U.S. Army's interrogation manual's list of 53 techniques for questioning prisoners and spoke to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top general in Iraq.

"He has approved my recommendation to restrict some of those techniques," Miller said.

On Tuesday, the U.S. military said it was ordering troops to use blindfolds instead of hoods and requiring interrogators to get permission before depriving inmates of sleep or keeping them in stressful positions for extended periods - two of the most common techniques reported by freed Iraqis.

Exceptions would require permission of a general officer, Miller said.

Make no mistake ... there are techniques which are used to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation and they are approved techniques. One of them is sleep deprevation.

Probably the most important thing to be done, however, is the swift and public trials of those who've been charged criminally. Based on what I've read in MG Taguba's report, the cases would seem to be pretty damning against the perpertrators.

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