In March 2004, General Antonio Taguba was assigned to investigate the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib. Although many top presidential administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, denied having any knowledge of the abuse prior to the release of the report. However, Taguba's report showed that the commands for the abuse had to have been handed down from top military commanders.
The report was supposed to have been kept classified, but was somehow leaked to the media through a senior military official. It pointed to the President and his staff for ordering the MPs guarding the detainees to employ any means necessary, and any extent of abuse to gain intelligence from the prisoners regarding terrorism. Although Rumsfeld and many commanding officers denied seeing any of the photos of abuse before the release of the report, Taguba felt that many of them had indeed seen the pictures, and had knowledge of the extent of the torture, but made no attempt to stop them or inform the President or the appropriate Senate committee of the activities.
After Taguba's report was released, he was ostracized by military officials and the Presidential administration. A couple of months later, he was demoted to an inferior position in a low-ranking office at the Pentagon, essentially so that officials could keep an eye on him. Knowing that his career was at a dead-end, Taguba retired shortly after. Although military officials ignored him after he authored the report, Taguba has been heralded by many as a pioneer for telling the truth about the extent of the abuse, knowing that his career and military future were on the line. Summed up best in his own words, "If I lie, I lose. And, if I tell the truth, I lose."
No comments:
Post a Comment