Rotten to the core

The New Yorker has published details from a leaked army report on the torture at Abu Ghraib, which finds widespread culpability amongst military intelligence staff and private contractors - none of whom have yet been charged.

It also mentions several soldiers who were fobbed off after reporting abuse to their superiors, and a previous report which was a poor attempt at a coverup.

Rather than being the isolated acts of a few individuals, it is becoming clear that Abu Ghraib was rotten to the core. Torture was passively condoned by the command structure, and covered up at the highest levels of the army. Even now, the army is in denial - they have charged only six low-level staff. They have not charged the officers who looked the other way and allowed torture to happen on their watch, or the military intelligence staff and mercenary interrogators who encouraged (and even ordered) abuse. Complicity and culpability is widespread, and if the US army is to redeem itself, it must acknowledge this and properly punish everyone involved.