Abu Mess

Abu Mess

February 16, 2006

At a time when anti-western sentiment is raging in the Arab world, Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service showed previously unreleased images of abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners. These couldn’t have come at a worse time, considering the furor over the Danish cartoons and new video showing British troops beating Iraqi protesters. These new photos will only hurt American efforts to win the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people. And while the Bush White House will surely fault the media for showing the photos, the administration has yet to deal with the fallout from the first photos published in 2004. Donald Rumsfeld remains the Secretary of Defense, the White House believes it can "waive the restrictions" of the McCain Torture amendment, and none of the higher-ups involved in the scandal are being punished for their participation.

• Abu Ghraib is a terrorist incubator. Bush promised back in May 2004 that Abu Ghraib would be demolished “as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning.” The prison has instead become a breeding ground for more violence and a training ground for the insurgency. Abu Ghraib has instead turned into a symbol for the larger problems in Iraq – a country that "has become a magnet for violent extremists from across the Islamic world."
  
  
• Iraqi says violence is worse now than under Saddam. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the Observer in London late last year, "People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse." On Sunday he reiterated his beliefs to Wolf Blitzer. The Iraqi government is currently investigating the existence of a "police death squad" after the government "found the bodies of 10 more men who had been shot execution-style and dumped in three different areas of Baghdad's predominantly Shiite suburb of Shula." Allawi warned that if this violence was allowed to continue, Iraqis would once again be living in fear as they did under Saddam.
  
  
• President Bush is sending the wrong signals on torture. It should be clear-cut – we do not support torture and will not allow it to happen. Yet despite promises that Abu Ghraib was fully investigated, the line between what soldiers can and cannot do to detainees remains blurred, thanks in part to the President himself. After signing the anti-torture legislation, Bush released a "signing statement" which said the "executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President ... as Commander in Chief." In other words, he will follow the torture law when he sees fit.