It has been exactly one year since the pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating and torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq appeared on 60 Minutes II. Shortly after the photos came out, Secretary of State Colin Powell told foreign leaders: "Watch America. Watch how we deal with this. Watch how America will do the right thing."
But America is not doing the right thing. Rather, the United States is doing what every banana republic does when its abuses are discovered: covering up and shifting blame downward.
Each passing day brings new evidence that the mistreatment of Muslim prisoners -- far from being an isolated incident at Abu Ghraib -- was widespread in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Detainees in Afghanistan were frequently beaten, held naked, and deprived of sleep for long periods. Guantanamo Bay inmates have been regularly shackled into painful positions in freezing rooms, some reportedly forced to sit in their own excrement. The CIA holds detainees incommunicado in "secret locations" where some are said to have been subject to even worse methods, such as feigned drowning.
This pattern of abuse across three countries did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules. It resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to bend, ignore, or cast aside rules. Yet it has been the soldiers at the bottom of the chain who have taken the heat for Abu Ghraib and torture around the world, while the officials at the top who made the policies are going scot-free. Only one soldier higher than the rank of sergeant has been charged with a crime. No civilian leader at the Pentagon or the CIA is even being investigated.
In the uproar after the Abu Ghraib photos, the Pentagon ordered no fewer than nine separate investigations. Two probes showed that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's interrogation policies contributed to torture and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the investigators lacked the mandate -- or the independence -- to draw the obvious conclusions regarding the political or legal responsibility of Rumsfeld or others who approved illegal tactics.
The most recent such whitewash came from the Army inspector general. According to findings leaked to the press, his report absolved four of the five officers overseeing prison operations in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal, including Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. soldier in Iraq. Yet we now know (although he misled Congress about it) that Sanchez gave the troops at Abu Ghraib the formal green light to use dogs to terrorize detainees (“exploit Arab fear of dogs” were his exact words), and they did, and we know what happened. And while mayhem went on under his nose for three months, Sanchez didn't step in to halt it.
Human Rights Watch and other groups have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate detainee abuse because Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, is himself deeply involved in the policies leading to these alleged crimes. In particular, the prosecutor should look at the possible culpability of Rumsfeld and the former director of central intelligence, George Tenet.
Rumsfeld created the conditions for crimes against detainees by publicly questioning the relevance of the Geneva Conventions, hiding detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and putting into play illegal interrogation methods -- such as the use of guard dogs to terrorize detainees -- that have turned up again and again in abuse reports. Most importantly, there is no evidence that, over a three-year period of mounting reports of abuse, Rumsfeld exerted his authority and warned those under his command that the mistreatment of prisoners must stop. Had he done so, many of the crimes committed by U.S. forces certainly could have been avoided.
Under Tenet's direction, and reportedly with his specific authorization, the CIA has “rendered” detainees to countries such as Syria and Egypt where they were tortured, making Tenet potentially liable as an accomplice to torture. The CIA has also “disappeared” detainees in secret locations, and it is said to have used “water-boarding,” in which the detainee's head is pushed under water until he believes he will drown, also reportedly with Tenet's authorization.
Unless the higher-level officials who approved or tolerated crimes against detainees are also brought to justice, all the protestations of "disgust" at the Abu Ghraib photos by President Bush and others will be meaningless. Indeed, if there is no real accountability for these crimes, for years to come the perpetrators of atrocities around the world will point to the United States' treatment of prisoners to deflect criticism of their own conduct.
The world is still waiting to see how America deals with these crimes.
Reed Brody, a special counsel with Human Rights Watch, lives in New York.
