If the tortured Iraqi prisoners of Abu Gharaib were under active intelligence debriefing, if they were being interrogated while being tortured by guards, it is impossible to believe that they did not know about it. The consequences for legal reform to untie their hands will play out over the next few years and are likely to be pretty bad.
Every time Tenet or any other member of the administration will propose some sort of loosening of intelligence oversight that handicaps our operations, thoughts will turn to the poisonous culture that, at the very least, saw torture and did nothing about it. Whether more is wrong will come out in investigation but singlehandedly, the people at that prison have set back intelligence reform for years.
They need the book thrown at them too. People are going to die because of this foul up and the funerals will come in surprising forms and due to apparently disconnected events. But the root of the problem will be the betrayal of US ideals in an Iraqi hellhole prison.
Posted by TMLutas at May 2, 2004 08:07 PM