This begs the question ...

[Betty Boop]

Split verdict for officer at Abu Ghraib
By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 31 minutes ago


A military court Tuesday acquitted an Army officer of failing to control U.S. soldiers who abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but it found him guilty of disobeying an order not to discuss the abuse investigation.
Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was the only officer and the last of 12 defendants to go to trial in the 2003 Abu Ghraib scandal that embarrassed the Pentagon and shocked the Muslim world.
The allegations at the U.S.-run prison came to light with the release of pictures of U.S. soldiers smiling while detainees, some of them naked, were held on leashes or in painful and humiliating positions at the prison. Jordan, 51, never appeared in the inflammatory photos, but he was accused of fostering a climate conducive to abuse.
The jury of nine colonels and one brigadier general deliberate for about seven hours before issuing its verdicts Tuesday.
It acquitted Jordan of three counts: cruelty and maltreatment for subjecting detainees to forced nudity and intimidation by dogs; dereliction of a duty to properly train and supervise soldiers in humane interrogation rules; and failing to obey a lawful general order by ordering dogs used for interrogations without higher approval.
The jury found him guilty of one: disobeying a general's order not to talk to others about the investigation into the abuse.
Jordan, a reservist from Fredericksburg, Va., stood at attention facing the jury as the panel president, a brigadier general, read the verdict.
He faces a maximum sentence of five years. The court planned to begin the sentencing hearing later Tuesday.
Attorneys for the government and the defense declined comment.
Jordan was director of Abu Ghraib's interrogation center from mid-September until mid-November 2003. He was also the senior officer inside a prison cellblock on Nov. 24, 2003, during at least part of an episode that included a strip-search for smuggled weapons and a dog brought in to intimidate a detainee during questioning in his cell.
The four days of testimony in the case offered conflicting notions of command responsibility.
The prosecutor said in his closing argument Monday that Jordan wasn't court-martialed for what he did at Abu Ghraib, but for what he didn't do.
"He didn't train. He didn't supervise," Lt. Col. John P. Tracy told the military panel.
The defense countered that Jordan was outside the command chain and therefore not responsible for the military intelligence soldiers who interrogated detainees and the military police who guarded them.
"There is no evidence of a failure to train and supervise, no evidence of failure to ensure compliance," Maj. Kris Poppe said in his closing for the defense.
Eleven enlisted soldiers have been convicted of crimes in connection the Abu Ghraib scandal. The longest sentence, 10 years, was given to former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., of Uniontown, Pa., in January 2005. Lynndie England, who was an MP reservist from Fort Ashby, W. Va., and the most recognizable face from the Abu Ghraib photos, was sentenced to three years.

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Split verdict for officer at Abu Ghraib - Yahoo! News

If the Lt. Jordan was OUTSIDE the chain of command, was ANY officer at Abu Ghraib WITHIN it? Only enlisteds have been charged and convicted. Don't enlisteds answer to someone?

[RAMESES the Great]

If he was, as is not contested, the senior officer present, he has a command responsiblity to ensure laws are obeyed and not violated; but that is not what he was convicted of. He was only convicted of disobediance of a direct order not to publically discuss the case. The case against LTC Jordan was fatally weakened by SecDef Rumsfeld's and VP Channey's illegally hard line guidance on interrogation of terrorists. These trials (his and the enlisted men) have been a political farce of the Bush administration that sickens me!
Rather than bringing them up on the dock, to defend a reasonable (to me) policy of interrogation, the scapegoating of the workers and underlings to protect the bosses from hard questioning. I am glad this military jury saw through that and acquitted LTC Jordan on those serious charges. I hope the verdicts of the enlisted men will be reviewed in light of these determinations.

I still contend that terrorists are not POW's nor entitled to anything other than summmary execution and that any delay for intelligence collection reasons is a waste of resources. The prime example of a poor Vietnam war precident, done for lousy reasons then, and continued forward, in the name of political correctness, to Iraq and Afghanistan without reasoned thought. A POW is an enemy combattant who when captured bore arms openly and wore a combattant countries uniform. This may have applied to a few early Taliban if Afghanistan, but none since.

[Betty Boop]

But we are not talking about Gitmo detainees from Afghani; we are talking about those captured in Iraq during OIF and the days following. It seems like forever but in reality OIF was ONLY four years ago. So, these men/detainees should be considered POWs based on time-frame. So, no one but enlisteds were in charge of their training and supervision - Is that what you are suggesting Rameses? If the Lt. was acquitted for being outside of the chain command, then who was within it who was DIRECTLY accountable in Iraq for the training and supervision of the enlisteds at Abu Ghraib and the interrogation techniques employed there? Has there become such a breakdown in authority between officers and enlisteds that enlisteds no longer have an authority to answer to? If so, it's a broken system - How does the military plan to go about functioning without order and discipline and no chain of command? These are the BIGGER questions that this acquittal raises based on there seemingly having been no officer culpability for the actions of troops above that of the enlisted NCOs.

[sabadgeman]

Hi Betty Boop

As an outsider my penny's worth is that this is that the whole show in Iraq like Vietnam is not controlled by any of the military.

It is controlled by interest groups each with their own agendas and each with their own axe to grind. If the military had been in control alone they would have adopted the necessary short but painful actions required to quell the whole shooting match at the beginning of the war. The problem is that civilian people with civilian ideas of war are able to shout the odds. Unfortunately more often than not this leads to things going tits up as the kindnesses and weaknesses created by their actions are ruthlessly exploited by a very competent enemy.

It is further controlled by politicians in the pockets of big business. There are huge amounts of money being spent willy nilly in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no solution in sight because big business is at present happy with the the way things are at the moment. When they get unhappy rest assured you will be out of the big I smartly because the politicians will lose support and their jobs.

This was a sideshow created by civilians, again purely my outside view, and he has competently shown to the court that he was in fact doing what was expected of him. Probably, again purely an outside view, the enlists were found guilty because they exceeded what what was expected of them.

So probably the command structure has not broken down as such it is just been given the wrong signals from the very high ups. No one yet has had the either the guts or desire to go for those in the higher chain of command who were obviously in the loop.