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Taguba and his investigators sifted and probed and assessed the blame as high as they were permitted to go. Taguba believed — no, he KNEW — that the responsibility for this outrage went much higher. He knew it reached to the office of then Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and likely beyond to the lawyers who served President George W. Bush and perhaps even to the president himself.And here's what Taguba honestly told congress in his sworn testimony regarding his Abu Ghraib investigation in 2004:But the brass, military and civilian, wanted Taguba and those who ran 16 other Army investigations of the Abu Ghraib scandal only to get to the bottom of the situation, not to the top.
A female Army Reserve military police brigadier general was reprimanded but criminal charges and courts martial were limited to five enlisted men and women, none ranking any higher than staff sergeant.
For his honesty in both the investigation and in sworn testimony before congressional committees Tony Taguba became persona non grata in the halls of the Pentagon. The career of one of the Army's more talented and honorable officers ended with an untimely retirement.
"We did not find any evidence of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did. I believe that they did it on their own volition and I believe that they collaborated with several MI (military intelligence) interrogators at the lower level," Tugaba said.And here's the Taguba Report (thoughtfully archived by NPR) which concludes:
Several US Army Soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib/BCCF and Camp Bucca, Iraq. Furthermore, key senior leaders in both the 800th MP Brigade and the 205th MI Brigade failed to comply with established regulations, policies, and command directives in preventing detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and at Camp Bucca during the period August 2003 to February 2004.Taguba noted that
Had the findings and recommendations contained within their own investigations been analyzed and actually implemented by BG Karpinski, many of the subsequent escapes, accountability lapses, and cases of abuse may have been preventedand
While clearly the 800th MP Brigade and its commanders were not tasked to set conditions for detainees for subsequent MI interrogations, it is obvious from a review of comprehensive CID interviews of suspects and witnesses that this was done at lower levels.Taguba wasn't the only one who knew that. For a second opinion, here's former army Sgt Joseph Darby, the soldier from Abu Ghraib who turned Charles Graner's home made porn collection over to the Army investigators:
Everybody thinks there was an order from high up, or that somebody in command must have known. Everybody is wrong. Nobody in command knew about the abuse, because nobody in command cared enough to find out. That was the real problem. The entire command structure was oblivious, living in their own little worlds. So it wasn’t a conspiracy—it was negligence, plain and simple. They were all fucking clueless.Unlike Taguba, Darby actually did suffer for his actions:
...but not at the hands of the US Army.There is one group he hasn't forgiven: " I still have a lot of bad feelings toward the press."
Want actual facts on Abu Ghraib?
A combination of blurring and smearing (Part 1)
A combination of blurring and smearing (Part 2)
Want to meet the "female Army Reserve military police brigadier general " whose career Taguba rightfully destroyed?
Abu Ghraib: The View from the Top
