Rumsfeld and the shadow of suspicion
The Bush administration's claims that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was isolated, unsanctioned and the work of a few 'bad apples' was never easy to believe.
Now, the scandal is being seen in a different, much more damaging, light. An article published in the US this week lends weight to a suspicion which has been lurking all along. Written by respected journalist Seymour Hersh, it suggests the degradation of prisoners was not an unexpected byproduct of the occupation - it was part of US policy.
According to the report, published in The New Yorker magazine, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally sanctioned the extension of a secret intelligence-gathering operation to Iraq. This, it is said, involved the use of interrogation techniques including physical abuse and sexual humiliation. In short, it led to the terrible treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
The report comes at a critical time for US policy in Iraq. Opposition to the coalition has not subsided - as the killing of the Governing Council president yesterday reminds us. And the June 30 deadline for handing over power to the Iraqis is approaching.
There are several reasons for suspecting The New Yorker report may be close to the truth. Mr Rumsfeld is well known for his hardline, no-nonsense approach. The idea of his agreeing to a policy of 'Grab whom you must, do what you want' is not hard to imagine. The initial official denials were unconvincing. The article was described as 'outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture'. It might be all of these things - and still be correct in its main allegation.
But the strongest grounds for believing the report are that the allegations fit in with a pattern. It has now emerged that a White House lawyer, soon after the September 11 attacks, sent President George W. Bush a memo describing the Geneva Conventions as 'obsolete' and 'quaint'. It amounts to an invitation to breach these international agreements, which govern the treatment of prisoners of war.
The classification of terror suspects captured in Afghanistan as 'enemy combatants', instead of POWs, was one means by which the US sought to evade these legal obligations - opening the way for what have been coyly described as 'unconventional' interrogation tactics. Applying the policy to Iraq would have been a natural progression.
However, once a government decides to operate outside the law, there is no knowing where it will stop. In the case of the war on terror, this appears to have led to a spiral of degradation and inhumanity. It began with the ill-treatment of high-profile terror targets in Afghanistan and led to the abuse of ordinary prisoners in Iraq. The US must ensure this abhorrent policy is consigned to history. If Mr Rumsfeld is implicated as deeply as this latest article suggests, he must not be allowed to escape the political consequences.
