Gen. Taguba: We Violated The Laws of Land Warfare & The Geneva Convention

The New Yorker’s Seymour Hursh writes a shocking and disturbing article over new insights into Abu Ghraib and Army Major General Antonio Taguba’s investigation of the whole disaster.

Gen. Taguba characterizes the claims that the Abu Ghraib abuses were merely a few low-ranking soldiers taking their late night prisoner supervision a little too far as bunk. He describes telling Rumsfeld that what took place was not abuse, but torture, before Rumsfeld's congressional testimony. Taguba admits to seeing photos and video of Iraq men and women being sodomized by US soldiers. Since such images were considered very inflammatory, they were never publicly disclosed prior to this article.

The scope of his investigation was restricted to the 800th M.P.s despite his findings of military intelligence and CIA involvement. Gen. Taguba says somebody was giving them guidance. He simply did not have the jurisdiction to expand the investigation and the Pentagon, Rumsfeld included, was clearly in no mood for any further investigating.

In the article, Gen. Taguba also discusses the mafia-like intimidation he received while in Kuwait from the likes of General John Abizaid in the back of his Mercedes sedan. Taguba was defiantly a messenger carrying a message no one in the administration wanted getting out. His message later resulted in his being forced into early retirement.

Keith Olbermann has a good summary found here.