----- Original Message ----- From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 10:43 PM Subject: Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
> I missed what happened today. What did Kennedy do? > > Julia I forgot to mention one interchange. Kennedy said that Rumsfeld et. al. knew of the abuses from Red Cross reports and did nothing. Rumsfeld took exception to this. Technically, Rumsfeld was correct. In reality, there was a small, and tremendously inadaquate response, not no response. Given the reports by the Red Cross, Rumsfeld should have know that something was seriously wrong at the prisons and a tremendous effort to take immediate corrective action should have taken place. Bells and whistles should have gone off. They didn't. Trying to piece things together, it appears that the assumption that Americans are so naturally good that abuse is impossible underlied the planning. Anyone who accepted the facts that Gautam so clearly showed would never have put understaffed undertrained, virtually unsupervised guards on an overcrouded prison, asked them to prepare prisoners for questioning, and expected the prisoners to be properly treated. It boggles the mind. The intertwined sins of management by wishfull thinking and denial of reality seems to have been at the heart of this. It seems more and more obvious that, while the war itself was managed very well, the peace aftwards was significantly bungled. It isn't surprising: people do what they believe in much better than what they don't believe in. From the start, Bush didn't believe in nation building. We went into Iraq assuming we'd win (which we did very well), we'd walk in as liberators (which sorta happened...opinions were split), and the exile leaders who've been whispering in our years would quickly form a temporary government that would lead to quick elections, and a democracy that would be a great US ally. Just like my old company, those who had experience and understanding of the real challanges were dismissed as naysayers. State was virtually shut out, the general who had a more realistic assessment of the requirements of post-victory Iraq was pushed out of the loop after stating realistic requirements. The financial cost of the post-war period was also denied...remember when it was all to be paid out of the increased oil revenue? Even now, State is being shut out of the loop. One day Powell tells the Black Caucus there will be no request for additional funds for Iraq, the next day there is a request for 25 billion. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
