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Friday, July 08, 2005
Iraq: Cross Purposes
I neglected to mention one thing about my 10K road race from the 4th of July. I won my age group. Bully for me. Certainly most races wouldn't delineate age groups by year of birth and astrological sign, but it worked out well for me. The other '71 Virgos were slow.
This fortuity of birth was brought to mind by the Army surgeon general's review of medical operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay:
An Army surgeon general's review of detainee medical operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found isolated incidents of abuse but, like several other internal military investigations of U.S. detention operations, found no systemic problems linked to U.S. military personnel and their care of detainees.
Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley said yesterday that a five-month "assessment" of medical operations found a few inadequacies in the training of medical personnel for dealing with detainees, that policies were lacking in their guidance, and that record keeping was inconsistent. But he said a seven-person team that interviewed 1,000 medical personnel found just 32 incidents of abuse, ranging from the use of harsh language to assault.
Kiley went on to explain that the assessment was not an investigation. Which is why no hard questions were asked of the psychology staff:
Responding to questions about recent reports that medical personnel were working with interrogators to break down detainees at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Kiley denied that any medical personnel providing direct care to detainees assisted interrogators. He did acknowledge that some psychologists at Guantanamo had access to clinical information at the beginning of operations there but that a "firewall" between clinical providers and interrogators was quickly erected.
But Kiley's team did not ask the psychologists what their advice or recommendations to interrogators were, but instead asked what those people thought their roles should be. They answered that they saw their roles as first advising interrogators and second ensuring the well-being of detainees. Kiley also said that he thinks it is appropriate in a safe, ethical and legal environment for psychologists to assist in interrogations.
I had to draw the lines pretty carefully to claim I won my age group in a road race. But the lines drawn in official assessments have to be far more painstakingly exact in order to perpetuate the myth of "isolated incidents". How many isolated incidents can we have in how many different branches of service in how many different areas of the world before we acknowledge and correct a deeper problem?
The problem, in a nutshell, is that we are at cross purposes in Iraq. The Bush administration spent months convincing Americans that Iraq was the root cause of all evil in the world: Mordor by the Arabian Gulf. Iraq, the theory went, was trying to build a nuclear bomb to deliver to terrorists to explode in an American city. (Ignoring, of course, Iraq's lack of a nuclear program and lack of connections to terrorist groups.)
So we sent our men and women into Iraq to defend our nation against a gathering threat of evil unleashed. When every premise for the war proved false, the Bush administration offered up the noble goal of promoting democracy in the Middle East.
This is asking America -- civilian and soldier alike -- to stop and turn on a dinar. From avenging 9/11 and preventing mushroom clouds over Billings to freeing an oppressed people.
America has never rushed to war for noble aims. When the forces of Europe clashed twice in the last century, we avoided war for years. When attacked at Pearl Harbor, or "attacked" in the Gulf of Tonkin, we rushed to war. Even the Civil War was fought first to preserve the Union and second to end slavery.
It is hardly surprising, then, to find widespread cases of wide ranging forms of abuse, from the mild to the obscene and the deadly, when one considers we are locked in a mortal battle for the safety of the homeland. It is equally unsurprising that such abuse undermines all efforts to foster democracy. The only surprise is that the Bush administration hasn't found a way to untangle our crossed purposes in Iraq.
