Military leaders didn't order abuse at prison, report says

While faulting leaders, the soldiers are to blame, the report concluded.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Inattention to prisoner issues by senior U.S. military leaders in Iraq and at the Pentagon was a key factor in the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, but there is no evidence they ordered any mistreatment, an independent panel concluded.
The panel's report, the first of two expected this week looking at prisoner abuse, directly blamed the events at Abu Ghraib on the soldiers there and their immediate commanders.
It also said senior commanders and top-level Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, can be faulted for failed leadership and oversight.
"We found fundamental failures throughout all levels of command, from the soldiers on the ground to [U.S.] Central Command and to the Pentagon," said Tillie Fowler, a former Republican congresswoman from Florida who served on the four-member commission appointed by Rumsfeld and headed by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger.
"These failures of leadership helped to set the conditions which allowed the abusive practices to take place," Fowler said.
Another probe
Details of a second investigation, which focused on the military intelligence unit at Abu Ghraib prison during the abuses, were expected to be released today. That Army investigation, initially headed by Maj. Gen. George Fay, is expected to blame the intelligence unit and its commanders for some of the abuses at the Iraqi prison.
The Schlesinger report is one of several that have examined various aspects of the prisoner abuse scandal, which rocked the Bush administration and triggered calls by some in Congress for Rumsfeld to resign.
No senior officials deserve to lose their jobs, the Schlesinger commission members told reporters Tuesday while releasing their findings. They said they believed the Pentagon was on a path to remedying the underlying causes of the abuse.
Criticism
Schlesinger's review criticizes senior leaders for not focusing on issues stemming from the detention of large numbers of prisoners in Iraq. This lack of attention and resources contributed to the chaotic conditions at Abu Ghraib, the report said.
In particular, war planners at the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not expect a widespread anti-U.S. insurgency or the breakdown of civil order in postwar Iraq, so they did not plan or provide resources for the operation of a large American-run prison system, commissioners said.
Nor did senior leaders fully clarify what interrogation methods were permissible at Abu Ghraib. In some cases, harsher techniques approved for use against Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters were employed against Iraqi prisoners.
The Schlesinger report assigned significant blame to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, saying he should have ensured that his staff dealt with the command and resource problems at Abu Ghraib when they first came to light in November 2003. Still, it acknowledges that Sanchez was focused on combating a mounting Iraqi insurgency at the time.
Schlesinger said soldiers who stacked naked Iraqi prisoners in pyramids, forced them into positions of sexual humiliation and confronted them with snarling guard dogs were renegades.