Robert Scheer: Thread of Abuse Runs to the Oval Office

Someone's lying — big-time — and neither Congress nor the media have begun to scratch the surface. Clearly we now know enough to stipulate that the several low-ranking alleged sadists charged in the Iraq torture scandal did not control the wing of the prison in which they openly and proudly did the devil's work.

That power was in the hands of high-ranking U.S. military intelligence officers who established abusive conditions that were condemned by the Red Cross in a complaint to U.S. authorities well before the horrid incidents that recently shocked the nation.

The Red Cross complaint — and a follow-up report that was made available to the administration in February and obtained by the Wall Street Journal this week — raises the sobering possibility that these low-level members of the military police in Iraq may be right in claiming that they were just following orders of their superiors.

According to the report, the organization's delegates visited Abu Ghraib in October 2003 and witnessed "the practice of keeping persons deprived of their liberty completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total darkness" for days.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer11may11,1,2673474.column