For once, it flows uphill-Abu Ghraib meets Guantanamo Bay (and Whitehouse)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4962140/

For once, it flows uphill
Abu Ghraib meets Guantanamo Bay By Michael Moran May 18, 2004

Even before the latest editions of Newsweek and The New Yorker reached the streets over the weekend — each containing new revelations about secret, high-level decisions allegedly meant to sidestep the safeguards of the Geneva Conventions — a White House aide launched a pre-emptive strike on those insisting on answers to an important question: How far up the chain of command does responsibility for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse disgrace go?

Pre-emptive strikes come in many guises, and the one launched this weekend came from the pen of White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, targeted with precision at the Saturday Op-Ed page of The New York Times. The venue is important, for as anyone who ever lived on a public salary knows, the Saturday paper is the least read of the week and the marquee of choice for someone who wants to get on the record but not find himself on the weekday evening newscasts.

Gonzales’ piece briefly notes the history of the administration’s decision not to feel encumbered by the Geneva Conventions when dealing with al-Qaida, the Taliban or any others who “hide among civilian populations and viscously flout the core Geneva principles protecting the innocent.” Most important, it forthrightly affirms the United States’ responsibility to treat POWs and detainees in Iraq according to the Geneva Conventions. <snip>

Two top aides led the effort (to GITMO Iraq under Rumsfields order to dig out more), the officials say: the undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen Cambone. <snip>

Against all the laws of military physics, which suggest that things like the Abu Ghraib mess flow only downhill, the disgrace has crept steadily upward. It overtook the Pentagon’s first line of defense, the non-commissioned MPs who served in the prison, almost immediately. The general commanding at the “battalion level” also points upward, and the military intelligence officers Gen. Miller suggested should set the tone at the prison also say they acted under orders. The scandal is creeping, to quote the words of a psalm that Boykin no doubt can sing, “upward, ever upward.”

It's kind of hard to take a column seriously when he spells "viciously" as "viscously." And beside, the thing in quotes isn't even a direct quote. And he has Rummy as Secretary of State!

should have been caught - and while "viciously" and "viscously" BOTH get by Microsoft's spell check, perhaps the pro's editing Mike at MSNBC might try to do a better job, rather allowing Fox Standards to be their guide.

But Mike answers my email - and that is a huge plus in my book!

:-)

And I used the word "council" when I meant "counsel" in another thread. He ought to have an editor, though. Someone should have caught it.

On edit: Dick Meyer at CBSNews.com answers e-mail, too.

:-)

According to Pentagon officials who spoke to MSNBC.com on condition of anonymity

I wonder if this is a third leak...

1) the person who spoke to Hersch
2) the person who leaked the memo to Newsweek
3) this leaker

I expect a leaked Roger Ailes memo when Fox does not cover this, and a leaked CNN talking points memo - if CNN's "Judy, Schnieder, and Wolf show" hides this - very soon.

I am beginning to wonder where Dobbs and Oberman are hiring their protection, since I expect both to comment on this.

CBS has reported on 1) and 2). Not as much as I'd like, but more than they have on the sarin in that shell. 3) sounded pretty new, so maybe that'll get reported, too.