[Wolfie]

The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced.

[ConservativeMan55]

Hmmmmm.

17 KNOWN. I am sure many more knew.

[Quilla]

Hackworth is a loose cannon, not a supporter of our military, and was backing Wesley Clark for the dem nomination. If he's releasing the names, there's a good chance Republicans will be amoung the recipients.

[Dane]

The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced

Actually these 17 were notified by a reletive of one of the accused, the reletive's name was a Mr. Lawson.

Mr. Lawson said that he contacted 17 members of Congress and Bill O'Reilly to say his reletive was being scapegoated by the military in the investigation that began in January, 2004, about the abuses at abu gharib prison.

Mr. Lawson then contacted hackworth and hackworth contacted CBS and thus the beginning of the smear campaign of Rumsfeld and the whole military over the actions of a few.

[cake_crumb]

"The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced."

They were notified by the father of one of the accused, trying to get his son off the hook. When that didn't work, he contacted Hack...and this twisted, sick parody of a rollercoaster ride to hell began.

Make 'em both testify under oath to the Armed Forces Committee and televise it on EVERY CHANNEL.

[Sacajaweau]

David Hackworth and his wife, Eilhys ENGLAND Hackworth author several Vietnam books.

Hackworth, acting on behalf of one of the soldiers involved in the abuse scandal, (I think Ivan Frederick) sent a letter to 17 Senators early on. No Senator was apparently overconcerned at the time.

The whole world was notified of the abuse and an investigation in a Centcom briefing in January. Seems nobody questioned it further.

Hope Hillary, Kerry, Teddy and McCain were on that list. Both Hillary and Teddy are on the Armed Services Committee.

[veronica]

The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced.

So what? BFD.

Hackworth is a self-promoting jackass.

[joesnuffy]

Spousal Abuse Child Abuse Elderly Abuse...and now to add to the newspeak lexicon
Prisoner Abuse...aka Terrorist Abuse....

Bwahahahahaha we don't have the testicular fortitude to even interrogate terrorist anymore...
The islamo facists who gang sodomized our female personnel...got humiliated and paraded around in womens underwear and had some riot dogs bark at them while they were paraded round nekid...

Boo Hoo Hoo...poor Mohammad Attah...got humiliated for slitting stewardess' throats and crashing fully fueled commercial aircraft causing the most horrific deaths of thousands of Americans and police and fire who came to their rescue...

Boo hoo hoo...poor humiliated terrorists...

And now we hang out to dry...those who were following DOD edicts...our war chief runs for cover calling these young troops names...spins the event to even get the regular Army troops to criticize them...

Funny Pres Bush had the guts to not save poor little ole Carla Faye Tucker from execution
and she was a born again Christian in the end who never wanted out of prison but wanted to minister to other inmates...

But now we don't have the guts to even humiliate terrorists, rapists, murdering thugs...in order to extract intel that might save American lives and shorten the war...

I'm glad our forefathers fighting the French n Injuns and the British who tried to enslave us...and freed the slaves...and saved the world from fascism and communism did not have so much trouble with beating the crap out of our enemies..and never ever would have even thought of cringing ot runnning for cover and hanging out to dry their troopies...when some photos were released of the act of beating those enemies..

It's no wonder our enemies have moved onto American soil and enjoy themselves as we self destruct..

imo

[SMARTY]

THAT will be an interesting list of names.

[churchillbuff]

The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced.

Oh. Did one report I read say the father of the guy who spilled the beans also tried to interest Bill O'Reilly?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Sent by 17 liberals more interested in doing harm to the president than keeping soldiers safe in Iraq.

[MeekOneGOP]

The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced.

Ah, now I see. Thanks.

Bump !

[Polybius]

The 17 were supposedly notified (by constitutents serving in Iraq) of the prisoner abuse long before the pictures surfaced.

The 17 Senators were the ones contacted by the uncle of one of the accused abusers.

The uncle was trying to use the blackmail threat of releasing the photos to the news media in order to get the charges dropped against his nephew because his nephew was "only following orders" (the old Nuremberg Excuse).

The uncle said in a news interview quote that has appeared on FR and which I saw read back to Wesley Clarke on MSNBC that "the Army and the U.S. Government could have avoided all this" if they had given in to his blakmail threats.

So, these 17 Senators refused to go along with the uncle's blackmail. That is what they should have done.

There was no cover up involved.

The abuse was first reported on 13 January 2004 by Spc. Joseph Darby.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Press Release Number: 04-01-43 announced on January 16, 2004 that an investigation was going to be conducted in a case dealing with detainee abuse. This was the first time that the press had heard anything about this and it was 3 days after the abuse had been reported.

A UCMJ Article 15 investigation was commenced on 19 January 2004 and was an extremely extensive investigation with interviews of over 50 witnesses both American and Iraqi.....In other words, such a thourough investigation takes time.

The uncle's "Nuremberg" excuse that his nephew was only "following orders" is not acceptable. Every U.S. servicemember who has graduated from Boot Camp has been taught that a soldier's responsibility is to refuse to obey illegal orders and it is his duty to report illegal activities to higher authority in his chain of command. That is exactly what Spc. Darby did. Spc. Darby did his duty.

Senator Cornyn of Texas summed it up pretty well:

“Some critics would have us believe that it is unfortunate that the Pentagon treated this investigation as a thorough and professional criminal investigation, instead of holding a show trial in the press. Rather than respecting the rights of both the accused and the victims and releasing only a completed report, some would have preferred a premature airing of these details before the full story was known."