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• I am now officially sick-and-tired of the self-serving and largely uninformed hand-wringing about the goings on at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. As someone who has actually been on the grounds of Abu Ghraib prison, let me explain a few things. • First of all, there is no excuse for what a few soldiers did; but there is also no reason to make this into the moral equivalent of the Black Plague.

Abu Ghraib is the new Tet offensive. By lying about the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War, the media managed to persuade Americans we were losing the war, which demoralized the nation and caused us to lose the war. And people say reporters are lazy. The immediate consequence of the media's lies was a 25 percent drop in support for the war. The long-term consequence for America was 12 years in the desert until Ronald Reagan came in and saved the country. Now liberals are using their control of the media to persuade the public that we are losing the...

<p>Is Abu Ghraib prison the work of perverted minds or merely very efficient intelligence procedures?</p> <p>Hanson: I wrote about that for the Wall Street Journal (included on this webpage, read below). The causes are all there: individual roguery most of all, poor training, poor supervision, elements of our pathologies at home, stress, the fallout of a dirty war against killers and terrorists, knowledge that sexual intimidation, while horrific and disgusting, probably brought some intelligence coups that were felt to have saved lives. It is a mess that tars everyone who tries to discuss it dispassionately; thus congressmen talk at length and say nothing other than sanctimonious blather and platitudes. Real discussion, coupled with commitment to punish the guilty, would be both condemnatory and realistic, as it was in past wars.</p>

BAGHDAD, May 26 -- The U.S. military plans to vacate Abu Ghraib prison by August, handing over operation of the facility to Iraqi security forces and transferring the remaining detainees 300 miles to the southeast, prison authorities said Wednesday . . . . . . . . . . Iraqis have complained that the U.S. military is unlawfully detaining people at the prison. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's top spokesman in Iraq, said Monday that the military is in the process of reviewing all prisoner files. "We don't put them in Abu Ghraib to detain them for a...

May 27, 2004 Prison Interrogations in Iraq Seen as Yielding Little Data on RebelsBy DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT ASHINGTON, May 26 — The questioning of hundreds of Iraqi prisoners last fall in the newly established interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison yielded very little valuable intelligence, according to civilian and military officials.The interrogation center was set up in September to obtain better information about an insurgency in Iraq that was killing American soldiers almost every day by last fall. The insurgency was better organized and more vigorous than the United States had expected, prompting concern among generals and...

The revelations about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at the Abu Ghureib prison in Iraq aroused many reactions in the Arab media. For the most part, the response was one of harsh condemnation, accusations of hypocrisy directed at the coalition countries, and equating the Abu Ghureib abuse with Nazi atrocities. Following these reactions, however, were several counter-reactions in the Arab press, that included criticism of the Arab media's double standard – i.e., exhaustive coverage of the misdeeds of American soldiers yet complete silence on the spread of the phenomenon of torture in prisons throughout the Arab...

Dear Mom & Dad, Word has reached us about some soldiers who are in trouble for allegedly abusing war prisoners. I don't know the details of the situation, but from what we've heard, it's pretty ugly and all over the news. I wanted to tell you a story about a night in the desert a few weeks ago that you won't see in the news, but is more representative of what's going on over here. Due to operational security constraints, I can't go into great detail in this story, but I think you'll get the picture. In the course of...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The head of Iraq's Governing Council said Wednesday that President Bush 's idea of demolishing the notorious Abu Ghraib prison was a waste of resources. "We must not be sentimental," Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer told reporters. "Torture has taken place in every vault in Iraq. As the Governing Council, we do not agree with demolishing it and the matter will be left for the transitional government" which takes office Jan. 30. He called the idea of destroying the prison "a waste of resources." Bush told an audience Monday night at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.,...

May 26, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — The likely head of the new Iraqi government that takes power June 30 is a Shiite nuclear scientist jailed for years in Abu Ghraib prison for refusing to help Saddam Hussein make nuclear weapons, it was reported yesterday. The expected appointee is Hussain Shahristani, 62, a political novice close to the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most powerful cleric, The Washington Post said. "If they consider my participation essential, I'll try to convince them otherwise. But if they're not convinced . . . I cannot refuse," Shahristani told the paper. Post Wire Services

May 26, 2004FROM THE EDITORSThe Times and Iraq ver the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves.In doing so — reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation — we found...

May 26, 2004CONTRACTORSU.S. Civilian Working at Abu Ghraib Disputes Army's Version of His Role in AbusesBy JOEL BRINKLEY ASHINGTON, May 25 — John B. Israel, an Iraqi-American Christian and one of two civilian contractors implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, returned home to California a few weeks ago and, until Monday, was living quietly with his wife, Rosa.In an interview on Monday at their home in Santa Clarita, Calif., Ms. Israel said that her husband had not even hired a lawyer.Mr. Israel, who was born in Baghdad in 1955, was one of three Iraqi-Americans working as translators at Abu...

Group Disagrees With Bush, Says Prison Has Record Of Saddam CrimesA leading human rights group disagreed with President George W. Bush over the fate of the Iraqi prison at the center of the abuse scandal. In a prime-time speech on postwar Iraq on Monday, Bush pledged to demolish Abu Ghraib prison as "a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning." Scores of U.S. lawmakers from both parties have advocated leveling the prison, also a symbol of Saddam Hussein-era torture. But Amnesty International challenged Bush's plans, arguing that leaving Abu Ghraib standing could help in prosecuting crimes committed there under Saddam. An...

In a dramatic gesture designed to counter the media's focus on U.S. abuses at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, President Bush met in the Oval Office on Tuesday with a group of Saddam Hussein's torture victims. The six men, whose hands were surgically amputated at Saddam's direction in operations that were filmed for his viewing pleasure, picked up on Bush's promise last night that Abu Ghraib would be demolished, saying that they wanted to be among the first to "swing the hammer" against the prison's walls. Their plight, chronicled by video producer Don North in the documentary "Remembering Saddam," has...

May 26, 2004 G.I.'s Prison Abuse More Widespread, Says Army SurveyBy DOUGLAS JEHL, STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT his article was reported and written by Douglas Jehl, Steven Lee Myers and Eric Schmitt. WASHINGTON, May 25 — An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known.The cases from Iraq date back to April 15, 2003, a few days after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in a Baghdad square, and they extend up to last month, when a prisoner...

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. military officer in Iraq, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, will be replaced, administration officials said Tuesday. The Pentagon (news - web sites) also suspended Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski from her command. Both have become symbols of lax supervision at the Abu Ghraib prison where U.S. soldiers allegedly abused Iraqi inmates. Karpinski and other officers in the 800th Military Police Brigade were faulted by Army investigators for paying too little attention to day-to-day operations of the Abu Ghraib prison and for not moving firmly enough to discipline soldiers for violating standard procedures. Karpinski's suspension, which has not yet...

May 25, 2004ABUSEC.I.A. Bid to Keep Some Detainees Off Abu Ghraib Roll Worries OfficialsBy DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT ASHINGTON, May 24 — The Central Intelligence Agency's practice of keeping some detainees in Abu Ghraib prison off the official rosters so concerned a top Army officer and a civilian official there that they reached a written agreement early this year to stop.An undated copy of the memorandum was obtained by The New York Times. It was described as an agreement between the Army intelligence unit assigned to the prison and "external agencies," a euphemism for the C.I.A., to halt practices...

<p>In the months following 9/11, the Bush administration asked itself how the laws of war apply to the war on terrorism. The question is not simple, for the Geneva Conventions say that they apply to conflicts between states-parties; but al Qaeda is a terrorist network and not a state, let alone a party to the Geneva Conventions.</p>

STOP APOLOGIZING ALREADY by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher May 24, 2004 With all the bellyaching going on in Washington and the handwringing over a few prisoners mistreated at Abu Ghraib, it's a wonder any governing at all goes on in the halls of Congress. The fact of the matter is no governing is going on right now. Why? Because of preening by a handful of prima donna congressional types (mostly Democrats) seeking free face time on the evening newscasts, and networks all too willing to be their willing accomplices.What the hell has become of this country when Iraqi prisoner...

We know conclusively that the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal is as phony as a Bill Clinton sex denial because there are no calls for the resignation or indictment of the one individual most responsible for the abuses. That would be the officer in charge of Abu Ghraib and all U.S. military prisons in Iraq, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. And why have there been no calls for her resignation? Let’s be honest. It is because she is a woman. Thus the frightening lesson of the abuse scandal: Political correctness trumps national security...

The party of partial-birth abortion is still fuming at the photos from Abu Ghraib. Unborn children don't survive the torture of abortion, but images of violence done to them never make it to the desks of Democrats. The party of Abu Ghraib in the womb did interrupt its outrage over barbarism abroad long enough this week to tout barbarism at home. The human rights abuse of abortion remains the centerpiece of the Democratic party's platform. John Kerry simultaneously assured his supporters that as president he would speedily remove American soldiers from the "death zone" of Iraq and preserve the death...