Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.), to his credit, bucked GOP pressure and initiated a congressional investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal a couple of months ago. Almost immediately, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon seemed to decide on a strategy to get them out their mess — stall and see if the storm blows over.
Unfortunately, according to a report in the Financial Times, it’s a tack that seems to be working.
The Pentagon’s failure to co-operate fully with the congressional probe into the Abu Ghraib scandal is frustrating the investigation’s progress, according to campaigners.
[…]
After hearing testimony from senior military officers and Pentagon civilian leaders, the committee asked the Pentagon to provide documents and reports related to Abu Ghraib and the abuses.
The Pentagon has provided many documents but others have not yet been handed over. For example, it has not given Congress copies of the International Committee of the Red Cross reports related to Iraq — despite assurances from Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense secretary, that it would do so. Last week Mr. Warner expressed his dismay at the Pentagon’s lack of co-operation.
“Congress must be given the tools, the reports with which to do its proper oversight,” he said. He urged the Pentagon at least to provide an interim report. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy Defense secretary, told Mr. Warner’s committee that he would try.
A Defense official said yesterday that the Pentagon was “still working that (issue)” of delivering the reports to Congress.
How reassuring; the “check’s in the mail” defense.
The explanation for the delay over the ICRC report is particularly comical. Rumsfeld, when this scandal threatened to force him from his job, promised Congress a copy of the report. That was about 10 weeks ago. The Pentagon said it needed to collect reports from commanders in the field in Iraq, which is causing the postponement. But,
The [Defense Department] spokesman was unable to explain why the Pentagon could not simply ask the ICRC to provide Congress with copies of the reports.
Of course he couldn’t explain it; there is no explanation for such incompetence. Indeed, the Center for American Progress noted this gem:
When asked why the Pentagon had not simply asked the ICRC to provide Congress with the reports directly, Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita replied: “I’ll mark that down — I appreciate being educated.”
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that the Pentagon is not just intentionally dragging its feet on the ICRC report. In fact, to hear the Defense Department explain it, thousands of pages of the critically important Taguba report are “missing,” which is why it can’t be delivered to Congress as promised.
The Pentagon has also not turned over to the Senate the full report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who conducted the Army’s biggest investigation so far into abuses at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon has still not accounted for the 2,000 pages missing from his 6,000-page file when it was given to the Senate Armed Services Committee more than a month ago; the missing pages include draft documents on interrogation techniques for Iraq.
If there’s a defense for such breathtaking ineptitude, I can’t think of it.