Ken Silverstein interviews Tara McKelvey, author of the new book examines the pattern of detainee abuse in Iraq and at Abu Graib, Harpers
KS: Have those guilty of detainee abuse been held accountable?
TM: More than 260 soldiers have faced punishment for detainee-related incidents since October 2001. Of those, nine individuals, all except one below the rank of captain, have been sentenced to time behind bars. Keep in mind, that’s just the military; meanwhile, there are about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, almost as many as there are troops. But only one contractor has been punished for a detainee-related crime, and that was in Afghanistan. Not a single contractor in Iraq has been punished. I doubt all those contractors are angels; we know, for instance, that several were implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal””but those cases never went anywhere. This is not just a prison scandal. It’s a huge blow to America’s image and it’s something we’ll be dealing with for generations.
(Original Article)
260+ “isolated incidents.” That’s good. No need to hold anybody with a rank above a captain responsible. I was afraid it was systemic.