[Lerkfish]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/08/24/abu...ort/index.html

Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House' at night

Commanders blamed for lack of supervision

Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Posted: 9:04 PM EDT (0104 GMT)

A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner is seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in this undated file photo.

U.S. soldier accused in prison abuse scandal is expected to plead guilty.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq represented "deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline" at the facility, but direct and indirect responsibility for those acts and others elsewhere went higher up the chain of command, an independent panel reported Tuesday.

The prison's weaknesses were no secret and they should have been fixed, said James Schlesinger, chairman of the four-member advisory panel appointed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in early May to investigate abuse allegations.

"We believe that there is institutional and personal responsibility right up the chain of command as far as Washington is concerned," Schlesinger told a news conference to release the 126-page report.

Former Republican Rep. Tillie K. Fowler of Florida, a panel member who was once a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, was more direct.

"We found fundamental failures throughout all levels of command, from the soldiers on the ground to Central Command and to the Pentagon. These failures of leadership helped to set the conditions which allowed for the abusive practices to take place," Fowler said.

She said the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the U.S. Central Command failed to plan properly for the treatment of prisoners.

"There was sadism on the night shift at Abu Ghraib, sadism that was certainly not authorized," Schlesinger said. "It was kind of 'Animal House' on the night shift.

Schlesinger noted, however, that there was "no policy of abuse."

"Quite the contrary," Schlesinger said. "Senior officials repeatedly said that in Iraq, Geneva regulations would apply."

Commanders at Abu Ghaib did not "adequately supervise" the actions by the people involved in the abuse, said Schlesinger, who was secretary of defense for Presidents Nixon and Ford.

Those who ran the facility, which held as many as 7,000 prisoners just outside Baghdad, were often under great stress, said Schlesinger, who also served as President Carter's secretary of energy.

The building was constantly shelled, and Iraqi police sometimes slipped arms to the inmates, he said.

In addition, the ratio of prisoners to military police officers was 75-to-1, versus 1-to-1 at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base. The guards at the Iraqi facility lacked training and arrived without equipment, he said.

[MacGorilla]

Accountability and discipline are manditory parts of any chain of command.