5.10.2004

Keith Olbermann

From the Countdown daily roundup:

Three lines of reporting emerge today which, if true, will assure that the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal will dog our troops and present the current administration with far more than a few bad apples for months, if not years, to come.
* A confidential and previously undisclosed Red Cross report delivered to the Bush administration earlier this year concluded that abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the military's custody was widespread, contradicting the administration's insistence and Donald Rumsfeld's recent testimony to the contrary. (Wall Street Journal - but here's a link where you don't have to go through that annoying registration process http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2004/05/10/international0712EDT0464.DTL )
* Soldiers assigned to Abu Ghraib prison say they were given little guidance by superiors. If true, what superiors will ultimately be held accountable, and how high will that accountability reach? And P.S.: Neither Rumsfeld's Friday testimony nor President Bush's support of him at the Pentagon this morning have stopped calls for his resignation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/
* Major General Geoffrey Miller was brought into Abu Ghraib prison to "Gitmo-ize" the place, to teach the soldiers manning the prison his best psychological and physical techniques for squeezing information out of the detainees. Thus, a 'corporate culture' of abuse may have been the norm, one coming straight from the military leadership. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4934436/

Right Now the Bush administration is struggling to decide whether or not to release remaining images and video of prisoner abuse.
The first court-martial case, set for May 19 in Baghdad, will not be televised.