ANALYSIS: Abu Ghraib justice spares higher-ups

By Tony Czuczka Aug 30, 2007, 2:42 GMT

Fort Meade, Maryland ­ Piece by piece, the US government?s attempt to convict at least one Army officer for the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison fell apart.

In the end, the former head of the notorious interrogation centre was let off with a reprimand. Most likely, no one else will be charged in a scandal that President George W Bush once listed among US 'setbacks and missteps' in Iraq.

Nearly four years after US troops abused, humiliated and threatened Iraqi inmates at the prison outside Baghdad, the Bush administration's contention that blame lies with a few out-of-control individuals is now legally bolstered.

But human rights groups have long charged that anti-terrorism policies set at the highest levels of government in Washington created the climate for abuses.

In Iraq, Wednesday's sentencing of Army Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, is unlikely to change the widespread view that the real culprits got away. Americans, meanwhile, are tired of Iraq and would mostly like to see US troops come home.

Prosecutors failed to push responsibility higher up the command chain than the 11 US military police guards previously convicted of abuses at Abu Ghraib. The most senior soldier, former Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Key players in Washington have already moved on or are about to. Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the US-led invasion of Iraq, quit as defence secretary last year. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose legal opinions underpinned aggressive interrogation tactics, announced his resignation Monday.

After grotesque pictures of US soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees became public in 2004, the Bush administration pledged to bring those responsible to justice. Bush apologized for the scandal, which provoked worldwide outrage and damaged US credibility.

Now that no officers were held criminally responsible, the Pentagon rejected suggestions that military prosecutors went easy on Jordan and justice had failed.

'I don't, frankly, know what it says to the Iraqi people. All I know is that we have a system in place, it's worked for years, and presumably it worked in this case, too,' US Defence Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday.

The Pentagon says court-martials and pre-trial procedures follow strict evidence rules when the military judges one of its own. And as the war in Iraq has dragged on, US troops have been implicated in even worse crimes than the Abu Ghraib soldiers.

In the November 2005 slayings of more than 20 people in the Iraqi town of Haditha, the military recently dropped charges against two US Marines, citing insufficient evidence. Five other Marines remain charged, including two with murder.

At Jordan's four-day court-martial, prosecutors struggled. He was not on the infamous pictures. Prosecution witnesses failed to recall key details about his role at Abu Ghraib. Or they strengthened his claim that he had no authority over the camp's interrogators.

Jordan was charged on 10 counts last year. By the time he went to trial before a jury of fellow soldiers, prosecutors had dropped six, partly due to procedural errors by the military.

Jordan was acquitted of all abuse-related charges Tuesday but found guilty of disobeying an order not to communicate with other soldiers about an Abu Ghraib probe. He could have faced five years in prison and dismissal from the Army.

The jury did not explain its sentence of a reprimand, the lightest penalty, though Jordan's lawyer said his 28 years of military service surely helped.

Whether Jordan, with no interrogation experience, was really sent to Abu Ghraib to supervise the detainee interrogators remains unclear.

A US general's report into the Abu Ghraib abuses called him a 'poor choice' for the high-stakes job. A trial witness recalled him as a hard worker who excelled at 'mundane' administrative tasks.