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Iraq abuse report cites low morale and discipline
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| Contributor | Gerald Farinas |
| Last Edited | Gerald Farinas May 10, 2004 10:55am |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Monday, May 10, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Iraq abuse report cites low morale and discipline
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Army general whose report on prisoner abuse has rocked the military was born in the Philippines when it was newly freed of US control. What young Antonio M. Taguba learned shaped his ideas about his future home in Hawai'i and the Army that would become his life. He wrote the 1 1/2-foot-high report that outlined American soldiers' abuse of Iraqi detainees. Publication of the Taguba report might carry the Filipino-American's name into history as a pivotal event of the Iraq war.
Army investigation into abuses at Abu Ghraib prison depicts the military police running the penitentiary as a motley lot, overwhelmed by one of the worst assignments in Iraq and bitter about the military's broken promises of going home. When Pentagon investigators arrived they found fatalistic Army Reservists toting weapons while wearing civilian clothes. Command authority had been replaced by old friendships, said the report written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Taguba's report also describes numerous breakdowns within the 800th Military Police Brigade, especially its 320th Battalion. The unit was unprepared to operate the prison holding some 7,000 detainees, twice as many detainees than are supposed to be handled by a battalion.
The report blasts Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski. Last June, Karpinski took command of the 800th MP Brigade, a unit led to believe it was going home shortly after major combat ended May 1, 2003. Instead, it got a new mission: running the entire U.S. prison system across Iraq, 12 camps and jails. "Morale suffered, and over the next few months there did not appear to have been any attempt by the command to mitigate this morale problem," the Taguba report says. Prison life was punctuated by riots and guards' shootings of inmates. |
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