Editorials Raise Heat on Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal

By: E&P Staff Around the country, the editorial pages of major newspapers -- across the ideological spectrum -- have denounced official U.S. policies and attitudes that led to the current scandal surrounding the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, and possibly elsewhere, in Iraq.

"Betrayal is not too strong a word," said an editorial in The Arizona Republic of Phoenix on Tuesday. Newsday of Melville, N.Y., called for soldiers and military officers responsible to be "punished severely" and their careers "cut short."

The Plain Dealer of Cleveland attributed the problem to "outsourced jobs," understaffing and "a breathtaking laxity and inattention to command responsibilities." But The Philadelphia Inquirer placed part of the blame on the Bush administration, identifying "a credibility gap made deeper by all the times this White House has distorted data, all the times it has denied any self-inflicted wounds, all the times it has kept information away from the pesky, prying eyes of Congress and the public."

The Washington Post editorial page, long a strong supporter of the war, observed, "Well-documented accounts of human rights violations have been ignored or covered up, including some more serious than those reported at Abu Ghraib." Like many other papers, the Post called on Congress to hold hearings and become more strongly involved in other ways. "That several of its senior Republican members were proclaiming themselves shocked yesterday to learn of the abuses -- as if none had been previously reported -- was itself shameful," the Post said.

The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. had another specific suggestion: "Action also must be taken to reduce our dependence on private contractors. One way to start is to change the term we use to describe them. Contractors build roads and buildings. These people are mercenaries, and what they do is to create terror."

The Boston Globe wants to find out if there was a "cover-up" and learn how widespread the mistreatment of prisoners was. "Because it is unlikely the Pentagon could carry out such an investigation with credibility, Congress or another independent authority should conduct the probe," the newspaper's editorial noted.

The San Francisco Chronicle said that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld needs to answer this question: "Were clear directives on treatment of prisoners issued from the top levels of the Pentagon?"

The New York Post was one of the few top papers which remained doubtful about the extent of the troubles. While it declared that the "sickos" at Abu Ghraib "must pay -- dearly," the Post editorial added that allegations that there was a pattern of abuse in Iraq were "nonsense." The Abu Ghraib situation, it said, was "an aberration."

The Wall Street Journal noted that the most "overlooked" angle of the current scandal "is the degree to which the U.S. military is investigating itself and holding people accountable." It compared members of Congress to "reporters at a free buffet," eager to "declare their outrage and demand someone's head."