Vic Socotra

26 June 2008

Straight Shooter

New Yorker Photograph Of General Taguba by Mary Ellen Mark

The Supreme Court about to make a decision on the Second Amendment to the Constitution today, and naturally I am a bit nervous. Every time the High Court goes to the cupboard and drags out the venerable document there is the chance that they will do something fundamental to it.

In that regard, I share some of feisty Associate Justice Scalia’s contention that the Constitution is not a living document, but an iron-clad contract between the government and the people. If the Bill of Rights can be modified to suit the fashion of each age, they mean nothing. That is one of the things that trouble me about Senator Obama, since he seems to think that some articles of the Bill of Rights were inserted into the document at the behest of Ducks Unlimited, or the Deer-hunting Lobby.

That is nonsense. The Founders knew who the enemy was, and they had just expelled the King from these shores and were not interested in his return.

Congress is going to go after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, too, though legislative action is much less permanent than that of the Judiciary. It is still inconvenient when the national interest conflicts with the urgency to get out of Washington for the Summer.

The Bills are long and complex, and who has time to read all that stuff, anyway? Remember this year’s Farm Bill? The House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's veto of the pork-laden $290 billion act, but it turned out that the vetoed bill was missing thirty-four pages due to a "clerical error."

Something like that can be fixed in short order, though it is a bit disquieting about the ability of people to focus. The legislative branch is much more like the news cycle than the High Court.

The story of Major General Antonio Mario Taguba, US Army-Retired did not have legs, as they say in the trade. There is more and better stuff to yammer about, and with the improving situation in Iraq, people just do not appear to be interested in what is happening in Iraq, much less what was going on in the darker days when it appeared that the United States was on the ropes.

Tony is a year older than I am- he was born in Manila and his family migrated to Hawaii. He grew up in the pineapple fields of central Oahu, and graduated from Wahiawa High School in ’68.

My older son was born in the hospital near there fifteen years later, and though just an accident of georgraphy, it makes me feel a little closer to the General.

Tony went to the Mainland to college, to Idaho State, and graduated with a BA in history. He joined the Army immediately thereafter, and had a solid career in the combat arms, mostly as a tanker, though he served in infantry units and with field artillery.

He was talented and hard working, and became the second Filipino-American to attain general officer rank in the U.S. Army. He was closely associated with Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who was fired over force assessment required for the invasion of Iraq. Shinseki opined to Congress that the occupation of that country might take as many as 400,000 troops and a very long time.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not agree with Shinseki’s candid assessment, which he viewed as undermining his policy.

Prior to the report in the Post, Taguba was best known for authoring a classified internal U.S. Army report on detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The paper was leaked to the press in 2004; it is unknown who did that, though the supporters of Shinseki in the Army were many and virulently opposed to the level of troops committed to the Iraq adventure, which they viewed as inadequate to the task.

The paper became known as “The Taguba Report,” and was published in 2004. The paper was fiercely critical of the handling of prisoners and accused the chain of command of neglect and inattention. Prominently mentioned was the role of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and the memorandum he issued- though later denied- authorizing “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

That all happened in May of 2004. Taguba had been expected to rotate to Ft. MacPhearson, to an operational job at Third Army HQ, but instead was reassigned to the Pentagon, where we worked reserve affairs. He spoke to Seymour Hersh in an interview for the New Yorker magazine, after he had been instructed to retire in January of 2007 by Army Vice Chief of Staff Cody.

While still on active duty, Taguba held his opinions to himself. After he was shit-canned, he began to speak out publicly. He told Hersh that he was sent to the Pentagon where he could be watched.

After retirement, Taguba was approached by the Physicians for Human Rights to write an introduction to a book on the treatment of prisoners not only in Iraq, but also at Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. The general agreed to do so, and reiterated his contention that the administration had authorized war crimes to be committed and that those responsible should be held to account.

Only one officer was disciplined for the activities of the West Virginia National Guard MP’s who ran the prison, Col (formerly Brigadier General) Janis Karpinsky. Only enlisted personnel were called before courts marshal.

The Post picked up the story and ran with it.

Tony Taguba is a straight-shooter, and his opinion is both informed and deeply held. The real agenda is more complex, though, as it always is in Washington.

There is a cultural aspect to this- he is still pissed at the Army leadership who defended Sanchez, and who tried, unsuccessfully, to promote him on completion of his tour in Iraq. There is lingering bitterness over the dismissal of Eric Shinseki, and a personal element in resenting how he was treated by the Army he served for over 32 years. All the officers who run the Service now, all of whom served in the dark period between major ground combat and The Surge.

I think I know what happened. I knew CIA folks who, prior to 9/11, seethed over the restrictions on what they could do with known assholes. There was a deliberate relaxation in policy to accommodate the interrogation of high-value al Qaida prisoners like Khalid Sheikh Muhammed.

Some of that activity was undoubtedly observed at Baghram prison in Afghanistan, and the subtlety that some prisoners could be subjected to special treatment, based on special Presidential Finding, was lost.

By the time people had rotated through both active war zones, the detention system had adopted harsh treatment as the norm, rather than the exception, and the West Virginia National Guard thought they could do what they wanted with all the prisoners in their custody.

Ricardo Sanchez, under extreme pressure on the battlefield, permitted some of the procedures that have been of such controversy. We were water-boarded in POW training as a matter of instruction, the military having adopted the less-harsh techniques of the Vietnamese to ensure we aware of what was going to happen if we were captured.

It is more than a bit ironic. Anyhow, there was negligence and culpability at varying levels up and down the chain of command. General Taguba did the right thing. When directed to retire, he followed orders.

You cannot imagine all this happening under the stewardship of Bob Gates, the current Secretary. It is a pity he won’t be asked to stay on by the next Administration.

He will be a civilian again, like Tony Taguba and me. Assuming the High Court doesn’t do anything rash today, we will be able to shoot as straight as we want.

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