EFFECTIVELY AT AN END

Inevitably, whether through the honest means of the Bush administration taking responsibility for its actions or through leaks to the press, more pictures and more horrifying pictures will be released showing U.S. troops torturing, abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners. Perhaps murdering them. These pictures will be added evidence to the contrary for anyone still hoping that this outrageous behavior was started spontaneously by prison guards or interrogators or that it happened in just one or two places over a brief period.

The torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans, it is becoming increasingly clear, was expected, taught, encouraged and reinforced by superior officers. It was part of the plan to extract information about what turns out to be nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. And it could be the end of any moral authority the United States carried into its war against Iraq unless Congress and President Bush act decisively to investigate it fully and remove and punish those who initiated this abhorrent action.

Repeated warnings over more than a year by the Red Cross about mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners are even more damning than the pictures that the public has seen so far. According to stories in The Wall Street Journal, which posted the report on its Web site, they give details to the abuse, tell of small instances when conditions improved for prisoners upon Red Cross complaint and of the repeated and prolonged disregard for protections within the Geneva Conventions.

Red Cross warnings were lodged with U.S. Central Command last summer. Last August, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, according to the Journal, reported that the Army could use military police to help make Iraqi prisoners more likely to cooperate with investigations. The Red Cross informed coalition officials last October that treatment of Iraqi prisoners constituted “serious violations” of the Geneva Conventions.

Even as U.S. soldiers performed countless acts of bravery and of kindness, even as they risked their lives to bring democracy to Iraq, their superior officers knew of the inhuman treatment within U.S.-controlled prisons and did nothing or next to nothing to stop it. Certainly, some of them wanted it to happen. Imagine the added danger the nation’s soldiers now face because of these superiors. The situation is worse than anything the anti-war protesters could have thought up.

The followup to this is obvious enough: conduct a full bipartisan investigation of the torture; raze Abu Ghraib prison, where the abuse most famously took place; provide swift punishment to those who committed these crimes.

Sen. Susan Collins suggests paying reparations to those who were abused.

But the questions since last week are whether this would lead to the firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whether his early dismissal of which combatants fell under the protection of the Geneva Conventions contributed to their mistreatment, whether his mistakes in judgment about WMD, his needless angering of traditional allies and his miscalculations about postwar Iraq along with all the details of this latest outrage means that he should go.

The question need not go further than whether the United States has a greater chance of reaching its goals of reducing the terrorist threat and supporting a democratic Iraq with Secretary Rumsfeld or without him. Sen. Collins, of the Armed Services Committee, raises a key point. Should Mr. Rumsfeld be fired, it is likely that in the hostile, partisan atmosphere of Washington, Democrats would not allow someone else to take his place until after November, likely leaving Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as acting secretary until that time.

The three command structures within Iraq – for the military, intelligence-gathering and the civilian occupation authority – all ultimately report to

Secretary Rumsfeld. The need for a unity of command, however, may now be less important than demonstrating to the Iraqi people and to allies and would-be allies that the United States is serious about reforming its operations.

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Secretary of State Colin Powell remains a respected figure among allies and, with ample military experience, could quickly become a more effective leader of some or all of the three command structures in Iraq, some of which the State Department would take over anyway on June 30. Despite the reported level of animosity between his department and Secretary Rumsfeld’s, his expanded authority sooner would demonstrate the administration was determined to put success in Iraq and the safety of U.S. troops ahead of Washington politics. And it could be done without the administration admitting to making a mistake, which it is loath to do.

President Bush has vigorously defended his secretary of defense,

saying Monday that Mr. Rumsfeld is “courageously leading our nation” and “doing a superb job.” The failure to fully react to the brutality at Abu Ghraib was neither courageous nor superb, and rather than clinging to his trusted adviser, he should recognize that the growing disaster in Iraq can be averted only by a significant change of direction within his administration. Fortunately, he could make that change within his current Cabinet, which doesn’t necessarily make it easy but does make it possible.