Compounding the offense.

The chain of command is scrambling to disavow the torture and murders of prisoners at Al Ghraib prison in Iraq, from the Commander in Chief down, but the responsibility for everyone in the chain of command of the lowest ranked soldier facing charges upward level is unescapable. I don't want to diminish the gravity of the criminal charges that have been levied, but the fact that they have only been levied against enlisted persons is an outrage that I find nearly as grave.

Is the entire chain of command guilty of the acts performed by the six enlisted men facing criminal charges? No. But some responsibility adheres to anyone empowered to deploy them or responsible for supervising them. Why? Because, sadly, the events at Al Ghraib, or something like them, were fully predictable. As much as President Bush, General Myers or anyone else in authority wants to insist that "We don't do that," or "This isn't like us," the simple fact is that some American soldiers have committed atrocities in every war. Given time and opportunity, some American soldiers inevitably will. It's only through a full awareness of that fact, comprehensive training to avoid it and constant vigilance to intercept and punish it that we can hope to minimize that inevitability. In the case of Al Ghraib, the evidence suggests that we acted blindly, trained inadequately and supervised incompetently. That's the responsibility of the entire chain of command, and why everyone in that chain of command must be assigned a share of responsibility.

So far, fifteen people have been held to account in one manner or another. Brig. General Janis L. Karpinski, who was the commander of the brigade responsible for the military prison system in Iraq, was relieved of command and reprimanded. Today it was announced that seven more individuals, apparently junior officers and senior NCOs, have recieved written reprimands or admonishments. Six more enlisted personnel, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits, face a variety of criminal charges, including conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, has not been charged, having been reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.

It's simply unimaginable to me that only six people, no one above the grade of E-6, are criminally liable for the activities at Al Ghraib. There are no criminal charges, apparently, for the Military Intelligence officers or the civilian contractors who worked side by side with the enlisted guards and who were apparently responsible for directing their day to day treatment of the prisoners. In fact, the mere presence of civilian contractors in that environment, and their curious status which removes them from liability under either military or Iraqi law, raises another set of questions altogether. It is yet another serious indictment of the Rumsfeld approach to contracting out war. Certainly, though, anyone who knew about the activities at Al Ghraib should be criminally liable, and in some cases, not knowing should carry criminal liability as well. It is the job of military commanders to know what is happening within their command. If they don't know, dereliction of duty is clearly present and should be prosecuted. I'm not sufficiently versed in the unit's Table of Operations to say how high that criminal liablility should extend, but it seems clear that it should extend higher that it thus far has.

Seymour Hersh's reporting for the New Yorker is essential reading in this case. In it, he offers details from a report prepared by Major General Antonio M. Taguba, which, although it was completed in February, has not yet reached the desks of either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Secretary of Defense. That sounds like actionable dereliction in itself. Taguba described some of the specific acts he found overwhelming, often photographic, evidence for:

"Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

I hold no brief for the enlisted men facing charges. Reading the detailed offenses, it should have been self-evident to every one of them that their actions were beyond the limits of civilized behavior, let alone military discipline. No order to perform those acts could have been legal, from any level of authority, and every soldier was individually responsible for knowing that, and for acting accordingly. The Spec 4 who turned them in knew it, and Staff Sgt. Frederick's own correspondence reflects his knowledge that something was wrong at Al Ghraib. "That's the way MI wants it." is not a defense for war crimes. By their actions, they disgraced their uniforms, and not only dishonored, but increased the daily risk to, their comrades in the field.

Still, I have to applaud the efforts of Staff Sgt. Frederick's civilian lawyer, Gary Myers, who vows that “I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.”

Frederick and his fellow accused should, if found guilty as charged, go down, but they should not go down alone.