Like President Bush...

...and Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers, I haven't read the whole Taguba report on Al Ghraib yet. Warblogging has, though, and they don't seem to like it...

Their assessment? "Virtually the entire Taguba report is a dispicable whitewash."

Their principle objection after reading the report seem to be much like my concerns since the story broke, finding that "...the conclusion of Taguba's report places the blame firmly on military police — for following orders.

"It is true, of course, that soldiers may — and should be — sanctioned for following illegal orders. Those who engage in torture, even when ordered to do so, are criminals. But Taguba's report makes no attempt whatsoever to follow the responsibility up the chain of command, into the murky world of intelligence collection."

Again, I make no apologies for those charged so far. "Just following orders..." is a thoroughly discredited defense when the orders are so transparently illegal. So far, though, there are no criminal charges against those who issued the orders, or those in the chain of command who should have intercepted and overruled those orders, or those who should have detected and punished the perpetrators of those orders.

Administrative reprimands, no matter how 'career ending' they may be, don't cut it. The prosecution list remains far too short to be thorough.