The General’s Report
How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.
by Seymour M. Hersh June 25, 2007
Taguba knew his report would make him unpopular: “If I lie, I lose. And, if I tell the truth, I lose.” Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark.
Related Links
Hersh on Abu Ghraib (2004): "Torture”; "Chain of Command”: "The Gray Zone.”
Keywords
Taguba, Antonio M. (Army Major General);
Abu Ghraib Prison;
Rumsfeld, Donald (Secretary of Defense);
The Taguba Report;
Prisoner Abuse;
Iraq War;
The Pentagon (Department of Defense)
On the afternoon of May 6, 2004, Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba was summoned to meet, for the first time, with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his Pentagon conference room. Rumsfeld and his senior staff were to testify the next day, in televised hearings before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees, about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq. The previous week, revelations about Abu Ghraib, including photographs showing prisoners stripped, abused, and sexually humiliated, had appeared on CBS and in The New Yorker. In response, Administration officials had insisted that only a few low-ranking soldiers were involved and that America did not torture prisoners. They emphasized that the Army itself had uncovered the scandal.
If there was a redeeming aspect to the affair, it was in the thoroughness and the passion of the Army’s initial investigation. The inquiry had begun in January, and was led by General Taguba, who was stationed in Kuwait at the time. Taguba filed his report in March. In it he found:
Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.
SNIP
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