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Monday, May 10, 2004 |
Not a lie, not the truth
One of the tactics the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Damage Control Team
(BCRDCT) is using to try to contain Torturegate is to show the world
how utterly forthcoming they are -- have always been -- about the issue
of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib facility. Rumsfeld testified,
backed up by an official Pentagon timeline,
that in January "the Central Command public affairs people went out and
told the
world. They told
everyone in the world that there were allegations of abuse and they
were being investigated." That statement set everyone running to Web
and news archives to find the January release. Saturday, the Los
Angeles Times reprinted the information put out on January 16:
"An investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of
detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility. The release of
specific information concerning the incidents could hinder the
investigation, which is in its early stages. The investigation will be
conducted in a thorough and professional manner. The Coalition is
committed to treating all persons under its control with dignity,
respect and humanity. Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the Commanding
General, has reiterated this requirement to all members of CJTF-7."
The Times's story notes that the release
-- what you might call understated, given the fact someone had just
presented officers with a pile of hot photographs -- was one of three
released that day (the other two focused on U.S. military activities).
BCRDCT did some Nexis homework before Rumsfeld hit the Hill on Friday,
because one of the points mentioned to show how the authorities have
done their best to bring this whole situation to light was that the
media picked up on the story in January. And in fact, a Nexis search
shows that the bare facts of the press release did make it into dozens
of news outlets the day after the release, almost always as one item in
an extended digest of other developments. The Associated Press, New
York Times and others talked to the Pentagon about the release, and
came away with statements saying that the abuse allegations were
"serious" and "credible." The story got wide, but not deep, play in
Canada. Two days after the release, London's Sunday Times ran a longer
story on detainee abuse, highlighting the case of a man who had fallen
into the hands of U.S. forces, imprisoned, and beaten.
But for the most part -- with notable exceptions, such as a March 3
Salon story with detailed of abuses at Abu Ghraib -- the stopped
for most of the media. Bottom line for now: the damage-control folks
downplayed the events in January and got away with it; it's hard to
avoid the conclusion that most of the media never looked hard enough at
what was there.
1:00:13 AM 
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© Copyright 2004 Dan Brekke.
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