I've read the Executive Summary from MG Taguba's report and if anyone hasn't, you need to take the time to do so. If you don't you're relying on someone else to tell you what to think.
<a href='http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/' target='_blank'>Link to Executive Summary</a>
Anywho, let's look at the military side first. According to MG Taguba, the failure of leadership took place from LTG Sanchez on down. LTG sanchez issued an order placing the MP's under Tactical Control (TACON) of the MI's. As MG Taguba noted, "this is not doctrinally sound." But, his order was based on a recommendation from the guy who ran Guantanamo that said MP's needed to be more actively involved in gathering information. Bad idea. Even MP's who are trained in POW operations are not trained to gather intelligence.
As for the MP's they were not trained in POW operations. They were a law enforcement MP unit rather than a POW MP unit. When they were given the POW mission, someone, preferably the Brigade commander, should have said a) we're not trained to do this mission, b) here's our training plan to get trained for this mission, c) here's how long it will take us to accomplish that training plan. She didn't. Also, in contradiction to her statements, it appears she was not actively and personally involved in supervising the soldiers in her command. While I've never been a battalion commander and certainly not a brigade commander, I have been the logistics officer for a battalion. Despite all the paperwork we generated and the reports over the radio, I still made sure I personally visited every single company and specialty platoon in our battalion every day when we were at annual training. Now, I will readily concede that a brigade commander can't visit every unit every day. But, there is no reason the brigade commander can't get to see every company in the brigade at least once per week. Bottom line is that there is no substitute for the personal involvement of the brigade commander and staff. Reports and paperwork only give you a partial picture.
The battalion commander was completely ineffective and appeared to have been suffering from battle fatigue although absolutely no one noticed. Basically, the battalion S-3 (operations officer) was running the battalion. Although his report tends to skim over their involvement or lack thereof, it appears that neither the S-1 (personnel officer) or S-4 (logistics officer) were involved in being leaders either. The failure of leadership ran all the way down through the company commanders, the First Sergeants, and the platoon leaders.
Now, let's look at the civilian failure of leadership.
Prior to the initiation of hostilities, Gen. Shinseki said we would need around 200,000 troops in Iraq for several years to establish conditions favorable for the development of a democracy. Paul Wolfowitz said he was "wildly off the mark." Rumsfeld said that was "clearly not the case." Anyone who thinks those types of statements weren't vetted through the White House prior to being made is just stupid and ignorant. At the absolute very least, Dubya certainly never disavowed those statements. Thus the DOD civilian leadership failed to heed the advice of professional military folks. They utterly failed to grasp the fact that overthrowing a government is a far different task from running a country.
Since the beginning of the "war on terror", Dubya has asserted the right to hold anyone for any period of time, without counsel and without a trial. If tortured by American forces, they have no right of access to American courts. Whine about trial lawyers all you want but the reason that abuses are not rampant in the American prison system is because guards and corrections officials know that someone might just sue their ****** off. By arguing that certain people have no rights, Dubya has sent the message that they are less than human. Once you cross that psychological boundary, it becomes easy to treat them as non-humans.
Thus, IMHO, the failure of leadership runs from Dubya on down to the Platoon Leaders and Squad Leaders. Dubya set the psychological conditions for abuse. Rummy ignored the advice of professional soldiers. LTG Sanchez took bad, non-doctrinal advice from MG Miller. BG Karpinski failed to establish a strong command presence. The battalion commander was suffering from battle fatigue and wasn't relieved. The brigade and battalion staff officers failed to assert an ethical operating environment in the absence of clear leadership from the commanders.
Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come in terms of visual images. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb), a decorated Vietnam veteran, has now stated that we run the very real risk of losing this war despite winning every battle. Sound familiar? Dubya + Rummy = LBJ + MacNamara.
