Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were being released from the infamous Abu Ghraib jail, some accusing their US captors of maltreatment, as an abuse scandal continues to dog coalition forces.Wow, nearly 500 Iraqi prisoners released all at once.
Some 13 buses filled with Iraqis left the gates of the notorious prison Friday, where thousands of political prisoners were executed under president Saddam Hussein, as part of a scheduled release of 472 prisoners.
I'm sure this will be widely noted, but I wanted to save a reference demonstrating just how wrong Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) was when he declared he was "more outraged by the outrage" than by the abuses:
"You know, they're not there for traffic violations," he said. "If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners -- they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."I guess he was wrong -- or none of these nearly 500 prisoners were in cell block 1A or 1B.
Anyone following this story knows that some soldiers and at least one General have said the abuse was "normal" and that the military is investigating many homicides.
I saw David Gergen on CNN this morning and he pointed out (a) that the conventional wisdom among national security and foreign policy types is now quite pessimistic; and (b) that no one in the Bush administration seems willing to take responsibility for anything that's gone wrong.
We're a democracy, so voters can take care of that last problem this November.
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