frankie's Journal: We're fucked now

POWgate Timeline : (if anyone posts more exact dates, I'll fill them in)

• 1992-2000: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al, want to invade Iraq.
• 2001/01: official Iraq invasion plans begin.
• 2001/09/11: Rumsfeld writes plan for war in Iraq, but no plan for peace.
• 2003/05/01: Mission Accomplished. Still no plan for peace.
• 2003/05: Four soldiers plea-bargain to beating prisoners, quietly discharged.
• 2003/06: General Karpinski takes command of prisons. Like most of her troops, she has no experience with prisons.
• 2003/??: CIA interrogators and CACI contractors bring in secret prisoners.
• 2003/10: General Ryder investigates prisons.
• 2003/11/05: Ryder report indicates possible abuse, poor controls. Pentagon calls for second inquiry.
• 2003/11: Undocumented prisoner killed during interrogation, then packed in ice, given fake IV, listed as medical mortality.
• 2003/12: General Karpinski says "living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn't want to leave."
• 2003/??: CIA "ghost detainees" shuttled around different cells to avoid being seen by Red Cross.
• 2003/misc: Red Cross detects abuse. Their reports "repeatedly asked the U.S. authorities to take corrective action".
• 2004/01: General Taguba questions prison guards, gets confessions.
• 2004/01/??: General Karpinski reassigned. The abuse continues.
• 2004/02/??: Taguba report explicitly verifies abuse. No action taken.
• 2004/04/15: CBS gets abuse photos, asks DoD, then holds story for two weeks. No action taken.
• 2004/04/29 morning: Donald Rumsfeld meets with Senate Armed Services committee, does not mention abuse problem.
• 2004/04/29 evening: Abuse at Abu Ghraib on 60 Minutes II.
• 2004/04/30: New Yorker publishes Hersh article, excerpts of Taguba report.

So... our team knew about human rights / Geneva Convention violations for months, and tried to cover them up from: the world, the American public, the Red Cross, and even Congress. But Bush Jr says:

"the system will be transparent, it will be open and people will see the results."

Was anyone supposed to believe that? He's already lied to everyone else, including fellow Republicans.

George, I'm glad you didn't follow your father's advice about apologies, but I sure wish you'd listened to him about Iraq. Our choices are: keep Iraq under military rule indefinitely, hand the whole place over to Al Qaida's recruiters, or (most likely) both. Congratulations!