What Did the President Know and When Did He Know It?

Even when apparently admitting to a mistake - if that's what you call the rather tepid admissions of Rumsfeld and the Shrub last week - BushCo. cannot keep from lying. Rumsfeld admitted that he knew about the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, but not until the photos were released. Or at least I think that was his latest sound bite. The Sock Puppet is pretty sure he knew about what was going on sometime just after somebody told Cheney.

Now we find out that evidence of prisoner abuse was reported by the Red Cross to the administration nearly a year before any previous admission of knowledge.

Even before the war in Iraq ended a year ago, and well before U.S. officials have generally acknowledged it, the Red Cross began periodically lodging complaints about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners in allied custody, according to a confidential report by the organization.

In particular, the report says the Red Cross complained last October about the interrogations of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, site of the photographs of prisoner abuse that have erupted into an international scandal in recent days. Those Red Cross complaints came more than three months before a U.S. soldier complained to his superiors about the treatment of prisoners there, setting off an American inquiry.

And the first person to face real consequences for these heinous acts? Someone high in the administration? The SECDEF himself? Of course not.

How about a Specialist 4 Sivits "age 24 and a member of the 800th Military Police Brigade, ...charged with conspiracy to maltreat detainees; dereliction of duty for failing to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment; and maltreatment of detainees." Not his commander, not the commander of the MP Brigade, not the Commander of Central Command, not the SECDEF. No. The buck doesn't stop anywhere in this administration except at the lowest levels. This SP4, trained as a heavy truck mechanic will carry the weight of the mistakes of BushCo. At least until the next soldier is court martialed.

Accountability, apparently, is for chumps. And lowly soldiers...