Not guilty

The clearing of responsibility of senior US commanders in the Abu Ghraib scandal rubs salt into Arab wounds, finds Rasha Saad

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The results of a yet to be released report by the Pentagon on the Abu Ghraib prison shocked many writers after it concluded that none of the top senior American officers in Iraq should bear responsibility for the breakdown in military discipline and abrogation of US prisoner policy. The report, according to sources, concluded that neither Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former senior commander of US troops in Iraq, nor his three senior commanders are liable for the abuse that occurred.

In "Abu Ghraib... perpetrator unknown" Abdel-Fattah Fayed wrote in Al-Bayan newspaper of the UAE that the term "human rights" seems to have more than one meaning in an American dictionary. "The report cleared all senior American commanders in Iraq of a crime which all the world followed in the press and satellite channels, a crime documented for the first time by sound and pictures." However, despite the evidence, added Fayed, the Pentagon launched an investigation whose conclusion is that all these commanders are not guilty. "The commanders who entered Iraq under the pretext of spreading freedom, democracy and human rights committed the worst forms of torture and human rights abuse known in history."

Fayed was not surprised by the report because he said the Pentagon itself was responsible for the unethical activities committed, and are possibly still being committed, in Iraq. "How can the Pentagon be the prosecutor and defendant at the same time?" Fayed asked.

Al-Bayan 's editorial pointed out the systematic torture of the prisoners and the denial of American responsibility despite the fact that the prison was under their authority. "The Americans are denying responsibility as if they are denying the sun at mid-day. Who is responsible then? The Italians?" the newspaper asked.

The failure of the Iraqis to form a new government three months after national elections was also the focus of several Arab newspapers. The Omani paper Oman wrote that the failure to form a cabinet has created a political void which the Iraqis are paying the price for dearly. Reminding officials that Iraqis were courageous enough to cast their ballots despite the dangers of doing so, the paper said Iraqis "expect to see political steps that can lead to the formation of a government capable of pulling Iraq out of its complex situation."

"The political powers should give priority to national interests and not fight over ministerial portfolios, giving a negative impression that this is a struggle over personal rather than national interests," the newspaper added.

The Qatari Al-Raya pointed out that ethnic divisions are one of the big negatives in the new Iraq, saying it seems to be the reason behind the failure to form a government and the unrest sweeping many places in the country.

Ahmed Amourabi in Al-Bayan asked why the Iraqi parliament objected to the insults some of its members encounter from US soldiers when the whole country, its parliament included, is occupied by foreign troops. In his article Amourabi recounts that Iraqi MP Fattah Al-Sheikh was on his way to the headquarters of the National Council in Baghdad when he was stopped at a checkpoint by a US soldier who later kicked his car. When the MP showed the soldier his ID, the soldier snatched the ID and threw it back in Al- Sheikh's face. The incident was reportedly the third in which an Iraqi MP has been humiliated by US soldiers but Amourabi believes the MPs should not get upset, reminding them that all of Iraq is under foreign occupation. "The greater humiliation is when the whole country loses its national interests to another foreign power and thus the whole Iraqi ruling institution including the parliament becomes meaningless," Amourabi wrote.

The writer argues that the American soldier in Iraq knows that the slogan "liberating the Iraqi people" is just a joke invented by the Bush administration; so too is "Iraqi democratic model".

Abdul-Wahab Badrakhan in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper also lashed out at the Americans in Iraq. Badrakhan criticised US interference in the Iraqi political process. The Americans, he argued, give the impression that they are in no way connected to the current crisis in Iraq or the elections that took place a few months ago. Badrakhan, however, acknowledges that in both cases, this impression was deceitful.

Portraying a gloomy picture, Badrakhan wrote that the positive effect of the Iraqi elections has come to an end. "No one remembers that they [elections] were held or that they gave Iraqis a good name because they defied fear." The security issue has returned to dominate the scene and has thus thrust everyone in turmoil, awaiting the unknown. "It has become obvious that when this government sees the light of day, it will not be capable of accomplishing more than the management of the situation or perhaps just pretending to do so, similar to the interim government," claimed Badrakhan.

Helena Cobban in Al-Hayat said the disapproval rating of US President George Bush's Iraq policy has more than doubled between April 2003 and April 2005. Cobban was attempting to answer the question: how is the situation in Iraq affecting Bush's approval ratings as measured in nationwide opinion polls. She wrote that in October 2002, the time when Iraq first became a controversial issue in the US political scene, disapproval of Bush's handling of Iraq was at around 40 per cent. Disapproval went down sharply in early April 2003, to 21 per cent, "after the first flush of 'victory' after the fall of Saddam's regime".

At the start of the war the US public showed an understandable desire to "rally round the flag". But disapproval climbed steadily throughout 2003, to a high of 54 per cent during the multiple crises of early November 2003 "which was about the time most Americans understood that the 'victory' in Iraq would not be nearly as easy as they had imagined, and that US troops there might get bogged down for some time."

Disapproval peaked again, to 57 and 58 per cent in May and June of 2004 "in the aftermath of the messy fighting in Iraq in April 2004 and the revelation of the torture in Abu Ghraib." But Cobban said the administration remained focussed on the promised elections in Iraq as their "exit strategy" managing to bring the disapproval ratings down a little bit, reaching a new low of 48 per cent in early February 2005, in the days immediately after the Iraqi elections.

"But now, with several allied forces starting to pull out and the political situation in Iraq looking considerably less 'successful' and clear than it looked back in early February, Americans seem to have become increasingly impatient with the length of the troops presence there." Accordingly in the early April poll, disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy climbed back to 54 per cent.

Bottom Lines

"Maybe our military and political struggle is not liked by some, but our Palestinian democracy is liked by everyone, friend

as well as foe."

Al-Ayyam

"The tsunami, with the destruction it has wrought, the homes it has destroyed and the orphans it has created, looks eerily similar to what the Israeli occupation has brought to the Palestinians."

Butheina

Shaaban, Asharq Al-Awsat