"[Pentagon Spokesman Larry] DiRita told reporters Monday that neither Rumsfeld nor Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has yet read the 53-page report of an Army investigation that is said to have detailed serious abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib." - USA TodaySomething funny is going on, in a big way. It's been over two weeks since the Pentagon was notified by CBS of the photos showing American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners. It's been 5 days since the allegations were publicly aired by CBS. It's been 3 days since the president was forced to comment on the affair publicly. And it's been 24 hours since General Myers was asked repeatedly by Stephanopoulous on THIS WEEK why he hadn't yet read the report. All that, and Myers and Rumsfeld STILL haven't read it?
There is something very fishy going on. As a former US Senate aide, let me make one thing really clear. When your "important Washington boss" appears on national TV and Stephanopoulos repeatedly embarrasses him by asking "why haven't you read the report," you make damn sure that report is on your boss's desk when he returns from the interview (and you also make sure it's on the Secretary of Defense's desk as well (i.e., his boss)). The only reason Rumsfeld and Myers would not have read the report after all of that is that they HAVE AFFIRMATIVELY CHOSEN NOT TO READ IT.
I can't as of yet fathom what their reasoning is, but for some reason Rumsfeld and Myers want plausible deniability here. They want to be able to honestly say that they're not aware of how bad this problem is. But why? This is already a scandal, an international scandal at that. It's already making the troops look bad, makiing the president look bad, and making Rumsfeld and Myers look bad. Why on God's earth wouldn't they want to read the damn report and at least publicly acknowledge that they're taking the issue seriously? These are some pretty serious questions that some enterprising journalist needs to demand some answers to.
