Evidence of a White House 'cult' (Daily Yomiuri reviews Chain of Command)

[struggle4progress]

Kevin Wood Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Chain of Command:
The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
By Seymour M. Hersh
HarperCollins, 416 pp, 25.95 dollars

<snip> In a recent interview, Hersh asserted that the United States has "been taken over by a cult"--the neoconservative cabal of ideologues the White House has put in control of U.S. foreign policy, military and intelligence apparatuses. Chain of Command paints a chilling portrait of an administration so convinced of its righteousness that it refuses to see any facts that do not fit its preconceptions. Goals set by the president, vice president and defense secretary were to be achieved by any means necessary--and woe to those who let moral or practical objections get in the way. <snip>

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, accepted Miller's recommendation that "Army prisons be geared, first and foremost, to interrogations," and that military intelligence, not military police, should be in charge of the prison system.

The result was that MPs were routinely directed to "set the conditions" for interrogations by military intelligence officers, Central Intelligence Agency operatives and private contractors by breaking the prisoners' will through coercive treatment that included beatings, sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation. <snip>

Chain of Command is a difficult book to read in several respects. The stomach-turning descriptions of torture practiced on innocents at Abu Ghraib will horrify anyone with an ounce of humanity. The lengthy list of examples of hubris, wishful thinking, arrogance and blatant stupidity by Rumsfeld, Perle and others in overruling Pentagon planners and intelligence professionals will appall most readers and enrage many. <snip>

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20050227wof1.htm