What Did CBS Know, and When Did It Know It?

Via Blackfive, we get the timeline by which CBS discovered the Abu Ghraib "torture" "scandal".

Except it wasn't CBS.

It was the Army. I've added the emphases:

While some accusations of abuse go back to 2002 in Afghanistan, the incidents at Abu Ghraib that triggered this week's news occurred last autumn. They came to light through the chain of command in Iraq on January 13. An Army criminal probe began a day later. Two days after that, the U.S. Central Command disclosed in a press release that "an investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility." By March 20, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt was able to announce in Baghdad that criminal charges had been brought against six soldiers in the probe.
By the end of January, meanwhile, Major General Antonio Taguba was appointed to conduct his separate "administrative" probe of procedures at Abu Ghraib. It is his report, complete with its incriminating photos, that is the basis for the past week's news reports. The press didn't break this story based on months of sleuthing but was served up the results of the Army's own investigation.

By February, the Secretary of the Army had ordered the service's inspector general to assess the doctrine and training for detention operations within all of CentCom. A month after that, another probe began into Army Reserve training, especially military police and intelligence. Those reports will presumably also be leaked and reported on, or at least they will be if they reach negative conclusions.

This is a cover-up? Unlike the Catholic bishops, some corporate boards and the editors of the New York Times or USA Today, the military brass did not dismiss early allegations of bad behavior. Instead, it established reviews and procedures that have uncovered the very details that are now used by critics to indict the Pentagon "system." It has done so, moreover, amid a war against a deadly insurgency in which interrogation to gain good intelligence is critical to victory--and to saving American lives.

But why would the media let mere facts get in the way of a opportunity to pillory the administration that they hate more than Hussein himself?

How many pictures of mass graves did we see - ever? Certainly not as many as we've seen of the naked guys - who are, to the best of our knowledge, still alive.

How many interviews with people whose entire families disappeared into Abu Ghraib before last March?

How many photos from those very cells from the previous thirty years?

Why isn't Katie Couric asking Kofi "UNScam" Annan "What he knew and when he knew it?"

I'm about to have a Gisleson moment. I need to stop.

Posted by Mitch at May 7, 2004 06:19 AM