More Abu Ghraib abuse...

Today the Washington Post has another story on even more abuse at Abu Ghraib, this time involving a "sadistic game" to make Iraqi teenage detainees urinate on themselves by frightening them with dogs. A spokesman for the Defense Department has this to say:

"The report will show that these actions were bad, illegal, unauthorized, and some of it was sadistic," said one Defense Department official. "But it will show that they were the actions of a few, actions that went unnoticed because of leadership failures."

You can tell this guy read the memo. He hit the points the Defense Department has repeatedly offered up to explain what's happened at Abu Ghraib:

1) "actions of a few"
2) "leadership failures"

The leadership failure being that of General Karpinski and General Sanchez, but not say...General Miller, or anyone at the Pentagon.

My question is this: how many different soldiers have to be committing abuse at Abu Ghraib before it becomes no longer an issue of the few, but the many? Seven are already being held accountable, and the article states that this report will implicate "the circle of soldiers considered responsible for abuse beyond the seven military police soldiers already facing charges, officials said, to include more than a dozen additional, low-ranking soldiers, civilian contractors and medics." 19 soldiers-so far-doesn't sound like a "few" to me.

The article also mentions that the Schlesinger report, so-named for the head of the independent commission set up to investigate Abu Ghraib James R. Schlesinger, will be released later today, and will implicate high level White House and Defense Department policies in the abuse.

There seems to be no end to the revelations. As various investigations continue, I'm sure we can expect to see even more headlines detailing the shameful abuses some of our soldiers committed at Abu Ghraib.